Barry Tompkins Biography
Barry Tompkins is a sportscaster in the United States. He is best recognized as a boxing commentator, but he has also covered football and other sports. In 1965, he began his broadcasting career at the San Francisco radio station KCBS. Tompkins was appointed as sports director at KPIX-TV, a CBS affiliate in San Francisco.
Barry Tompkins Age
He was born Barry David Tompkins on 2 May 1940, in San Francisco, California, United States. Barry is 83 years old as of May 2023.
Barry Tompkins Family
He was raised by his parents, but he has not provided any information about his siblings or family in general. It is unknown whether he had siblings, and the identity of his father and mother is still unknown.
Who is Barry Tompkins married to?– Wife
Tompkins is married to his wife Joan Ryan, a sports writer, and together they have a son Ryan Tompkins.
Barry Tompkins Career
In 1965, he began his broadcasting career at the San Francisco radio station KCBS. Tompkins was appointed as sports director at KPIX-TV, a CBS television affiliate in San Francisco. He came to New York in 1974 to work as a sports anchor and feature reporter for WNBC-TV, before joining NBC Sports in 1975 to host weekly radio shows and television play-by-play for basketball and football. Tompkins worked for NBC for five years. In 1978, Tompkins moved to San Francisco and became sports director at then-NBC station KRON-TV, while continuing to cover Pac-10 basketball for NBC and feature stories for its NFL pre-game show. In 1980, he left KRON to join the fledgling cable channel HBO.
Tompkins joins HBO Boxing alongside Larry Merchant and Sugar Ray Leonard. For many years, he called fights for HBO, and some of his calls became famous, such as when Alexis Argüello was hurt by Aaron Pryor in round fourteen of their Battle of the Champions, or when Héctor Camacho was buckled by Edwin Rosario in round five of their fight (Camacho had never been hurt before!). and when Mike Tyson won the WBC World Heavyweight title by knocking out Trevor Berbick in the second round. Tompkins also co-hosted the baseball show Race for the Pennant on HBO. Despite the fact that Tompkins had two years left on his contract, HBO replaced him in 1988 with Jim Lampley. Tompkins worked for HBO for ten years.
In Rocky IV, Tompkins makes his acting debut as a USA Network sportscaster during the Rocky Balboa-Ivan Drago fight in 1985. Later, he moved to the ESPN network, where he co-anchored Thursday Night Fights with Al Bernstein. He also competed in college basketball, the French Open, and numerous other tennis competitions, the Tour de France, the World Track and Field, Swimming and Diving Championships, and the World Gymnastics Championships. Throughout that time, he was “The Voice” of Pac 10 (now 12) Conference football for numerous syndicators. Tompkins worked for ESPN for eight years.
In 1995, Tompkins left ESPN to join Fox Sports as the Sunday Night Fights play-by-play commentator, and he began touring the United States with Sean O’Grady and Rich Marotta. Through 2011, Tompkins was the principal play-by-play commentator for FSN’s coverage of Pac-12 football with Petros Papadakis and basketball. He also provided commentary for most of FSN’s poker coverage, such as the Aussie Millions and the Poker Dome Challenge. Tompkins worked for Fox Sports for fourteen years. Tompkins stated in July 2011 that he will depart Pac-12 football broadcasts to become the new play-by-play man for the WAC Sports Network, which was entering its second season. Tompkins’ combat obligations and college basketball games on FSN were not interrupted. During the 2011 season, Tompkins co-anchored nine programs with Joe Glenn.
After the WAC Sports Network dissolved in 2011, Tompkins became a free agent in college football sports broadcasting for 2012. He was hired by the Mountain West Conference as their primary play-by-play announcer for the new MWC regional package on Time Warner Cable SportsNet (which began after Mtn collapsed in the spring of 2012). Jay Leeuwenburg was assigned to him as his color analyst. On February 18, 2012, Tompkins joined Showtime Sports as the voice of the network’s ShoBox and ShoExtreme series with veteran analyst Steve Farhood. He joined the Dominican University of California faculty in 2013 as a professor in the Communications Department. He continues to work for Time Warner Network and Comcast on college football and basketball.
Barry Tompkins’s Net Worth
Barry has an estimated net worth of 1 million dollars.