Colin Cowherd has been on the national sports talk radio airwaves for several decades, but before his show became available for listeners from coast to coast, it started in Portland, Ore. on KFXX 910 AM. Cowherd anchored a three-hour morning drive program aptly titled “The Herd” beginning in 2001, and he made the transition to ESPN Radio three years later where his program aired on the West Coast for an hour per day.
Over the summer, Cowherd achieved a milestone in securing his 400th affiliate for the national radio program. If not the same outlet he started with, it was a radio station in Portland that put the show over the threshold — marking a proverbial full-circle moment for the longtime host.
Derek Futterman of Sports Media Watch caught up with Cowherd to discuss the achievement, the evolution of his show and thoughts on the future. This interview is edited for length and clarity.
Sports Media Watch: Rip City Radio 620 is now carrying “The Herd” in morning drive, marking the show’s 400th affiliate. How significant is it for you and the program to reach this seminal milestone?
Colin Cowherd: That’s a lot of affiliates. That’s, I think, one of the things I’m proudest of with, my show. I don’t monitor the every-day ratings, but it’s usually, I think, the highest rated on a TV network, and it’s also on a radio network simultaneously, and then it becomes a podcast. I don’t have a lot of scarcity, I’m in a lot of places, and yet all the platforms do pretty well.
I think I just feel very fortunate that affiliates pick me up. They don’t have to. There’s a lot of different people out there that are on, including local shows, so any time a local affiliate puts me on, it’s a big deal.
Sports Media Watch: Since the show moved to Fox Sports and iHeartMedia in 2012, it has been rooted in television while being simulcast on national radio. How do you and co-host Jason McIntyre work to create a broadcast product amenable to both platforms?
Colin Cowherd: When you do a TV-radio simulcast, the key is pace. You can’t be a plodding show, and so if you do an up-pace show, a fast show, you’ll have days or sentences that are imperfect, but I think the pace of our show is really good, and JMac deserves credit, our staff, because it’s not on script, so they have to kind of follow me and know when to drop video and know when not to. I don’t think it’s the easiest show to produce from a TV standpoint, but our staff does a great job.
Sports Media Watch: How do you go about measuring audience interest surrounding different topics?
Colin Cowherd: There are brands that are simply more popular — and I think in radio, it wouldn’t matter as much — but in cable TV, I get minute-by-minute ratings. I can tell every minute what people like or don’t like, so I always think it’s arrogant to think, ‘Oh, I’m just going to talk about whatever I want to talk about.’ I have a popular show, but if I just decided, ‘I’m doing 30 minutes on hockey,’ my audience, probably more than half, would leave. So I think the ultimate respect of the audience is talk about what they want to talk about, the brands they love.
Sports Media Watch: Once the show is completed, how do you evaluate your performance and position yourself for improvement?
Colin Cowherd: I’m not somebody that does a show and goes back and watches or listens to it. I couldn’t tell you what I talked about on Wednesday. I just think the next show is the most important show, and I’ve always been like that. I don’t romanticize sports — to me, it’s the next show is the most important, and it’s masonry. It’s just repetitive details and repetitive discipline and coming to work every day and doing that hour-and-a-half to two hours of prep, and nobody’s perfect.
Earlier in the year, Cowherd signed what was reported to be a three-year contract extension to continue working with Fox Sports. A few months later, FS1 modified its weekday lineup by inking a content deal with Barstool Sports that has introduced the new morning program titled “Wake Up Barstool,” which features a rotation of contributors such as Dave Portnoy, T-Bob Hebert and Brandon Walker. Once the live edition of the two-hour program finishes, the show immediately re-airs as an encore edition leading into Cowherd’s three-hour show at noon ET.
Nick Wright, Chris Broussard and Kevin Wildes subsequently host First Things First live from New York City after Cowherd’s show concludes at 3 PM ET. The three-hour show closes out the programming lineup in weekday prime hours before leading into other sports offerings at night.
Sports Media Watch: What are your takeaways from the new FS1 lineup thus far?
Colin Cowherd: Between Nick Wright’s show and mine, two shows take up six hours. At ESPN, that would probably be like four shows, right, or five shows, so we eat up a lot of innings. Barstool just started out, and I’m prepping when they’re on the air. I see what they look like, but Barstool’s made their bones on digital and podcasting, so now they’re transitioning to TV, and TV’s hard.
And also on television, it’s got to look the part, so TV, there’s a lot of elements to it. It’s, ‘Does it look big?’ For instance, “Get Up” looks big. I could turn the sound down on “Get Up” and the production quality, it looks big, so it takes a while to tweak all these shows. My look has been refined through the years, same with “First Things First.”
So Barstool is brand new, and they’ve already made some tweaks to it, and I think it’ll be fine. The more Big Cat’s on it, the better. He’s obviously a big personality.
Sports Media Watch: Why did you decide to sign a contract extension with FOX Sports?
Colin Cowherd: I think television and podcasting go together very well. Fox is a great partner. They treat me incredibly well. It’s the best corporate management structure I’ve ever worked for. They really allow me a lot of space and creative authority on the show, they treat my staff very well. I feel very lucky. I don’t think there’s a sportscaster in the country that is treated as well. I’m sure there’s many that are treated equally well, but I am very fortunate.
Sports Media Watch: How much do the executives at FOX Sports seek out your opinion regarding its programming? Why do you feel you are a trusted resource?
Colin Cowherd: I’m not going to say what they asked my opinion on, but I would say through the years, they’ve asked my opinion on things or given me a heads up on things, and I always appreciate it. I know I have an opinion on stuff that works or doesn’t work, but yeah. They’ve always been — Eric Shanks, he’s asked my opinion more than a few times, and I always appreciate that.
Cowherd is part of a growing list of sports media personalities who have more control over their content by establishing independent companies. The Volume initially launched in 2021 with a portfolio of sports podcasts, but it has since expanded into other disciplines such as music and culture.
Sports Media Watch: How meaningful is it to have a strong staff as you have built The Volume?
Colin Cowherd: I’m not kidding you — I would put my Volume staff against any company. We have a certain analytic we use when we do our podcasts, and right now, we don’t have a single podcast losing money, which I think is pretty rare. Our hit rate right now is we’re batting a thousand. We created our own digital sales staff in the last 15 months, and they’re just really talented people.
Sports Media Watch: Two years ago, you stated that The Volume was worth $100 million and revealed that there were people who had explored purchasing the company. How has the valuation changed since that time? Do you think you would ever consider selling all or part of the business?
Colin Cowherd: Well, the revenues have doubled. This year, $60 million in revenues is very well within reach. I want to get to $100 million in revenues — that’s kind of my goal, and I think we’re going to get there. So we’re doing very, very well, and I’m not necessarily interested in selling it. If there was a perfect partnership, I would listen, but I’ve got two corporate sponsors. Do I need a third? So I like some autonomy.
Sports Media Watch: In working both as an executive and host, how do you balance your responsibilities and adequately focus on both occupations?
Colin Cowherd: When I wake up in the morning, I try to only be thinking about my show, and then the minute my show is over, I usually make a call to The Volume. I think it would be unfair to Fox and iHeart to wake up in the morning and be thinking about The Volume, so I try to really concentrate. My Volume staff has an 8 a.m. meeting every day, and they go through things. I’m not on that, I’m preparing my show, but the minute my show ends at noon Pacific or 2:00 Central, I get off the air, my first call is to The Volume, so for the rest of the day, that’s my concentration, so I sort of split my day in half that way.
Sports Media Watch: In addition to launching new shows outside of sports, The Volume reached a deal with Nick Wright to bring his “What’s Wright?” podcast to the platform. How do you go about functioning as a competitor to Fox Sports digital while remaining an employee of the network?
Colin Cowherd: Nick deserves the best support on all his platforms, and I think we’re much better at audio and podcasting than Fox, and I think Fox would acknowledge that, so he created his own space for that. He has his own poker rights, he has his podcast rights, he has his TV contract, so he owns separate rights, which is the smart thing to do. I’ve got it, [Pat] McAfee’s got some of that too, right? That’s the way to do it.
Sports Media Watch: The advertising market in sports talk radio has changed over the last decade. How do you help drive value for partners to ensure sustained growth and business?
Colin Cowherd: One of the great advantages I have with The Volume, because I have a partnership with iHeart, is that if an advertiser says, ‘Okay, we’ve got a million dollars,’ but they want to put 60% of it on a podcast, well then I’ve got 15-20 podcasts at The Volume, so they can put it on my show, they can put it on The Volume, and that’s a real big thing. That’s a huge advantage.
A lot of advertisers, they want to put as much or more of that million dollars on podcast, and I can offer that. I can say, ‘Hey, we can do it digitally, we can do it in radio,’ so that’s been a big advantage for several years. That’s been a sneaky advantage to my show in my business is The Volume allows big advertisers to come in, and we can cover all the bases, not just radio.
Cowherd recently traveled to Rhode Island for the company’s quarterly meeting and left feeling like he “could have touched the moon.” The euphoric sentiments from that meeting underscored the belief he has in the team he has compiled at The Volume as the firm looks to drive value and satisfy its consumers and sponsors. Cowherd understands the value proposition of The Volume in the marketplace spans beyond the bottom line, and he views his own success as a reflection on the happiness and growth of others while continuing to be present for his family.
Sports Media Watch: What are you most excited about as you continue moving forward in the media business?
Colin Cowherd: I’m just watching my company explode and grow, and that’s just an incredibly – I’m very prideful of that. In radio and TV, I’m part of a company, but I’m responsible for 60 employees and growing, and that’s often 60 families, so there’s a certain responsibility to The Volume where I feel not just a responsibility to people and their families and creating a really nice work culture. That’s very exciting for me to be part of people’s lives.
Sports Media Watch: How do you stand out against the rest of the competition on television?
Colin Cowherd: I don’t know — I don’t watch other shows much. I think there are some shows that are maybe better than they get credit for, but I don’t really think about that.
Even Clayton Kershaw in his prime had bad starts. I don’t worry about what people think or what my style is or what separates me. I just try to be consistent, give a lot of information, have strong opinions, and however it stacks up, it stacks up – I mean, I keep signing contracts, so it’s doing something okay.
