A game broadcast is only as good as its announcers, and since their inception in 1988 the Hornets have had quality voices calling their games on both radio and television. The 2018-19 season marks the first time Charlotte’s NBA fans will not hear the familiar voice of Steve Martin coming from either their radios or television sets. An integral part of Hornets basketball from the beginning, Martin spent portions of the last 30 years in both mediums working with a host of analysts.
In the early years, Martin was joined on the radio by analyst Gil McGregor. From 1988-2002, Martin and McGregor were stalwarts of Hornets broadcasts, first on radio, then on television. When Martin moved to the television broadcast in the 1990s, the radio play-by-play role was filled by Matt Pinto and later Bob Licht. McGregor, who also moved between radio and television, shared analyst responsibilities with former Hornets center Mike Gminski and Gerry Vaillancourt.
When the NBA returned to Charlotte in 2004, so did Martin, spending three years on radio, eight years on television and another three years on radio before retiring after the 2017-18 season. Beginning in 2009, former Hornets great Dell Curry joined Martin on the television broadcast. Curry enters his 10th season in 2018-19, where he teams with Stephanie Ready, a 14-year veteran of Charlotte’s TV broadcast, and Eric Collins.
