NBA Jam Actor Says He Was Paid ‘Like $800’ to Voice the Game’s Beloved Announcer

Now, 32 years later, boomshakalaka is still the kind of celebration basketball fans love to quote. At the time, though, Kitzrow’s work on NBA Jam seemed like any other voice acting gig. Without an agent and his pinball work usually netting “a few hundred bucks at best,” he says his work on Midway’s sports video game seemed like any other job.

“It was $50 an hour,” Kitzrow said. “Same as the pinball. I’d go in, do a couple of sessions – maybe 15 hours total – and that was it. I wasn’t smart enough, savvy enough to know the business, to go, ‘Gee, these games make a lot of money, maybe I should make more than $50 an hour.’”

It wasn’t until after NBA Jam launched to tremendous success that Kitzrow realized he may have been denied an easy layup.

“When the game came out and I found out it made a billion dollars, that’s when I realised I’d made like 800-and-change, maybe something like that,” he said with a laugh. “I thought, ‘Well, I’m probably being underpaid. I might want to raise my rate.’”