Fay­ola K J Fras­er

For Mari­ah Ramharack, the path to be­com­ing one of the Caribbean’s most recog­nis­able sports broad­cast­ers be­gan in the close-knit com­mu­ni­ty of El Do­ra­do, Trinidad. Most re­cent­ly the co-host of Sports­Max Zone—once one of the re­gion’s most pop­u­lar sports pro­grammes be­fore go­ing off air—Ramharack kept au­di­ences in­formed and en­ter­tained while con­duct­ing some of the most mem­o­rable in­ter­views with Caribbean sport­ing he­roes. She has soared above and be­yond in a tra­di­tion­al­ly male-dom­i­nat­ed field, es­tab­lish­ing a re­spect­ed pres­ence in Caribbean sports me­dia.

Ramharack grew up the el­dest of four with one sis­ter and two broth­ers and spent her ear­ly years sur­round­ed by the warmth of fam­i­ly life, fos­ter­ing a close­ness with her sib­lings and a fam­i­ly-ori­en­tat­ed mind­set. Her school­ing at Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School and Hillview Col­lege shaped her ear­ly aca­d­e­m­ic dis­ci­pline, while her pur­suit of fur­ther ed­u­ca­tion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine, deep­ened her love for com­mu­ni­ca­tion and the writ­ten word through stud­ies in Lit­er­a­tures in Eng­lish and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Stud­ies.

A life­long learn­er, Ramharack al­so com­plet­ed her post­grad­u­ate stud­ies in me­di­a­tion, an ex­ten­sion of her be­lief in the im­por­tance of di­a­logue and un­der­stand­ing.

Though many ex­pect­ed her to be­come a lawyer, as “I knew ear­ly on I en­joyed pub­lic speak­ing and de­bat­ing,” her jour­ney took a dif­fer­ent turn. Fol­low­ing her first in­tern­ship at the CCN Group, where she wet her feet in the me­dia in­dus­try, she firm­ly be­lieved that her des­tiny was in the me­dia. When the in­tern­ship end­ed, Ramharack was of­fered her first role as a jour­nal­ist and news an­chor at Ra­dio and TV Jaagri­ti. There, with a pas­sion and fer­vour that would be­come tan­ta­mount to her ca­reer, in­stead of fol­low­ing the rou­tine ex­pec­ta­tions of the job, she be­gan to think out of the box and for­mu­late her own cre­ative ideas for pro­gram­ming. It was at Jaagri­ti that her in­duc­tion in­to the sports in­dus­try be­gan, and she con­cep­tu­alised her own sports pro­gramme, com­bin­ing her sharp com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills with her grow­ing ex­per­tise in lo­cal and re­gion­al sports cov­er­age. The show aired week­ly and quick­ly de­vel­oped a loy­al fol­low­ing, set­ting the stage for what would be­come her life’s work.

In 2019, Ramharack’s jour­ney reached new heights when she joined Sports­Max, one of the lead­ing sports net­works in the Caribbean, as co-host of the Sports­Max Zone. Based in Ja­maica, the show reached au­di­ences in more than 20 coun­tries and be­came a re­gion­al sta­ple for sports news and com­men­tary.

For six years, Ramharack was not just a pre­sen­ter, but she was a trust­ed voice, trav­el­ling ex­ten­sive­ly to cov­er every­thing from the FI­FA World Cup and the Olympics to West In­dies crick­et and the Eng­lish Pre­mier League. Her abil­i­ty to blend warmth, wit, and au­thor­i­ty made her a stand­out per­son­al­i­ty in sports jour­nal­ism.

Her work al­so ex­tend­ed be­yond the stu­dio. Now a recog­nised face and voice in the sports in­dus­try, she reg­u­lar­ly front­ed re­gion­al CON­CA­CAF events and served as a Caribbean cor­re­spon­dent for Sky Sports in Lon­don, even ap­pear­ing on “Wel­come to the Week­end” for Pre­mier League Pro­duc­tions.

Most re­cent­ly, she joined the pro­duc­tion team for the 2025 Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) sea­son as an on-field co-host, adding a new di­men­sion to her broad­cast­ing reper­toire. Dur­ing this time, Ramharack not on­ly de­vel­oped ex­per­tise in the ar­ray of sport­ing events she cov­ered but al­so so­lid­i­fied her­self as a poised, knowl­edge­able, and ef­fort­less­ly charis­mat­ic pres­ence, which con­tin­ues to res­onate with au­di­ences across the re­gion.

“I pre­fer the term ‘‘teach­ing mo­ments’.” Re­fus­ing to frame op­por­tu­ni­ties for learn­ing as chal­lenges but in­stead as teach­ing mo­ments, Ramharack has had sev­er­al piv­otal times through­out her ca­reer. Pack­ing up her life and mov­ing to Ja­maica for Sports­Max was one of the defin­ing mo­ments of her pro­fes­sion­al and per­son­al life. “It was the first time I was liv­ing away from my fam­i­ly, much less in a dif­fer­ent coun­try,” she re­calls.

“How­ev­er, it taught me a key life skill: in­de­pen­dence and de­vel­op­ing re­la­tion­ships out­side of a cul­ture I was used to.” To­day, she cred­its that move for shap­ing not just her ca­reer but al­so de­vel­op­ing her con­fi­dence and re­silience as a woman and a me­dia pro­fes­sion­al.

The world of sports broad­cast­ing, of­ten dom­i­nat­ed by men, brought hur­dles that Ramharack had to over­come. Her strat­e­gy, how­ev­er, was sim­ple: hard work and prepa­ra­tion. “I cre­at­ed my own space in the com­pa­ny and the in­dus­try by putting in the work–show af­ter show, day af­ter day, re­search­ing every sin­gle day,” she says.

By mak­ing these con­cert­ed ef­forts to hone her skills and de­vel­op her pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­tise, she gar­nered and earned gen­uine re­spect that came along with ex­cel­lence in her de­liv­ery.

While she cov­ers every­thing from foot­ball to ath­let­ics, crick­et holds a spe­cial place in her heart, es­pe­cial­ly when her lit­tle sis­ter, West In­di­an crick­eter Kar­ish­ma Ramharack, takes the field. She cred­its her strong fam­i­ly bonds as the an­chor of her life-speak­ing to her sis­ter al­most every day, no mat­ter where she is in the world-ground­ing her even as her ca­reer con­tin­ues to soar.

Among her proud­est achieve­ments are mo­ments that con­nect her di­rect­ly to her au­di­ence. “Be­ing part of Sports­Max Zone is def­i­nite­ly a high­light,” she says. “Know­ing that my hard work is pro­vid­ing some­thing use­ful to our au­di­ence is the true high­light.” Her oth­er ca­reer mile­stones in­clude co-host­ing the 2025 CPL, host­ing the CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup Draw and the Caribbean Cup Draw, and con­duct­ing in­ter­views with leg­ends such as Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Dwight Yorke and Ja­maica’s Na­tion­al Team Coach and for­mer Eng­lish Pre­mier League Man­ag­er Steve Mc­Claren for Sky Sports.

To young women as­pir­ing to fol­low in her foot­steps, Ramharack’s mes­sage is one of ground­ed am­bi­tion. “Fam­i­ly above all else,” she ad­vis­es, en­cour­ag­ing young peo­ple to stay close to their fam­i­lies to re­main fo­cused and ground­ed.

For Ramharack, there is no sub­sti­tute for hard work and as­ser­tion, and she calls peo­ple to “put in the work, be­cause knowl­edge builds cred­i­bil­i­ty. Find your voice, pro­tect it, and net­work in­ten­tion­al­ly”. It’s ad­vice forged from ex­pe­ri­ence, as her jour­ney has been char­ac­terised by am­bi­tion shaped by au­then­tic­i­ty, as a woman who con­tin­ues to in­spire fu­ture gen­er­a­tions of broad­cast­ers across the Caribbean.