Chris Connelly is an American sports and entertainment reporter.
Connelly joined ESPN in 2001 to host the daily interview program Unscripted with Chris Connelly, designed to be a more contemporary version of the long-running Up Close interview show which previously occupied the 5PM ET timeslot. The show, which premiered on the same day as Pardon the Interruption, lasted only a few months before being replaced by an early SportsCenter and eventually Around The Horn.
Since the cancellation of "Unscripted," Connelly has reported and narrated the long-form human interest reports that air on SportsCenter on weekends. Most notably, he annually does a one week series called "My Wish" involving athletes fulfilling kid's Make a Wish Foundation wishes. Connelly also helped ABC and ESPN cover the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 2006; he conducted interviews with finalists who had just been eliminated.
Before joining ESPN, Connelly worked for Rolling Stone Magazine,as a music critic. Next Connelly spent nine years at MTV (1993–2001). He hosted the pre-shows for the MTV Movie Awards and prior to that, The Big Picture, a weekly show with features and movie reviews. He was also an editor and reporter for Premiere magazine, eventually becoming Editor in Chief. After six months however, Connelly resigned in a dispute over journalistic integrity after the owner of the magazine reportedly asked that he quash a story that unfavorably portrayed a business associate.
From 2000 to 2007 he was part of the ensemble of hosts for the Academy Awards preshow. All of these assignments were for ABC.