Jermain Franklin relishing TSN Sports Anchor role
November 28, 2023
Sports are an integral part of Jermain Franklin’s life.
Though he played soccer and basketball, hockey is his favourite.
Quickly realizing in his early teens that he was not going to play the sport professionally, Franklin decided on the next best thing.
He was going to be a sports reporter.
“Around Grade Eight, I started learning the basics of voiceover and trying to get my voice to a deeper decibel,” he said. “My mom encouraged me because she knew that is what I wanted to do.”
After three years in Toronto reporting for The Fan 590, covering the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Blue Jays, the Argonauts and the Raptors, Franklin joined TSN 20 years ago.
Growing up in New Brunswick where ice hockey is popular and in Edmonton where the Oilers were the dominant team in the 1980s, winning five Stanley Cup titles from 1984 to 1990, made it easy for the middle of three siblings to gravitate to the winter sport.
When the family, who moved around because of his father’s work commitments, settled in Stouffville in the summer of 1987, Franklin played rep hockey and made the Aurora Eagles Junior ‘A’ team.
Not getting playing time under a new coach, he quickly realized his dream of playing in the National Hockey League (NHL) was not a reality.
“If you are not getting ice time and not scoring above C in school, you are not going to get a scholarship and you are not going anywhere,” Franklin said. “I asked for my release and took a step back from the sport, playing Junior ‘C’ in Uxbridge. I loved that because practices were fewer, we played one game a week and I had more time to figure out where I was going academically.”
After completing high school at Stouffville District Secondary and taking a gap year to upgrade his credits while working part-time, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from the University of Windsor in 1999.
“I could have chosen the University of Ottawa which my older brother attended, but I thought I was walking behind him for much of my life until then and it was time for me to go in another direction,” said Franklin whose nephew, Kobe Franklin, represented Canada last year at the Confederation of North, Central American & Caribbean Associations of Football (CONCACAF) Under-20 soccer tournament in Honduras and is on the Toronto FC staff. “I also knew there was a large Black student population at the university and a vibrant Black community in Windsor which I gravitated to very quickly. Looking back, the experience was outstanding.”
As preparation for a career after university, Franklin interned in the summer at The Score as a Floor Director and Script Writer and at The Fan 590 sports radio as a Reporter.
“I drove the sports cruiser before and just after university, worked part-time with Toronto Star TV in the studio and control room and was allowed to sign out their cameras,” he said. “When I was not working officially, I was still able to go to Leafs, Argos and Raptors practices and practice on-camera while working part-time.”
Always be ready when opportunity knocks.
Divine intervention also sometimes helps as Franklin found out.
He and his wife – Andrea Franklin -- met on campus during his second week in university.
Two years after graduation and a few months into their marriage, Franklin accepted Pastor Lennox Walker’s call for altar prayer at Praise Cathedral Worship Centre in Mississauga.
“He pointed at me this Sunday morning and said, ‘Young man, your dreams are going to come true’,” he recalled.
A week later while at home enjoying a rare day off, the home phone rang at 7.30 a.m.
“My wife answered, I sat up in bed and then asked her what is going on,” he remembers. “I pointed at her, indicating I didn’t want the phone and she said, ‘he is right here’.”
On the other end of the line was Mark Milliere who at the time was TSN’s Executive Producer, News and Information.
“He said, ‘I saw your demo tape and would love for you to be interviewed’,” said Franklin who attended his first NHL game in the mid-1980s at the Spectrum in Philadelphia while the family lived in Pennsylvania for four years. “When I asked ‘when?’, his response was, ‘how does 10.30 a.m. sound’. I told him I would be there.”
After the interview, Milliere inquired if Franklin was free that night.
“I said, ‘yes’ and he asked me to cover the Jays game with a cameraman and do a couple of stories for him,” he said. “I did that, had another interview the next week, did another demo and was offered a contract on my wife’s last day of work.”
Against his wishes, she had tendered her resignation a few weeks earlier.
“I didn’t want her to do it because funds were tight,” Franklin noted. “She said, ‘I can’t go on any longer and we will leave it in God’s hands’. The day I signed the contract, she said she was so happy I got the job. I said, ‘Thanks babe’ and she added, ‘I am pregnant’.”
Without much time to absorb everything that happened so quickly, the couple was off to Calgary a few weeks later to continue their life and welcome the birth of their first child.
In the 17 years in ‘Cowtown’, the bureau reporter covered the Flames, Stampeders and other sports stories in the Calgary area.
The Flames, however, was his principal beat.
Covering the Stanley Cup finals in 2004 when the Flames lost 4-3 to the Tampa Bay Lightning and eight straight NBA (National Basketball Association) finals are Franklin’s favourite memories during his time in Calgary.
Jermain Franklin covered eight NBA finals (Photo contributed)
“That Stanley Cup final was an experience that really fortified me for the rest of my career,” he said. “Being a part of that in terms of working every day and the travel was a grind. That was an unmatchable experience.
“As for the NBA finals, seeing LeBron James chase down and block Andre Iguodala’s shot in Game Seven in 2016 against Golden State Warriors to help Cleveland Cavaliers win its first title and Golden State regaining the championship the following year in emphatic fashion are great memories.”
Jermain Franklin spent 17 years in Calgary before returning to the Greater Toronto Area three years ago (Photo contributed)
When Franklin left Calgary in 2020, the outpouring of love from colleagues, sports fans and community members was effusive.
During their camp scrimmage, the Flames honoured him with a video tribute and stick taps from the players on the ice.
“Wondering how respected @TSNJFranklin is in Calgary?” asked NHL.com Independent Correspondent Aaron Vickers on X (formerly Twitter). “This says it all. All the best in TO PAL. We will miss you around the Dome.”
After several requests to return to the Greater Toronto Area to be on the desk were ignored, Franklin made the move in November 2019 when his bosses were in town for the 107th Grey Cup at McMahon Stadium.
“My wife is from Hamilton and she wanted to come back here,” he said. “I thought I would be there for about five or seven years.”
At a breakfast meeting, he told Vice-President & Executive Producer Ken Volden he wanted to return to Toronto and work on the anchor desk.
“He said I would get an opportunity to audition as there were a couple of people going on maternity leave and it would be done in February 2020,” said Franklin. “I did it and was told I surprised them.”
Promised an 18-month contract, he jumped at the opportunity.
“Without having my 17-year seniority brought forward, I was starting over and whatever happened at the end of the contract, that’s it,” Franklin noted. “If that would get us back home and me on the desk, I was prepared to take that risk. My wife was like ‘Absolutely, let’s go’.”
Set to start his new role in Toronto in mid-March 2020 without his family who would join him at the end of the school year, COVID-19 shuttered the sports world.
“I was still in Calgary doing my job and that was a big adjustment as we were doing whatever we could to put out content,” he recalled. “It was not fun, but incredible. Now the months are going by, we are into late summer and I have not signed this 18-month contract. I thought this would not be coming anymore. We are still in Calgary and they might not need a replacement any more.”
In the wake of George Floyd’s murder in May 2020 which sparked calls for increased workplace diversity, Franklin joined the anchor desk at TSN Sports Centre in September that year.
Jermain Franklin at the anchor desk (Photo contributed)
In preparation for the position, he seized an opportunity offered by CTV Calgary to fill in for Lisa Bowes, Heath Brown and Glenn Campbell whenever they went on vacation.
It paid off.
“It was an adjustment having a director, producer and production assistants in your ears as you are going through the highlights on camera.” he said. “Instead of me just working with a cameraman, I was working with a control room and it was live. You mess up, you keep going. But I was ready for anything that came my way and I was super excited. There is always an adjustment in terms of keeping track of things. Your mind has to be ready to move in different directions. That is something I am still perfecting, but it took me a few months to have that anticipation of what is coming next.”
Who are some of the sports anchors that Franklin looked up to while developing his craft?
“Ahmad Rashad obviously because I resided in the United States for a few years,” he said. “I love that guy. He did ‘Inside Stuff” that really turned me on to basketball. His mannerisms, smoothness and coolness appealed to me.”
Jermain Franklin interviewed Canadian RJ Barrett who was selected third overall by the New York Knicks in the 2019 National Basketball Association (NBA) draft at Barclays Centre in Brooklyn (Photo contributed)
The product of Jamaican immigrants, Franklin singles out his parents Franchot and Hope Franklin and older brother Julian Franklin, who is the Vice-President of Global Partnerships with the Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE), as his biggest supporters.
“Julian had his ears to the ground when I was volunteering with Rogers TV,” said the St. Michael’s Majors hockey games colour commentator in 2003. “Out of university, his first job was with the Blue Jays and when he heard about the emergence of Headline Sports, he told me to call someone he knew to see if I can get an interview for an internship. I got it and that was because of my brother.”
Dad is an engineer while his mom – a social worker – was the Christ Church Anglican Stouffville Woman of the Year in 2013 and a 100 Accomplished Black Women in Canada honouree in 2022.
United Achievers Club of Brampton former president Marjorie Taylor is a family friend of the Franklins.
“I have known Jermain from a very young age and I am not surprised he is where he is at,” said the 2015 Brampton Citizen of the Year. “At the dinner table, he talked about wanting to become a sports broadcaster. He knew very early in his life what he wanted to do and he set out to achieve it with the support of loving, generous and graceful parents.”
Most people have a bucket list.
What is there left for Franklin to tick off?
“I have done NCAA March Madness basketball tournaments and the Olympics (Vancouver 2010) and I want to go back,” he said. “I want to do an Olympics abroad, soccer’s World Cup and a Super Bowl.”
Though busy, Franklin cannot resist the temptation to pick up a hockey stick.
He is a member of Schell which won the Stouffville Amateur Hockey League Over-35 Sunday competition last year.
“Jermain is just an exceptional person and teammate,” said Jeremy Schell who joined the team this season.
Jeremy’s father, Steve, is also a member of the team sponsored by Schell Lumber Home Building Centre that is a family-owned business since 1922.
Franklin and his wife have two children who were born in Alberta.
Jermain and Andrea Franklin with their children Micah and Samson (Photo contributed)
Their daughter, Micah, is a second-year student in the Drama in Education & Community with a Concentration in Applied Theatre program at the University of Windsor while Samson is enrolled in Mohawk College’s two-year Broadcasting – Radio & Creative Content diploma program.
