Kenny Albert is in the midst of calling football, basketball and hockey games for a variety of local and national entities, keeping him busy as the winter months continue. Albert, who is the lead play-by-play broadcaster for the NHL on TNT, was recently on site at Wrigley Field to call the Discover NHL Winter Classic and is also scheduled to call the Week 18 game between the Seattle Seahawks and Los Angeles Rams for the NFL on FOX. In fact, Albert called his 500th NFL game earlier in the season amid the 20th season of FOX Sports broadcasting NFL games, two decades of the property that he has broadcast in every year. With the aforementioned assignments, along with local obligations with MSG Networks on television and radio, he safeguards against complacency by ensuring that he is prepared.
On the most recent edition of the Nothing Left Unsaid podcast with Tim Green, Albert explained that he was always reading the sports pages of the newspaper in his youth. Observing his father, Marv, and uncles Al and Steve, all of whom were announcers in the sports media business, he understood the fundamental nature of preparation and arriving set to call the action. In the past, Albert would receive 20 to 30 pages of articles on a ream of fax paper, along with VHS tapes featuring highlights of the upcoming teams. The process has changed with the evolution in technology and mass communication, but Albert still takes a traditional approach.
“I still read several newspapers a day, although now I’m doing it on the iPad, but it still looks like the actual newspaper,” Albert said. “You’re not just clicking on articles, so I’m old school in that respect. I’m reading, I’m keeping up with the various sports that I’m involved with. A couple of hours of reading every day for sure.”
When Albert is traveling on an airplane, he takes advantage of the time by reading and catching up on preparation work. The football season begins in September, and by the next month, the basketball and hockey seasons commence and run through May and June. TNT Sports will broadcast the Stanley Cup Final at the conclusion of the 2024-25 NHL season, its second time presenting the game under the seven-year media rights deal with the league.
“I’m reading so much for work and the prep that I don’t have a lot of time to read books, but I feel like I read the equivalent of five to 10 books every week,” Albert said. “There’s a lot of reading. It’s fun. It’s not like I’m doing something I hate. I love my job, love the preparation. There’s a lot of work and travel involved in it, but there’s really nothing else I would rather be doing, and the reading and the preparation is a big part of it.”
Later in the podcast, Albert explained that he needs to remind himself when he is calling a New York Rangers hockey game on TNT Sports instead of calling it on ESPN New York 880, the team’s flagship radio home. Aside from the varying platforms of dissemination, Albert recognizes that he does not want to convey any sense of bias or subjectivity on the national broadcast. In reflecting on how he approaches the dichotomy between his roles, he referenced other announcers who have had similar portfolios, including Joe Buck, Mike “Doc” Emrick and Joe Davis.
“It’s a lot of fun going back and forth between television and radio,” Albert said. “There are big differences between those two mediums, so it’s fun to be able to do both.”
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