GLENDALE, Ariz. — Colin Cowherd seems happier.
Cowherd has been in the national public eye as a broadcaster since joining ESPN Radio in 2003 after stops in Las Vegas, Tampa and Portland. He left ESPN for FS1 in 2015. As he was climbing the rungs to the top of his profession he was always a fascinating broadcaster, but did not always seem like he had inner peace. This angst has given way to “Uncle Colin” — a laid-back moniker that emerged in recent years — who generally seems more at ease.
“I’m the busiest I’ve ever been. I like to be busy,” the 59-year-old Cowherd told The Post last week at the Fox Sports set leading up to the Super Bowl. “I’m wildly in love with my wife. My kids are healthy. It all starts there. You know what I have? Really good support systems, and that allows me to just do content and be in my head all the time. Fox, Premiere (which distributes his show on radio) and my Volume (his multimedia startup) staff are really good at that. Support matters.”
In 2015, Cowherd published a book called “Raw,” which billed his voice as “no holds barred” and “unapologetically controversial.” To hammer home the point, the cover featured him sitting on a bench with a large raw meat carcass hanging beside him. This is not what you see in 2023 when tuning in to watch him on FS1, where he is more likely to deliver an expository explanation of the sporting world rather than a rant.
“I think I’ve matured. I think I pass the ball better,” Cowherd said. “I’ve always said NBA stars come into the league and they have a show-off phase. LeBron was chasing people down and blocking the ball. And then you want to win.
“And then it’s mogul stage. For me, my early stage at ESPN was a lot of, ‘Hey, I’m good at this and you’re gonna hear it.’ I replaced Tony Kornheiser! And then I came to FS1, and it was not much yet. But when you get more comfortable and secure, you want to pass the ball more.”
He particularly felt a lot of pressure to live up to being Kornheiser’s replacement.
“I had to replace this legendary, academic figure,” Cowherd said. “I took my family to a new place — East Coast as a West Coast guy. It was a lot. And then I moved my family to Los Angeles to a new network that didn’t have a lot of bones, and I got into therapy immediately. It was a lot.
“I think I’m a more joyful broadcaster and I think it comes across on the air. I also think I’m a less selfish person. I get so much happiness seeing Joy Taylor, Jason McIntyre and Nick Wright succeed, because I got help. Someone passed me the ball. I never wanted to become a rich, old guy on an island. I want to be surrounded by people that push me, doubt me, question me and support me. It’s just a better life to wake up in the morning knowing that you help people. I wake up every morning happy.”
That marks a change. It helps that Cowherd has become a “made man” in sports media. There are so many people gunning for so few spots on the mountaintop that it requires an obsession with battling real or perceived slights and advancing forward that is not always congruent with inner zen.
“I don’t think I did wake up happy,” he said. “I think I felt … Child of divorce, replacing legends, trying to prove myself … I think it’s made me who I am. But I’ve got a soft spot for kids who are bullied or athletes who are doubted or broadcasters that have to overcome.”
It was a major risk when Cowherd left ESPN for FS1. The first iteration of FS1 failed to make major in-roads. There were some, including Dan Le Batard, who warned Cowherd that he would get lost. Luckily for Le Batard, who has also since left ESPN and launched Meadowlark Media with former ESPN president John Skipper, he was wrong.
For top talents, the proliferation of social media has made audiences more portable. Cowherd’s show isn’t just simulcast on TV and radio; a huge number of people will see snippets from his show on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more. Someone could be watching his show on a 100-inch TV or a three-inch screen — or just listening to it.
Cowherd acknowledged he tweaks the content with all these different viewing and listening platforms in mind.
“ESPN gave up on the simulcast model. It doesn’t really work much [for them],” Cowherd said. “I think it’s all pace. It’s a little bit like Steph Curry and the Warriors. He could play slower and he’d have fewer turnovers and missed shots. But what makes them exhilarating is their pace of play, small ball. If I did a radio show only, it would not sound like this. If I did a TV show only, it wouldn’t quite sound like this. So how do you conjoin them and make it work? I think it’s pace. So, I play fast.
“I’ll mess up a word. I’ll make a mistake. I’ll miss shots. Steph Curry never comes out of a game and keeps track of his missed shots. It’s the makes. When I see a lot of simulcasts that don’t work, it’s because the pace is slow [too geared for radio and not enough for TV]. I’m thinking about somebody’s who’s got a remote. I’m not looking to do a perfect show. I’m looking to do a show that is nimble and moves really quickly, and because of that, I’m gonna have turnovers and miss a few more shots. But we’re gonna move you through a lot of stuff. I want to keep your eyes moving.”
Last month, “The Herd” on FS1 averaged 183,000 viewers per show, its highest month ever in seven and a half years at the network. This came despite the fact that homes subscribed to cable have been plummeting in the same time period.
Cowherd is very happy about things have been going with new co-host Jason McIntyre, who replaced Joy Taylor after she moved to the late afternoon FS1 program, “Speak.” It has been an interesting arc to Cowherd’s partnership with McIntyre. In 2007, Cowherd sent an army of listeners to crash The Big Lead, the site McIntyre founded (where in disclosure I wrote for six years). Cowherd profusely apologized and over the years they’ve become close friends and ultimately developed great on-air chemistry.
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“Jason is very much a little brother feel,” Cowherd said. “He challenges me, but with a smile on his face. What Joy and Jason both have is they can both make me laugh, which is always a big thing. Jason’s had a company and sold it. He’s had a lot of wins. He’s established in the gambling space. So, I’m not too worried about elevation for him.”
While he blushes about this label, Cowherd is a serial entrepreneur. When he was at ESPN, he owned a liquor store in Connecticut. He’s now lent his name to a restaurant chain, “Herd Burger.” Most significantly, he’s launched the multimedia network, The Volume, which hosts podcasts from Draymond Green, Richard Sherman, Daniel Cormier and others. Last week, the newsletter “John Wall Street” reported that Volume had 40 million podcast downloads and 16 million YouTube views per month in 2022. At some point, it feels inevitable that we’ll hear about Volume selling for an eye-popping sum.
“I’m a broadcaster that likes business, but I don’t have any false sense that I’m a business person,” Cowherd said. “There’s a lot of people that are business people. I like business. I think I’m pretty good in the media business at seeing around corners — because I’ve been doing it for 30 years. But, I didn’t go to Wharton. When I’m with a business person, I don’t talk very much. I listen a lot. When I’m around broadcasters, I talk more and they listen more.”
As far as what he wants to accomplish in the rest of his life, Cowherd said his biggest goal is to be present with his family.
“I have a 22-year-old daughter and a 16-year old son. I want to have more connectability that I didn’t have 15 years ago,” he said. “And this doesn’t mean my broadcasting is secondary, but the first thing I do when I get up in the morning is think about my kids and them and my wife are the last thing I think about before bed. That kind of tells me that’s really where my heart’s at.
“I love the broadcasting, and I think I’ve gotten to a point where I don’t have to obsess over it. I’m surrounded by really good management teams. The stuff that I worry about now is just being available to the people I need to be available to. That’s really big. Because I wasn’t always.”