Paul Benedict Sunderland (born March 29, 1952) is an American sportscaster based in Los Angeles, California.Over his broadcast career, Sunderland has covered almost every major sport played in Southern California. He has been a studio host for the local affiliate of Fox Sports Net, was the analyst for professional beach volleyball on both FSN and NBC, and has called Olympic sports and the NBA for NBC.However, his most famous assignment was calling the Los Angeles Lakers telecasts on FSN. In January 2002, he took over as play-by-play announcer when Chick Hearn took a leave of absence due to a heart procedure. Hearn had called 3,338 consecutive Laker games, including playoffs. Sunderland called 17 games until Hearn returned. When Hearn died in August 2002, Sunderland returned to the Lakers, this time for good, paired with Stu Lantz. In the 2002-03 season, the team retained the simulcasts that began under Hearn's tenure. The following year, the Lakers split the broadcasts and Sunderland and Lantz called games only for television (FSN and KCAL-TV). In the summer of 2005, Sunderland was released by the Lakers and replaced by Joel Meyers.Sunderland continued to do the Southern California Sports Report, but FSN West cancelled the show at the end of 2005. He called college basketball games for Fox Sports Net until 2012 when he joined the Pac-12 Network as their college basketball announcer. Sunderland served as the play-by-play announcer for NBC Sports coverage of indoor volleyball at the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics.Sunderland was a member of the 1984 United States Olympic volleyball team that won the gold medal at the Los Angeles Olympics. Among his teammates were eventual broadcast partner Chris Marlowe and volleyball legends Karch Kiraly and Steve Timmons.He has also covered various events for Universal Sports, including track and field's Diamond League.
$500,000