Once upon a time, Tim Sinclair studied architecture at the University of Illinois, but today he’s the voice of the Chicago Bulls in the house that Michael Jordan built, and all because he needed to earn a few dollars.
“I never dreamed of using my voice to make a living, until I needed a part-time job – to earn money, at university – and I decided asked, “Who do I know who would be stupid enough to hire me for 5 or 6 years?” hours a week,” Sinclair recalls. “I happened to know a guy who ran a radio station and he would just say, ‘Can I help?’ »
It was 1997, and the answer was yes. Then, a decade later, Sinclair said yes when someone asked him if he would do public announcements for Illini Baseball. Soon he was on the microphone for several Illini Sports, and the future architect had built a career as an announcer.
“When someone said to me, ‘I want to do public address for Illinois,’ I could have said ‘Eehh, that’s not my thing, eehh, I don’t know if I’m going to be good in this area,’” he said. Instead, I thought, “Sure, that sounds fun, let’s try it.” And I tried. And I wasn’t very good, but I got better, and it opened up a career path for me that I never could have seen. .”
Two and a half decades later, Sinclair makes a living doing PA work. He is under contract with four teams; the Bulls, Bears, Fire and Illini Men’s Basketball. Add in NBA All-Star festivities and IHSA championships, and he attends more than 100 events each year. That’s a lot of games and a lot of names. His favorite that he tells regularly?
“It’s Ayo (Dosunmu) or DeMar (DeRozan),” Sinclair says. “Ayo because of our longevity, because I’ve known him for so long and been able to call his name for so long and it’s become a thing, and DeMar because most people repeat it to me. If they remind me, they always say: “DeMar DeRozan!”
Sure, the central Illinois native has gigs with a handful of teams, but it’s his gig with the Bulls that has made him the most recognizable. You can hear his booming voice during a game, or on TV when watching a game, or even when playing a game. Sinclair is the voice of every game played at the United Center in the NBA2K video game series .
On top of that, the 45-year-old recently appeared in a national commercial for State Farm Insurance, so if fans only knew his voice, they now know his face too. And they also know that singing is not his strong suit!
“I went there, and the director was talking to me right before I went on set, and he said, ‘You’re going to do this, you’re going to do this, and then you look here, and then you sing.’ the jingle.’ ‘one saying to me, ‘What, question mark, exclamation point? What’s going on in the world?’. And it’s fun to know that people see it.
Sinclair says that when he does sound work, his goal is to reflect what the crowd is feeling, and that’s easy to do because he’s just like everyone else sitting in the seats.
“I don’t want to be an actor,” he says. “I don’t want to be a role-playing guy. I’m a fan and I think people can tell if I’m giving some kind of fake performance or fake excitement about something that’s happening.
It seems to work. Sinclair is busier than ever, fans tell him they love his job, and after missing a recent Bulls game, center Nikola Vucevic told him the energy at the United Center just isn’t the same without him.
Once upon a time, life’s plan was to build, but Sinclair clearly made the right choice by using his voice.
