The Herd with Colin Cowherd
 | |
| Genre | Sports talk |
|---|---|
| Running time | 3 hours |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Home station | ESPN Radio (2004–2015) Fox Sports Radio (2015–present) |
| Syndicates | Premiere Networks |
| TV adaptations | ESPNU (2008–2011, 2012–2015) ESPNews (2011–2012) Fox Sports 1 (2015–present) |
| Starring | Colin Cowherd Kristine Leahy Joy Taylor |
| Recording studio | Los Angeles, California |
| Original release | March 29, 2004 (ESPN), September 8, 2015 (Fox Sports Radio) – present |
| Opening theme | "Battle Without Honor or Humanity" by Tomoyasu Hotei |
| Website | The Herd with Colin Cowherd iHeartRadio channel |
The Herd with Colin Cowherd is a sports talk radio show hosted by Colin Cowherd on Fox Sports Radio and Fox Sports 1. The show features commentary on the day's sports news, perspective on other news stories, and interviews with celebrities, sports analysts and sports figures.
The program was originally carried by ESPN Radio and simulcast most recently on ESPNU until July 24, 2015 as a result of Cowherd's exit from the network. After Cowherd joined Fox Sports, The Herd moved to the Premiere Networks-distributed Fox Sports Radio network, airing from 12:00 to 3:00 p.m. ET. Its television simulcast also moved to FS1.[1] Fox Sports 1 airs a daily highlight show, The Best Thing I Herd, and YouTube also airs a weekly highlight show, The Best Thing I Herd This Week,[2] hosted by Kristine Leahy, or Joy Taylor.
During its run on ESPN, Cowherd was joined by on-air by producers Vincent Kates, David Fisch and Tom Wassell. Fisch was an All-American high school swimmer, according to his mom. ESPN Radio SportsCenter updates during the show were performed by Dan Davis. On his March 5, 2010 show, Colin 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.
Regular guests
- Current
- Peter King
- Greg Cosell
- Jason Whitlock
- Joel Klatt
- Jay Glazer
- Peter Schrager
- Daniel Cormier
- Jim Jackson
- Champ Bailey
- Former
- Brian Billick
- Trey Wingo and Mark Schlereth - "The Simultaneous Game" is on during the NFL season every Thursday.
- Sal Paolantonio
- Herman Edwards
- RJ Bell - Every Friday During the NFL season, Colin does his "Blazin Five" in which he picks 5 games against the spread. RJ Bell is a guest at 12:45pm EST to give his Vegas insight on Colin's picks.
- Eric Mangini
- Trent Dilfer
- Adam Schefter
- Chris Mortensen
- Stephen A. Smith - ESPN New York
- Tedy Bruschi - ESPN Boston
- Larry King
- Joe Torre
Controversies
- Eddie Guerrero's Death - In November 2005, Cowherd was criticized by former ESPN ombudsman, George Solomon for his treatment of the death of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) wrestler Eddie Guerrero. Colin was quoted as saying "he passed away doing steroids", 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.[3]
- 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 fan blog without crediting it.[4] 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), 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, Le Anne Schreiber wrote an article sharing her (negative) opinion of Cowherd's actions. Schreiber contacted Traug Keller, a Senior Vice President 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.[5]
- Sean Taylor's Murder - Cowherd was criticized for comments made regarding the circumstances surrounding Sean Taylor'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.[6]
Guest hosts
While on ESPN the regular fill-ins for Cowherd were Dave Rothenberg, Ryan Ruocco, Jorge Sedano, Linda Cohn, Adnan Virk and Ryen Russillo. The fill-ins during his FOX tenure were Jason Whitlock, Nick Wright, Jay Onrait and Dan O'Toole.
Awards
On December 19, 2005, Sports Illustrated named Cowherd "Radio Personality of the Year". Cowherd was lauded by columnist Richard Deitch for providing "an engaging mix of entertainment, information, and reportage.[7]
References
- ^ "Colin Cowherd officially signs with Fox; how the network will use him". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved 13 August 2015.
- ^ Best Thing I Herd This Week – via YouTube.
- ^ Solomon, George (December 27, 2005). "Radio aims to be provocative, fair". ESPN. Retrieved 2007-07-13.
- ^ Solomon, George (April 6, 2006). "Vitale still signature face, voice of ESPN hoops". ESPN.com.
- ^ Schreiber, Le Anne (April 8, 2007). "Cowherd's 'attack' on blog: 'Zero tolerance'". ESPN. Retrieved 2007-07-13.
- ^ Schreiber, Le Anne (December 11, 2007). "Proportion, perspective missing ingredients in news coverage". ESPN. Retrieved 2007-12-13.
- ^ Deitch, Richard (December 19, 2007). "2005 Media Awards". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved 2007-07-13.
External links
