Salary: $16 million per year
Most of us know him as the former NBA player “The Jet” and for good reason. Kenny Smith, the 2 time NBA champion was indeed one of the faster and most accurate basketball players in recent memories. Smith has scored over 9,000 points in his career and finished his career in the NBA’s top ten list of free-throw percentages and three-point percentages for a total of 5 years.
The retired NBA player has gone on to become a successful and award-winning basketball commentator and analyst, with several Emmys under his belt for his commentary on TNT’s Inside the NBA. Smith was born in Queens, New York in 1965 and now has 5 children from 2 separate marriages. Smith shortly hosted a radio show/podcast called Baseline 2 Baseline where he interviewed popular NBA stars and gave behind-the-scenes explanations of NBA games.
Kenny Albert - Fox
Salary: $500,000 per year
Kenny Albert comes from a long line of sportscasters, including Mark, Al and Steve Albert. Since his career first began in 1990, the successful American sportscaster is the only one in history that has done play-by-play commentary for all 4 major professional sports leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL). He was born in New York in 1968 and was exposed to sports from a very young age. By age 22, Albert had already graduated from New York University with a degree in broadcasting and journalism and had already done various jobs relating to sports including becoming the official statistician for the Rangers on the radio.
Albert has had a fairly regular career and has managed to stay away from any controversies or drama. He was nominated in 2016 for the Sports Emmy Award for Outstanding Media Personality. One of his most noteworthy achievements is calling the play by play of 4 different sports in 4 days. The accomplished play-by-play commentator currently resides in New Jersey with his wife Barbara and 2 daughters.
Bill Walton - ESPN
Salary: $5 million per year
With over 100,000 Twitter followers, Bill Walton is still very much an active participant in the NBA scene at age 66. The retired NBA player had a legendary career back in his day, with an NBA Most Valuable Player pick and two NBA Championships, he was an obvious inductee for the Basketball Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, Walton had to retire in the late '80s due to repeated sports injuries. In his NBA career, he played a total of 90 games for the Celtics with an average of 55% shooting rate and a total of 468 games in his entire career.
Walton began working for CBS, NBC, and ESPN as a broadcaster, it wasn't easy though. He reported having suffered a serious stuttering issue when he was just 28 years old and had to overcome it before being able to get paid for his voice rather than his skills on the court. In 2003, he debuted his own show called "Bill Walton's Long Strange Trip" on ESPN. Walton also became acclaimed as a broadcaster and received an Emmy Award for "Best Live Sports Television Broadcast" and the CoSIDA Dick Enberg Award. In 2016, he released a memoir of his life called "Back from the Dead: Searching for the Sound, Shining the Light and Throwing It Down". The book was a New York Times bestseller for 2 weeks. He also appeared briefly in the popular film "Ghostbusters" and various NBA video games.
Jimmy Johnson - Fox
Salary: $4 million per year
One of the most impressive personalities in the NFL and entertainment media is Jimmy Johnson. From winning 2 consecutive Super Bowls in 1992 and 1993 as head coach for the Dallas Cowboys to appearing in many commercials and even being one of the 20 castaways in the reality show Survivor: Nicaragua. Johnson also owns a restaurant named "Three Rings", after the three championships he won throughout his career. He also had a few short stints in TV shows and films, like his guest appearance as a bearded prisoner in The Shield and his small role in Adam Sandler's film, "The Waterboy".
After leaving his role as head coach for the Miami Dolphins due to an embarrassing loss against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Johnson went on to become a TV studio analyst for Fox Sports and Fox NFL Sunday. In 2009, Jimmy Johnson hosted a special episode of FOX NFL Sundays with Curt Menefee, Terry Bradshaw, and others in an undisclosed military installation in Afghanistan right before veteran's day.
Jim Nantz - CBS
Salary: $5 million per year
American play-by-play broadcaster Jim Nantz is known for his wacky calls and his signature "Hello, friends!" opening line in broadcasts. The 60-year-old sportscaster from North Carolina has been commentating on games since the early '80s. His first big break happened when he joined CBS Sports in 1985 as a studio host for their college football and basketball games. Nantz slowly moved up from there and began covering NFL from 1998 onwards.
The sportscaster has appeared in episodes of The Price is Right and has contributed his voice to the commentary in the long-running Madden NFL video-game series. He had also appeared in a Papa John's Pizza ad with Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos. Nantz's career has been filled with various honors and awards, including an Emmy Award for Outstanding Sports Personality in 2008 and 2009. He was also awarded the NSSA's National Sportscaster of the Year five times between 1998 and 2009.