General Facts and Figures
- Full name: Amanda Balionis
- Net Worth: $1 Million
- Occupation: Sports reporter
- Birthday: June 20, 1987
- Birthplace: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US
- Birth Sign: Gemini
- Spouse: Engaged to Bryn Renner
Amanda Balionis is a sports reporter for CBS Sports, reporting mostly on the sport of golf. She played volleyball when she was young, but she got her love of golf from her family, who was definitely a golf-loving family. She grew up in Pennsylvania and had worked for many other organizations before being hired by CBS Sports.
Getting Her Start
Balionis was born on June 20, 1987, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to parents Anthony and Dana Balionis. When she was 10 years old, her family moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and she graduated from Manheim Township High School in 2004. Afterward, she attended Hofstra University and received a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism in 2008. While still in college, she interned at a radio station named WRHU.
In 2016, Balionis’s parents, to whom she is apparently very close, were in a serious car accident, and both of them required extensive surgery afterward. They seem to be doing well now, but it was quite a scare for the entire family. Balionis didn’t share the details of the incident with her followers until after everything was over and she knew that her parents would be all right.
Balionis is 5’5” and weighs roughly 125 pounds. She has blonde hair, blue eyes, and an hourglass figure, so it is no surprise that her male viewers truly adore her. She also has a presence on both Twitter and Instagram, where she keeps her followers up to date on certain aspects of both her personal and professional life. Balionis is currently single and doesn’t seem to be dating anyone in particular.
To demonstrate her love of sports and fitness, she became a certified yoga instructor after completing her 200 hours of education. She is also a dog lover and volunteers at no-kill animal shelters every time that she visits a new city. She even volunteers for an organization called K9 for Warriors, which takes dogs and trains them to be service animals for disabled vets.
Her Professional Career
Balionis has worked for many organizations before coming to CBS Sports, including Callaway Golf, where she hosted their digital content; PGA Tour, where she produced and reported on live events and tournament highlights for five years; and organizations such as CBS 2, the New York Jets, the New York Islanders, and ABC News Now, among others. She was also a byline reporter for MSG Network, and she was a freelance sideline reporter for Verizon Sports upon graduating from college.
Today, Balionis lives in San Diego but still considers Pennsylvania her home. Not surprisingly, she is a huge Pittsburgh Steelers fan, and she loves both college and professional football just as much as she loves the sport of golf. In the recent PGA Championship, she even predicted that Brooks Koepka would be the winner, which was spot-on but a surprise to many people.
Balionis has received golf tips from Peter Kostis and media tips from Jim Nantz, so when it comes to her mentors, she has chosen the absolute best, which is probably why she is so successful at what she does. She has been in the golf world for a very long time, even appearing on programs such as PGA Tour Live, Trending on Tour, and Buy a Mulligan.
Balionis and Bryn Renner
Balionis and Renner met on the 23rd of November in 2019. They’ve been such a lovely couple ever since. On the 4th of March Balionis and Renner shared the great news with their followers. They got engaged on the 26th of February in 2021.
Social Media and More
Here are a few highlights of her amazing career:
- While in college, she was involved in The Chronicle student newspaper and the Association for Women in Communications.
- Her first media job after college was with the newspaper in Lancaster, where she worked as a reporter.
- While working for Verizon Sports, she covered the women’s soccer and basketball teams at Rutgers University as well as various high school team sports.
- While at MSG, she covered the high school “game of the week” and was a commentator and reporter for various football- and volleyball-related segments.
- While working for PGA Tour in 2013, she got a chance to cover the British Open in Scotland and the Masters. She was the only American reporter there.
Because of her expertise, Balionis has been interviewed by many golfing magazines and organizations, where she is considered an authority on the subject of golf and on being one of the few female reporters not only in the world of golf but in sports in general. In fact, she considers her job at CBS Sports to be her dream job and her motto is to always overprepare for all of her assignments because she is a perfectionist.
This and That
Amanda Balionis has worked hard to get to where she is today, and no one can argue that she doesn’t deserve the success that she currently enjoys. She provides interesting, informative, and very colorful reporting at each event she is hired to cover. As a young person growing up and watching Bonnie Bernstein on the sidelines doing sports reporting, she knew then that this was what she wanted to do and she has been extremely successful at it.