Kenny Albert is one of the top play-by-play announcers of all-time and currently the only broadcaster handling play-by-play for all four major U.S. sports (NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL). Eventually, Kenny will join his famous dad Marv Albert as a Hall of Famer.
Kenny Albert joined SportsJam with Doug Doyle to talk about his new book A MIC for All Seasons: My Three Decades Announcing the NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB, and Olympics.
Kenny had just returned to his Bergen County, New Jersey home after calling the New York Giants-Miami Dolphins NFL game the night before for FOX Sports, his sports home for the past 30 years. He currently teams with analyst and former NFL linebacker Jonathan Vilma and sideline reporter Shannon Spake.
Kenny enjoyed his time at FOX Sports with former Cowboys fullback and three-time Super Bowl champion Daryl "Moose" Johnston and the late Baltimore Ravens Super Bowl champion Tony "Goose" Siragusa.
Albert says those years were extra special for him because of the rapport he had with "Moose" and "Goose."
"Those eight years provided so many highlights, memories and stories and a lot of them are in the book. When I think of all the tremendous games we called, but a lot of the time off the field. There are probably 6 to 8 things I've done in my life once and they were all with Tony. We got into a city on a Friday during football season, we'd go to the home team's practice and then we'll visit with the visiting team Saturday, but Saturday morning and early afternoon you have some down time. Tony never wanted to be sitting in a hotel room doing nothing. He wanted to take advantage and he lived life to its fullest. So whether it was riding around a race track in Charlotte, getting soaked by Shamu in San Diego, or taking an alligator swamp boat tour in Louisiana, we would go do some kind of activity."
Kenny gave the eulogy at Siragusa's funeral in Kenilworth, NJ in 2022.
A good portion of A Mic for All Seasons (Triumph Books) focuses on Albert's relationships and family. He learned from much from his legendary dad, mostly by observing a master at his craft.
"I tried to learn by osmosis when I was growing up in a sportscasting family, my father and whenever my two uncles Steve and Al would visit it was like I was listening to the first all sports radio station. I would just try to soak in all the stories they would tell, the various teams, coaches and players they were covering. I also received a tape recorder from my parents for my birthday when I was about five or six years old. I would set up my room like a radio or TV studio. I would start calling games into the recorder. When I was old enough, I would take it to Madison Square Garden or Shea Stadium. I would starting keeping stats as well for my father and another announcers. That was just a great learning experience. I would witness the communication between the broadcasters and the production truck and the communication between the play-by-play announcers and the color analysts. It would probably better than anything I could have learned in a classroom."
Despite keeping an insane broadcast schedule, Albert has prioritized having a strong family of his own. He and he wife Barbara have two grown-up daughters Amanda and Sydney. Kenny says his first date with Barbara was Game Three of the 1994 NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and Houston Rockets, but his wife didn't really see it that way.
"I was up calling Game Five of the Rangers-Canucks Final series on NHL radio at the time. If the Rangers had won that game, I probably would have stuck around MSG and got to some Stanley Cup party, but they lost that game and I would up meeting my friend Jerry at my now-wife's apartment. A few days later, I did have an extra ticket to that Knicks-Rockets game and she came along with me. After that we didn't really see each other for four or five months. I was living down in the Washington area. We wound up getting in touch again and the rest is history. Sports played a large part in us meeting. If the Rangers game went the other way, we probably wouldn't have met."
The Rangers went on to win the Stanley Cup in 1994 and Kenny and Barbara would eventually begin their life together.
Albert has been the voice of New York Rangers games on MSG Radio since the 1995-96 season and serves as the TV play-by-play announcer for approximately 20 New York Knicks games each season on the MSG Network.
Preparation has always been a major part of Kenny Albert's approach to calling games. He says it may take more than 20 hours of research for each NFL game he calls. "I love reading," he explains. "I love the preparation."
Entering the 2023 NFL season, Albert’s 476 NFL games called rank him eighth-highest all-time among play-by-play broadcasters (trailing only Al Michaels, Dick Stockton, Don Criqui, Pat Summerall, Charlie Jones, Dick Enberg and Kevin Harlan) and 13th-highest among NFL broadcasters across any role. On the NHL side, Albert has called the fourth-most network TV games of any play-by-play announcer at 446 and sits eighth among play-by-play announcers with 420 MLB games called on network television. Across the four primary U.S. sports, Albert holds the fourth spot among total games called at 1,342 and counting.
Albert has called two of last three Stanley Cup Final series on national television (2021 on NBC, 2023 on TNT). In early 2021, NBC Sports named Albert the lead play-by-play announcer for its NHL coverage, with Albert replacing Mike “Doc” Emrick and calling the 2021 Stanley Cup Final.
Additionally, Albert was named the lead hockey play-by-play broadcaster by Turner Sports, beginning with the 2021-22 season. He has been the voice of New York Rangers games on MSG Radio since the 1995-96 season and serves as the TV play-by-play announcer for approximately 20 New York Knicks games each season on the MSG Network.
Kenny did play hockey in high school and scored the first-ever goal for the NYU Hockey club.
"I would say a was a very average third-line winger in high school and college. I really enjoyed it. I didn't score many but I did score the first goal."
Albert has been the voice of New York Rangers games on MSG Radio since the 1995-96 season and serves as the TV play-by-play announcer for approximately 20 New York Knicks games each season on the MSG Network.
He called baseball and volleyball for the 2020 Summer Olympics from Tokyo for NBC, as well as men’s and women’s ice hockey, including the women’s Gold Medal game, for the 2002 Winter Olympics from Salt Lake City.
Kenny is a three-time Sports Emmy Award nominee for play-by-play (2015, 2019 and 2022). In 2022, he was inducted into the New Jersey Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.
You can SEE the entire SportsJam interview with Kenny Albert here.
