Visser Returning to CBS

Lesley Visser is returning to CBS, the network she left seven years ago for ESPN and ABC.

CBS announced Tuesday that Visser has been added to “The NFL Today” crew as a feature reporter and that she will cover U.S. Open tennis and college basketball as well. She also will do some work for CBS News.

Visser served as a sideline reporter on “Monday Night Football” for the last three years. Six weeks ago she was told by ABC Sports President Howard Katz that she was not part of new producer Don Ohlmeyer’s plan and was being replaced.

That enabled Visser to exercise an option and be released from the final two years of her contract with Disney, which owns ABC and ESPN.

Visser called her dismissal from “Monday Night Football” a “real body blow,” but said, “The way I chose to look at it was that I now had a clean slate. I do not have any bitterness toward ABC and I’m thrilled to be going back to CBS.”