Kolby KickingWoman
ICT
From a young age, Jacob Tobey had a one-track mind on what he wanted to make a career doing.
The Mashpee Wampanoag citizen first remembered wanting to be a sports broadcaster when he was 10. The passion and drive to do so in the National Basketball Association really set in at 13 years old after a trip to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.
One of the exhibits at the hall of fame allowed people to pretend to be an announcer of famous plays from the league’s past and that’s when Tobey recalls “falling in love with broadcasting.”
“I just kind of felt something in me that was like, ‘This is what you want, this is what you should do,’” Tobey said. “Ever since then I’ve kind of just been pursuing it and I never made a plan B. It was always plan A.”
Fourteen years later, Tobey would realize that dream when it was officially announced by the San Antonio Spurs that he would be the organization’s TV play-by-play announcer.
In a statement from the team at the time of the announcement, Mike Kickirillo, Spurs senior director of broadcast, said the team was thrilled to welcome Tobey to the Spurs family.
“His passion for the game, combined with his broadcast experience and holistic sports knowledge, make him a perfect fit for our team,” Kickirillo said in the October 2024 statement. “We’re confident that Spurs fans will quickly embrace Jacob’s energy and insightful commentary.”
Jacob Tobey, Mashpee Wampanoag, is in his second full season as the television play-by-play announcer for the San Antonio Spurs (Photo credit Tony Garcia)
It was a long road from Sandwich, Massachusetts, to San Antonio, Texas. The journey began by turning down the volume while playing the video game NBA2k and pretending to announce the game, to calling any sport he could in high school to taking any internship, any job he could.
Also, the Spurs were not Tobey’s first attempt at an NBA gig. He had interviewed for three other teams but ultimately didn’t get the position he had so long worked for.
“When you’re that close, it’s tough to hear no, but when you hear yes, you know it’s going to change your life, because it’s, again, one of 30 jobs and for the best league in the world,” Tobey said. “So I’m very lucky in that sense.”
Tobey says he was overcome with emotion when he got the call from the Spurs but also with excitement. Despite being 27 at the time, he knew he had put in the work and was ready to meet the moment.
“I pretty much made all the sacrifices you have to make to be able to make it in this business. You know, working on weekends, weeknights, holidays. I missed birthdays. I missed family events. I’ve given my everything to this thing,” he said. “So in that sense, when I got the job, I was like, ‘Damn right I got the job,’ like I’ve sacrificed everything for it.”
Being a person of color in this space isn’t lost on Tobey either and he has been open about his journey to rediscover his heritage and learn more about Mashpee history. Despite not growing up as close to the tribe as he would have liked, Tobey still wants to represent his community in the best way possible.
There is also the fact that the Spurs signed Lindy Waters III over the summer, a Cherokee Nation and Kiowa citizen, who has had a multi-year NBA career.
“Him and I together, is quite powerful for people to see that,” Tobey said.
As broadcasts for any given game begin, Tobey will often introduce himself and note he is representing the Mashpee Wampanoag. Additionally, he has worn a bolo tie made by his cousin and is planning to wear a wampum necklace for a broadcast at some point this year.
Recently on his personal Instagram before a Thanksgiving-eve game against the Portland Trail Blazers, Tobey shared his reflections on the holiday and showed off a corn necklace he was gifted over the summer around his neck, as well as the inside of his suit jacket with Mashpee Wampanoag inscribed above the pocket along with his Native name, Strong Oak.
“So just trying to bring all that stuff in I think is super, super important,” Tobey said. “My partner, Sean Elliott, who won a championship with the Spurs, and we’re sort of one of the only few minority pairings in the league. And so I take that with great responsibility, and try to uplift that as much as I can.”
The NBA season is a grind, spanning from the end of October to April with each team playing 82 games; possibly more if they make the postseason. Tobey says a lot of people don’t recognize the preparation that goes into each game.
He spends between four and six hours of “hardcore preparation” for every broadcast that includes a copious amount of meticulous notes that only 20 percent of might be used. Tobey wants to be prepared for anything to happen.
“A historical moment, a blowout game, crazy back-and-forth game where, you know, I don’t need as much like I want to be ready for everything,” he said. “What’s going on around the league, not just with the Spurs, I need to kind of prep storylines in that sense, if the game is getting out of hand, I can kind of switch to the league perspective.”
On gamedays, he normally attends the team’s morning shootaround practice where a player is typically made available to the media, before returning to do some more research on that day’s opponent. Tobey will watch some of the opponents previous game to get a feel for their substitution patterns and most importantly, to hear their home broadcasters announce their players names.
“That’s my job is to announce these guys’ names right, so if I don’t know a name, I can hear the other home announcer for the other team do that,” Tobey said.
Once tip-off rolls around, it’s time to strap in and Tobey’s among the best seats in the house for the action.
As unscripted as sports can be, Tobey calls it the best reality show on television. His “welcome to the NBA” moment occurred his third week into the job on a random weekday early into the season last year.
Jacob Tobey (Photo credit Michael Anthony Gonzales)
Victor Webanyama, the 21-year-old phenom from France who has taken the league by storm, scored 50 points against the Washington Wizards. No one was talking about this being a big game and then all of a sudden, Tobey was calling what will be looked back on many years from now as Webanyama’s first 50-point game.
“It never leaves me for a second that my voice is describing his career and having to live up to the moments of not just his career, but the Spurs, documenting their season, their history,” Tobey said. “You wake up every day and it’s like, ‘That’s cool, man.’ That’s what I wanted as a kid.”
Outside of his day job, Tobey likes to play basketball himself, joking that you can catch him at the local gym “dropping buckets on kids” twice a week.
He is also a musician, singing and playing the guitar that has been a big part of his life. Tobey has been playing in small bars and restaurants since he was 15 and if he had not chosen broadcasting, he wanted to be the next John Mayer.
Tobey has a list of songs on his website he has covered, including classics by Bob Marley and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Being a musician makes him a better broadcaster and vice versa.
“I think I’ve always been comfortable in public, in a crowd, on a stage, and so I was never really nervous doing that, and then I was never really nervous just looking to a camera announcing,” he said.
There’s an old quote, “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard,” and that has been Tobey’s message to Native youth as one of the main things he’s learned to get where he is today.
“So if you work hard, you can get a lot of places,” he said. “You have to have talent, you have to be lucky, but you have to work harder than anybody. I think that’s the one thing I’ve learned for sure, is just work hard, put yourself in a position to be successful, and then you never know what can happen.”
With a young Spurs team paired with a young TV play-by-play announcer, both on the ascent, the sky is the limit for San Antonio and Jacob Tobey.
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