Jason Benetti said the first thing he thought of after Stacey King’s death was the way the former Bulls big man made every broadcast feel like a partnership. Benetti was at Wrigley Field on Sunday to call play-by-play for NBC’s Sunday Night Baseball when the news broke that King had died suddenly at 59.
Benetti said he worked maybe around 30 games alongside King as an alternate on Bulls telecasts, and that King wanted to build a connection even if they were only together for one night. He said King was welcoming to someone he had never been around before, and he remembered King signing autographs for almost an hour after a game. That instinct to stay with people, Benetti said, was part of why King meant so much to Chicago’s broadcast booth.
King spent eight seasons with the Bulls and won three consecutive NBA titles from 1991 to 1993, then became one of the familiar voices around the team. Benetti, who grew up in Homewood, a south suburb of Chicago, said he even played as King in a video game when he was choosing the Bulls, a small sign of how closely tied King was to the franchise for people his age.
The Bulls announced King’s death on Sunday, but no cause was given in the announcement. Benetti also recalled a 2021 White Sox game in which King and Adam Amin worked from the NBC Tower during a 2 1/2 hour rain delay, turning a stalled night into another example of how King could carry a broadcast and keep it loose at the same time.
For Chicago, the loss is immediate and unfinished. King was still part of the conversation around the team this month, including a Nov. 17, 2025 pregame exchange with Patrick Williams in Denver, and now the question left behind is not about his career but about what ended it. Additional testing is needed before the cause of death can be confirmed, and until then the city is left with the easier answer: a champion, a broadcaster and a familiar voice is gone.
