''The Herd with Colin Cowherd'' is a

sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...

talk radio Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often featu ...

show hosted by

Colin Cowherd Colin Murray Cowherd (born January 6, 1964) is an American sports media personality. Cowherd began his broadcasting career as sports director of Las Vegas television station KVBC and as a sports anchor on several other stations before joining ...

Fox Sports Radio Fox Sports Radio is an American sports radio network. Based in Los Angeles, California, the network is operated and managed by Premiere Networks in a content partnership with Fox Corporation's Fox Sports division and iHeartMedia, parent compan ...

and

Fox Sports 1 Fox Sports 1 (FS1) is an American pay television channel owned by the Fox Sports Media Group, a unit of Fox Corporation. FS1 replaced the motorsports network Speed on August 17, 2013, at the same time that its companion channel Fox Sports 2 ...

. The show features commentary on the day's sports news, perspective on other news stories, and interviews with celebrities, sports analysts and sports figures.

History

KFXX AM, ESPN Radio & ESPNU (2001-2015)

The Herd first aired on KFXX AM in 2001. The show joined

ESPN Radio ESPN Radio, which is alternately platform-agnostically branded as ESPN Audio, is an American sports radio network and extension of the ESPN television network. It was launched on January 1, 1992, under the original banner of "SportsRadio ESPN ...

in 2004, rebranding as The Herd With Colin Cowherd, and four years later in 2008 would later be simulcast on

ESPNU ESPNU is an American multinational digital cable and satellite sports television channel owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between the Disney Media Networks division of The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and the He ...

and

ESPNews ESPNews (pronounced "ESPN News", stylized ESPNEWS) is an American multinational digital cable and satellite television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between the Disney Media Networks division of The Walt Disney Company (which owns ...

. During its run on

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

, Cowherd was joined by on-air by producers Vincent Kates, David Fisch and Tom Wassell, and guest hosted by personalities such as

Doug Gottlieb Douglas Mitchell Gottlieb (born January 15, 1976) is an American basketball analyst and sports talk radio host. He played both NCAA collegiate basketball, twice leading the nation in assists, and professional basketball (including USBL; leading ...

. ''

ESPN Radio SportsCenter ''ESPN Radio SportsCenter'' is a news recap segment on ESPN Radio that airs during talk programming and sometimes live games coverage, usually by separate anchors. There are two updates an hour, at the top of the hour and 30 minutes past. Backg ...

'' updates during the show were performed by Dan Davis. The show was heavily sponsored by

Subway Subway, Subways, The Subway, or The Subways may refer to: Transportation * Subway, a term for underground rapid transit rail systems * Subway (underpass), a type of walkway that passes underneath an obstacle * Subway (George Bush Intercontin ...

, with the guest caller line being dubbed the "

Fresh Take Hotline". On his March 5, 2010 show, Cowherd announced that Amanda Gifford would be leaving ''The Herd'' to become a "suit". Additionally, the show was cut back one hour, airing three hours, from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Fox Sports Radio & FS1 (2015-Present)

Following controversial statements regarding the level of intelligence needed to understand the game of

Baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

and the education level of players from various countries,

and his show were pulled from

and

on July 24, 2015, as Cowherd exited the network. After Cowherd joined

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the F ...

, ''The Herd'' moved to the

Premiere Networks Premiere Networks (formerly Premiere Radio Networks, shortened as PRN) is an American media company, a wholly owned subsidiary of iHeartMedia, for which it currently serves as its main original radio content distribution and production arm. ...

-distributed Fox Sports Radio network, airing from 12:00 to 3:00 p.m. ET. Its television simulcast also moved to FS1. Fox Sports 1 airs a daily highlight show, ''The Best Thing I Herd'', while a weekly highlight show, ''The Best Thing I Herd This Week'', is posted on the program's

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

channel.

On April 25, 2018, co-host Kristine Leahy announced her departure from the show to host her own program on FS1. Her final episode was April 26, 2018. Following her departure, Joy Taylor became the full-time co-host and news correspondent for the program. Taylor remained in this role for four years until leaving in 2022 to become the co-host of Speak for Yourself, and was replaced by current co-host Jason McIntyre.

Content

Cowherd calls his show a football show "first and foremost", with most of the discussions centered around the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the majo ...

and

College Football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football in the United States, American football rules first gained populari ...

. ''The Herd'' also focuses on the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball sports league, league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues i ...

, but to a lesser degree. Other sports, such as

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (A ...

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

, the

Olympics The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

and

Mixed Martial Arts Mixed martial arts (MMA), sometimes referred to as cage fighting, no holds barred (NHB), and ultimate fighting, and originally referred to as Vale Tudo is a full-contact combat sport based on striking, grappling and ground fighting, incor ...

are discussed usually during important times of the year (such as the World Series in Major League Baseball, March Madness in college basketball, etc.) The show is a mix of Cowherd's own analysis alongside interviews with guests. Regular segments throughout the week include "Where Colin was Right/Where Colin was Wrong", "Hunch or Lunch", "The Blazin' 5" and "The Herd Hierarchy." He always ends his show with a final segment called "best for last." Cowherd used to take phone calls, but ended that practice a few years into his run while on Fox Sports.

Regular guests

;Current * Peter King * Greg Cosell * Joe Buck * Joel Klatt * Jay Glazer * Peter Schrager * Daniel Cormier * Jim Jackson * Mike Joy * Champ Bailey *

Eric Mangini Eric Anthony Mangini (born January 19, 1971) is a former American football coach and current television sports analyst. Mangini had been with the San Francisco 49ers since 2013 and served as the team's tight ends coach for two seasons before b ...

* Chris Broussard * Nick Wright * Nick Swisher * Ric Bucher ;Former *

Brian Billick Brian Harold Billick (born February 28, 1954) is an American former football coach and commentator. He was the offensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings from 1994 to 1998; the team broke the NFL scoring record in the 1998 season. He th ...

Trey Wingo Hal Chapman Wingo III (; born September 19, 1963), known as Trey Wingo, is the former co-host of ESPN '' Golic and Wingo'', '' SportsCenter'', and ''NFL Live''. He has previously served as host of the Women's NCAA basketball tournament. He curre ...

and

Mark Schlereth Mark Fremont Schlereth (; born January 25, 1966) is a former professional American football player and current television and radio sportscaster. Schlereth played guard in the NFL for 12 seasons (1989–2000) with the Washington Redskins and Den ...

– "The Simultaneous Game" is on during the NFL season every Thursday. * Sal Paolantonio * Herman Edwards * RJ Bell – Every Friday during the NFL season, Cowherd does his "Blazin Five" in which he picks five games against the spread. Bell is a guest at 12:45pm EST to give his Vegas insight on Cowherd's picks. *

Adam Schefter Adam Schefter (born December 21, 1966) is an American sports writer and television analyst. After graduating from University of Michigan and Northwestern University with degrees in journalism, Schefter wrote for several newspapers, including '' ...

Chris Mortensen Chris Mortensen (born November 7, 1951) is an American journalist providing reports for ESPN's '' Sunday NFL Countdown'', ''Monday Night Countdown'', ''SportsCenter'', ESPN Radio, and ESPN.com. Early life Mortensen attended North Torrance ...

* Stephen A. Smith – ESPN New York * Tedy Bruschi – ESPN Boston * Larry King * Jason Whitlock * Joe Torre * Cris Carter *Jason McIntyre

Controversies

*Eddie Guerrero's Death – In November 2005, Cowherd was criticized by former ESPN

ombudsman An ombudsman (, also ,), ombud, ombuds, ombudswoman, ombudsperson or public advocate is an official who is usually appointed by the government or by parliament (usually with a significant degree of independence) to investigate complaints and at ...

, George Solomon for his treatment of the death of

World Wrestling Entertainment World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., d/b/a as WWE, is an American professional wrestling promotion. A global integrated media and entertainment company, WWE has also branched out into other fields, including film, American football, and var ...

(WWE) wrestler

Eddie Guerrero Eduardo Gory Guerrero Llanes (October 9, 1967 – November 13, 2005) was an American professional wrestler. He was a prominent member of the Guerrero wrestling family, being the son of first-generation wrestler Gory Guerrero. Eddie Guerrero ...

. Colin was quoted as saying "he passed away doing

steroid A steroid is a biologically active organic compound with four rings arranged in a specific molecular configuration. Steroids have two principal biological functions: as important components of cell membranes that alter membrane fluidity; and ...

s", implying that Guerrero's death had been caused by steroid use. According to Dr. Kathryn Berg, the assistant chief medical examiner for Hennepin County in Minnesota, the autopsy showed that Guerrero died from a hardening and narrowing of the arteries that supply blood and oxygen to the heart. *Using Un-attributed Material – In March 2006, Cowherd was criticized for using a joke on his show that was posted on the "M Zone", a

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

fan

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in Reverse ...

without crediting it. Cowherd later apologized on-air and gave the M Zone full credit for the material. The M Zone response: "He was very cool about everything. This incident is now resolved and over." *''The Herd'' Knocks Blog Offline – On April 5, 2007, listeners of The Herd knocked The Big Lead blog site offline. Cowherd directed his listeners to access the web site home page simultaneously (emulating a

denial of service attack In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host conne ...

), which resulted in a massive increase in traffic. The blog site's servers were not capable of handling so many users at one time so the site was knocked off-line for approximately 96 hours. ESPN's new

Ombudsman An ombudsman (, also ,), ombud, ombuds, ombudswoman, ombudsperson or public advocate is an official who is usually appointed by the government or by parliament (usually with a significant degree of independence) to investigate complaints and at ...

, Le Anne Schreiber wrote an article sharing her (negative) opinion of Cowherd's actions. Schreiber contacted Traug Keller, a

senior vice president A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on ...

at ESPN Radio, and Keller indicated that Cowherd would face no disciplinary action for the stunt, because there had been no policy against such a tactic at the time. To prevent this from happening again, Keller instituted a zero tolerance policy of such activities in the future. *Sean Taylor's Murder – Cowherd was criticized for comments made regarding the circumstances surrounding

Sean Taylor Sean Michael Maurice Taylor (April 1, 1983 – November 27, 2007) was an American football safety for the Washington Redskins of the National Football League (NFL). He was selected fifth overall in the 2004 NFL Draft by the Redskins, where he ...

's death. On November 28, 2007, one day after Taylor's home invasion murder, Cowherd claimed that Taylor's past had brought this upon himself, and that Redskins fans who mourned him were not "grown ups." Cowherd stated about Taylor's turnaround; "Well, yeah, just because you clean the rug doesn't mean you got everything out. Sometimes you've got stains, stuff so deep it never ever leaves." Taylor's death was later found to be the result of a botched robbery, and the robbers hadn't known Taylor was home when they entered. *Lavar Ball – Cowherd was criticized for how he handled Lavar Ball during an interview on May 17, 2017. While interviewing Ball, Kristine Leahy chimed in with her own thoughts and opinions. Ball never looked at her, telling her, without eye contact, to "stay in her lane." Cowherd continued the interview, not scolding him for his behavior, which the media later deemed sexist and misogynistic. The next episode, Cowherd and Leahy spoke of the incident during one of the first segments, with Cowherd stating he didn't say anything because Leahy is a strong woman who can defend herself and that if Ball did anything deemed inappropriate, he would have ended the interview immediately. Leahy agreed with Cowherd's assessment. Ball returned to the show June 12, 2018, with a now-departed Leahy replaced by Joy Taylor this time.

Reception

Colin has been viewed as a somewhat polarizing figure, and his audience has varying opinions of his program, from "the best daily sports talk show" to "Awful. No one wants to hear that". The show has been praised for Colin's on-air honesty and unfiltered persona. Deadspin praised Cowherd's performance on the show as producing the highest percentage of correct predictions of all media pundits in 2021. However, he was also criticized for being self-contradictory, being unfunny during his attempts at humor, as well as not featuring many interviews from sports figures, his tendency to lean towards discussing more controversial topics on-air, and copying the style of Jim Rome. Following the move to

and

, Gabe Zaldivar of

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

found many faults with the program, focusing on the indulgently large studio, Jason Whitlock's Whitlock Wednesdays weekly segment, which he described as being "as exciting as your uncles fighting over who ate the last doughnut", and Kristine Leahy's lack of opportunities to speak as co-host. He did however note that on September 28, 2015, The Herd outperformed both The Dan Patrick Show on NBC Sports Network and

The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz ''The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz'' is a syndicated sports talk show hosted by Dan Le Batard and Jon "Stugotz" Weiner broadcast out of Miami. It was also carried on many ESPN Radio Network affiliates nationwide and simulcast nationally on v ...

in terms of viewership.

Guest hosts

While on ESPN the regular fill-ins for Cowherd were

Dave Rothenberg David Rothenberg is a sports talk radio host. Currently, he hosts D&R (DiPietro and Rothenberg) and The Dave Rothenberg Show on ESPN New York 98.7 FM. his nicknames include “Mr. 1.5” and “Girth Brooks.” Career In 1999, Rothenberg start ...

, Ryan Ruocco,

Jorge Sedano Jorge Sedano is an American sports broadcaster and talk show host. He began his career in 1999 and is currently a radio and television personality at ESPN. Background Jorge was born in New York and raised in Miami, Florida. He attended Monsign ...

, Linda Cohn, Adnan Virk, and Ryen Russillo. The fill-ins during his FOX tenure are Nick Wright and

. Former women's golfer turned broadcaster Holly Sonders fill in for Taylor.

Awards

On December 19, 2005, ''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence tw ...

'' named Cowherd "Radio Personality of the Year". Cowherd was lauded by columnist Richard Deitch for providing "an engaging mix of entertainment, information, and reportage.

References

External links

The Herd
on

The Herds Word
{{DEFAULTSORT:Herd with Colin Cowherd American sports radio programs ESPN Radio programs Fox Sports 1 original programming Simulcasts Television series based on radio series Sirius XM Radio programs 2008 American television series debuts 2000s American television news shows 2010s American television news shows 2020s American television news shows American sports television series