It’s good to be Tim Roye. The National Basketball Association season is just past the halfway point, and Roye has the weekend off.
After calling Friday night’s home game at San Francisco’s Chase Center in the Mission Bay neighborhood, the Golden State Warriors’ radio play-by-play voice for 30 continuous seasons has the “luxury” of two consecutive days off during an NBA season—almost too good to be true.
Roye will be back to his in-season routine on Monday, when the Warriors host the Orlando Magic.
Life in the NBA is fast-paced, both on and off the court. After signing off with the Warriors’ post-game show on Monday evening, Roye will join the Warriors’ traveling road show, and get comfortable in the team’s chartered plane. The following five days have scheduled dates at the Utah Jazz, at the Los Angeles Lakers, in the “Windy City” with the Chicago Bulls on Saturday evening, and then visiting the Milwaukee Bucks on Monday.
With 48 games in the books, there are 34 to go in the Warriors’ 82-game schedule. At 64, Roye has no shortage of energy to keep himself and his listening audience psyched for Golden State hoops.
“A lot of things that I dreamed about as a kid growing up in Connecticut I’ve achieved. I’ve been in the league since 1989, and I’m so lucky,” Roye told The Epoch Times prior to Friday’s Warriors-Phoenix Suns game at Chase Center. “This is the longest stretch that I’ve been with an employer at any point in my life.”
Roye hasn’t lost his enthusiasm for routine travel, both in the air and on the ground with the team in first-class mode. Roye tells of being “real proud” and blessed to work in the NBA. He has earned his keep with his exceptional work before a microphone. From when the Warriors played their first preseason game in Hawaii against the Sacramento Kings in early October, Roye can be heard at least through the final regular-season game on the road at the Los Angeles Clippers on April 13.
Warriors’ fans have welcomed Roye into their homes and cars; through smart speakers, on smart watches, terrestrial and satellite radio, on the team’s flagship station—KGMZ 95.7 FM The Game. As a trusted extension of the fans supporting Golden State’s NBA franchise, Roye has shared the losing seasons as well as unprecedented success, with the Warriors recently going to the finals for five consecutive seasons.
“We (Warriors) are a world-class organization. During this run, I’m in the best position you could be in. When I started in 1995, the Warriors often were a punchline in the media. Recently in Forbes, the only American professional sports franchise that is worth more than the Warriors is the Dallas Cowboys (last month’s Forbes survey of the most valuable sports teams lists the Warriors value at $8.8 billion, and Dallas Cowboys $10.1 billion),” explains Roye, who has called four Golden State NBA Championship rings over the past decade.
To the current generation of Warriors’ fans, who found a friend in Roye along the airwaves, winning hasn’t always been a given come the end of the regular season. Back in 1975, when the Warriors won their first-ever NBA title and called Oakland home, that would be the franchise’s finest season until 40 years later. Not until 2015 would Golden State win its next NBA Championship.
“Even with the incredible run that the Warriors went on, my overall record is still below .500,” Roye tells of the ups and downs in Golden State basketball over the last three decades.
The professional comfort zone that Roye enjoys comes from being surrounded by some of the best individual representatives of the NBA and within the Warriors’ organization. Roye speaks with the enthusiasm of a rookie broadcaster as he describes team senior vice president of communications Raymond Ritter as the “best public relations guy in the league,” and cites Warriors’ perennial all-star and future hall of famer Stephen Curry and head coach Steve Kerr as among the reasons his job stays fresh and appears seamless.
His travel time from home to Chase Center registers in excess of one hour. Roye is usually one of the first to arrive, among members of the media on game day. Waking at 6:30 a.m. at home, he checks in on the NBA from the night before. Roye updates players’ individual statistics, creates his spotting boards for the next game’s opponents, squeezes in a workout, then talks with his producer on what direction the evening broadcast will go. Depending on traffic conditions of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, Roye isn’t shy to take a ferry to his final destination instead of driving to Chase Center.
Caring about the NBA, and the Warriors players who have been kind and accommodating to him over the years, Roye makes it a point to learn as much as possible about everyone on the bench.
“I gather as much information as I can. It’s an all day process. I still look forward to the work everyday. My approach to each game is to treat it as if it will be a blowout; the worst game of the year,” Roye confesses. “I’m prepared with good stories about the guys on the bench, who now will get playing time. In the off-season, when I see interesting stories about players around the league, I'll file them for the next season.”
From paying his dues as the radio broadcaster of the Utica Olympics of the Continental Basketball Association, traveling seven hours-plus in a van snug full of players returning from a game in Bangor, Maine, and all the while studying for an early morning class at Utica College; to traveling on commercial to charter planes, Roye has continually rolled with the changes put forth. He is a staple of the meaning of basketball in the Bay Area.
Roye fiercely believes in the Bay Area community and is thankful for the opportunity it has allotted him and his family.
“I’ve been able to last this long and it tells me I’m doing something right. When I was going to the Warriors, I wanted to test myself; to see if I could make it.”
The Warriors audio world has been spoiled over the past 30 years with Roye on the job. For the fans, players, and Warriors franchise, hopefully Roye has plenty more seasons in the tank to excite and analyze NBA happenings.
