There’s a question that most of us have been asking for years: Why is Al Roker so happy, talking about the weather all the time? Also, what’s he pulling down in a year, before taxes?
It turns out that the answers to those two questions might be pretty closely related. See, there’s this website, Celebrity Net Worth, where dozens – maybe hundreds – of trained financial analysts pore over the numbers and give you, the gentle reader, a solid estimate for how much a given celebrity could theoretically spend on Transformers action figures. According to their hypothesis, TV personality and beloved weatherman Al Roker is worth a truly spectacular $70 million. Like, it’s not Matt Lauer money, but still. Wow.
The way they tell it, a lot of that cash comes thanks to a spectacular 5-year, $50 million contract that Roker signed with NBC Universal, keeping him knee deep in engagements on The Today Show and The Weather Channel. It’s the sort of contract that you can negotiate if you’re lucky, persistent, act excited about tourists shouting that they just got engaged super early in the morning four days a week, and stay with the same company for 40 years in one of the most visible positions on network television.
Additionally, Roker has penned a staggering 12 books, covering topics ranging from extreme weather phenomena to weight loss. He’s been in more Sharknado movies than you were aware existed, cameoed on just about every NBC legacy comedy series, including Seinfeld, 30 Rock, and Saturday Night Live. He’s a living institution of American television. Basically, if you were him, you’d probably be smiling too.