Joe was raised in the St. Louis area, where he attended St. Louis Country Day School. And later he then joined Indiana University Bloomington, a public research university located in Bloomington, Indiana. He graduated in 1991 with a B.A. in English and a minor in telecommunications.  He made his debut to the broadcasting career in 1989. He started to broadcast when he was still undergraduate at the university. He did his first broadcasting when he did the play-by-play for one inning of a Cardinals-Mets game on his 18th birthday when his dad left the booth and told him to take over. Began broadcasting career by calling play-by-play for Louisville Redbirds, a Cardinals minor-league team; began calling Cardinals games on KMOX TV and radio in 1991.

Buck was hired by Fox in 1994 and at the age of 25 became the youngest man ever to announce a regular slate of National Football League games on network television. NFL was produced by Fox Sports and televised on the Fox Broadcasting Company (Fox).

He became Fox's lead play-by-play voice for Major League Baseball in 1996, teaming with Tim McCarver. Before joining Fox, he was known as play-by-play in minor league in Louisville Redbirds and he reported for ESPN while covering for Triple-A All Star Game. He was reporting for CBS telecasts, KMOX radio.  In University of Missouri Basketball, in 1992-1993 where he was the voice of play by play broadcast.  He did not stop to call for Cardinals games even after joining Fox Sports.  He started working with his father at KMOX and he worked afterwards with FSN Midwest.  In 2008, he quit for Cardinals for the Telecasts of the FSN Midwest. This was the first time that a Buck family member was not a member of the broadcasting crew since 1960.

He became the play-by-play man on the network's #4 NFL broadcast team with Tim Green as his color commentator. After working as a commentator for several of years, he became the top play-by-play man of Fox in 2002. He currently works teaming with Troy Aikman as a color commentator and Erin Andrews as the sideline reporter. He has hosted Fox's pregame NFL show, Fox NFL Sunday and postgame doubleheader show on August 14, 2006. He teamed with Greg Norman and anchored Fox's new package of United State Golf Association telecasts, most prominently the U.S. Open tournament in April 2014.

Joe also hosted an HBO series, Joe Buck Live, which was canceled after three episodes; the 2009 premiere was infamously hijacked by comic Artie Lange. Two more episodes aired in 2009. In March 2010, Buck told a St. Louis radio station that HBO might be planning to cancel Joe Buck Live, adding that he "won't really miss" the program and that it involved "a lot more effort and hassle than I ever expected". HBO subsequently confirmed the show's cancellation to Broadcasting & Cable.