Mike Tirico is at the top of the top of sports broadcasting, working as NBC’s lead voice on the NFL, NBA and Olympics.

But he entered the business the same way as most everyone else, joining ESPN in 1991 as a SportsCenter anchor after four years at a local news affiliate in upstate New York. From there, Tirico worked his way up to calling games and ultimately the Monday Night Football job in 2006.

Ahead of his first Super Bowl call this NFL season, Tirico was recently asked on The Varsity podcast about his thoughts on the growing status of sports broadcasters. At a time when Stephen A. Smith and Tom Brady make as much if not more than the athletes they analyze, Tirico understands that broadcasters have an outsized role in the sports ecosystem these days.

At the same time, Tirico worries that young sports reporters have fewer chances to work within the “middle class” that he was in during the 1990s. And that the kids who are coming up now might be lured down the wrong pathway.

“It almost parallels our country, where the middle class has become tougher to maintain,” Tirico told host John Ourand.

“And it almost parallels sports too, where you have big-ticket star players at the top end of the salary cap and then the bottom end is where you have a lot of the rotation of people coming in, coming out, and who can you find as a young star who can rise through your organization? That’s very different from when I got started, and I think we missed some people, we missed some stars, with that system. We missed the valuable innings, the 10,000 hours that (Malcolm) Gladwell discusses, to hone your craft. I think we missed some of that and (are) not developing stars, but I think overall the industry has evolved in a way that it was hard for any of us to foresee.”

Tirico noted that at NBC, where he shares airtime with many popular news and entertainment programs in primetime, he knows that sports and sports announcers are among the most visible faces in media. However, he believes that while some young broadcasters are being incentivized to pursue that fame and attention, part of his success covering major sports moments comes from the fact that he did not pursue that sort of renown.

“I’m very conscious of how sports is taking that role, and we as the individuals who are the conduit from fan to coach to athlete to player to organization, we have become a bigger part of that over time,” Tirico said. “I don’t think many of us, or any of us, got into it to be recognized at a supermarket or people would like you to sign something.”

Tirico is growing increasingly comfortable using his platform as one of the most prominent veteran voices in sports broadcasting. Whether critiquing the homerism on ESPN or commenting on how to separate social media chatter from the broadcast, Tirico clearly thinks deeply about the state of his industry.

When Tirico returns to his alma mater, Syracuse, he said, he often sees students who want to be the next Stephen A. Smith rather than the next Bob Costas. It’s a far cry from what Tirico saw when he was studying there.

“I do find when I go back to school now, you find more of the students who are interested in being hosts and opinion-makers, and less who are interested in being play-by-play announcers. And I find that really, really fascinating,” Tirico added. “The celebrity factor becomes the magnet, and the coming through the ranks and the meat-and-potatoes is often not there as often as it once was, at least in some of the students that I see who are coming through.”

Between local news and cable television, there are significantly fewer entry-level jobs in sports broadcasting than when Tirico graduated from Syracuse. That means a much narrower pipeline and fewer up-and-coming stars. Meanwhile, the stars who broke through under the old system are cashing in on the explosive growth of the sports industry in the 21st century.