Roberts joined NBC in May 2000 after serving as a sports reporter for almost 12 years at ESPN, where he won 11 Sports Emmy Awards. Roberts has worked 10 Olympic Games in his broadcasting career. At the Olympics for NBC, he hosts a nightly feature called the Chevy Olympic Moments, which talk about a different athlete or the history of a certain place at an Olympics.
Roberts is also the interviewer for NBC's golf coverage, in addition to hosting the halftime show for Notre Dame football, being one of the main anchors for NBC's weekend sports updates, and anchoring the network's coverage of the Wimbledon Championships. Roberts has won two Emmys since joining NBC. His journalism career began in 1975 when he started as a newspaper reporter. Roberts also worked under Howard Cosell as a writer and producer at ABC.
At the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, Roberts attended the Miracle on Ice game between the United States and the Soviet Union. Apparently, Roberts was hoping to see a girl he noticed earlier in the Games, but when she never showed, he left before the U.S. comeback. Today, Roberts often tries to work this anecdote into speaking engagements. He is apparently the only journalist covering the game who left before it ended.
Roberts and his wife, Sandra Meyer, have three sons, and they all live in Westchester County, New York. His writing is regarded as some of the best in all of broadcast journalism. He is a graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park.
Roberts hosted and narrated the Outdoor Life Network's coverage of the 2005 Dakar Rally.
Roberts' sister-in-law, Debbie Mayer, worked in the south tower on the 56th floor at New York City's World Trade Center. Immediately after American Airlines Flight 11 (the first aircraft of the September 11, 2001 attacks) struck the north tower, Mayer began going downstairs to leave the building. She had gotten to the 29th floor when the second aircraft struck, hitting the building she worked in. However, Mayer escaped safely before the towers collapsed.
"We had a couple of very anxious hours. My wife couldn't get through to Debbie. Finally, she went to her Manhattan apartment to wait for her. And she found her there. Turns out when the first explosion occurred in Building 1, Debbie started down the stairs. She had made it to the 29th floor when the building was shaken when the second plane hit. She was terrified but made it out."
During his time at Maryland, Roberts worked at the popular campus hangout, R.J. Bentley's Filling Station; one of his Sports Emmys is on display there.
On June 15, 2006, Ralph Roberts, 82, Jimmy's father went missing from his home west of Lake Worth, Florida. According to a June 16, 2006 article published in The Palm Beach Post, the elder Roberts was found a day later after being pulled over for driving under the speed limit. Family members said he was in the early stages of dementia, the paper reported.
