It’s Monday morning on an off day. The Bulls are going to play Cleveland tomorrow. Adam Amin has until 1 p.m. to finish his research for the team in his hotel room. Then lunch, gym, read, meditate and talk to friends, family and girlfriend until 4 p.m. He’ll put his suit on, get to the arena at 5 p.m. for the 7 p.m. game., and then do it all over again tomorrow for another team.
From growing up in Addison, Illinois, to living in Chicago for most of his adult life as a sportscaster for Fox Sports—Amin is a proud local. He joined the station in June 2020 and has since continued as a play-by-play announcer for NBA, NFL, MLB and NCAA college basketball games.
At the start, he didn’t know he wanted to be a broadcaster. “I was a jack of all trades master of none growing up,” he says.
That was until a friend of his from Valparaiso University in Indiana, pitched to him the idea of getting into broadcasting with him at the university. Amin liked the idea. “I showed up on the first day of orientation in August of 2005, I found the advisor for the student-run station, WVUR-FM, and rarely left after that,” he recalls.
His broadcast journey took him to call some of the most prestigious games on live TV, but he doesn’t let those games define his success. Rather, he credits the good moments he calls during the play-by-play as his version of success.
“I don’t know if I ever felt like I’ve made it,” he says. “I think if you are judging success by what level of games you’re calling, then no one’s good except for the people at the very top—so that’s not a great way to go about judging your place. It’s the little moments that make you feel like you belong or feel like you did the job well that get you motivated. We try to keep those good moments in mind, enjoy them, and remember what made them good. Then, try to be as good or better the next time out.”
Amin likes to feel well-prepared for the match-up. “I feel like I need to know all this information, so that I feel comfortable making certain calls,” he says. “I need to be able to invoke certain things about their season, while we are talking about the teams, or what’s happening that day.”
He puts in the work. “The research I put into the broadcasts educates me on the stories of the players and coaches,” he says. “During an LA Rams game this season, I told a story about a rookie player who wasn’t drafted and got an opportunity to return a punt late in a game—You want to tell that story, and you want that player to succeed so the story sticks with people.”
From calling a Bulls game to an NFL match-up, Amin says there’s a different feel to each. For the Bulls, Amin calls between 65 and 70 of the 82 games played, so it doesn’t feel like he has to do a deep dive into every game.
“For a Bulls game, I like to keep the call as personalized as possible by specifically focusing on what’s going on that night,” Amin says. “And, when prepping for an opponent that is only seen twice a year, I like to give the overarching storyline and some broader perspective on the game at play.”
For nationally-televised, NFL games, there’s a huge fan base with a lot of fervor, so Amin has his work cut out for him.
“For a Sunday NFL match-up, if I were to copy and paste every little bit of information I type into my tablet or laptop during the week and put it into a Word document, it would end up being something like 40 or 50 pages long,” Amin says. “It’s like I’m writing a 50-page research paper every single week for a football game.”
He developed his broadcasting style learning from the greats growing up. “I think everybody in this profession takes pieces from some of their influencers they listened to growing up,” Amin says. “In Chicago, I listened to Pat Hughes, Harry Caray, Pat Foley, Jim Durham, Neil Funk, Tom Dore and Wayne Larrivee. I took little pieces of their style or vocabulary and tried them out.”
Developing your own voice takes time, Amin says, but when you find it, you feel more confident about your calls. “Over time, you develop your own style by finding what fits your personality,” he says. “Find out what makes you laugh, and start to inject parts of your personality into little moments. That’s when you start feeling comfortable.”
Excitable, emotional and invested are the three words that come to mind to describe Amin’s on-air personality. “I get emotionally invested, and I want people to be invested watching the game. Especially if they don’t have connections to the teams, or who particular players might be,” he says. “Big calls are when I get emotional, but the rest of the time I hope I am conversational and easy to listen to.”
Rapid Fire Q’s for Adam Amin
Q: Favorite arena or stadium to call a game?
A: Madison Square Garden for basketball games.
Q: Best advice you have ever received?
A: You get out of experiences what you put into them. If you put a lot of yourself into something, you get a lot back in return.
Q: What’s on your game-day playlist?
A: I’ve been DJing since I was 13. House music is something I listen to when I get ready for a game to get pumped up.
Q: Chicago-style deep dish or thin crust?
A: Thin crust. My parents used to own a little grocery store, and right next door was Nardi’s Pizza, that I grew up on. D’Agostino’s is my favorite today.
Over time, you develop your own style by finding what fits your personality
I get emotionally invested, and I want people to be invested watching the game