Confirming what had been widely rumored and speculated for the past month, Colin Cowherd’s move to Fox Sports has now been confirmed by both Jim Miller and The Hollywood Reporter.
The former ESPN personality has signed a four-year deal with the network that, in addition to his radio show and simulcast on Fox Sports 1, will include a role on Fox NFL Kickoff, which is going from FS1 to the regular Fox network and will broadcast Sundays at 11 a.m. ET beginning in September.
Deal for @ColinCowherd will be Fox network, FS1 & syndicated radio on Premiere. Again, $ from @espn were competitive. This was creative move
— James Andrew Miller (@JimMiller) August 12, 2015
THR also reported that Cowherd, who has already relocated to Los Angeles, is expected to get a nightly show on Fox Sports 1 next year. His first appearance on FS1 will be the network’s college football opener featuring Utah hosting Michigan, with his radio show debuting five days later on Sept. 8.
Look for @ColinCowherd to start September 3 on @umichfootball at @UUtah pregame show (w/ Harbaugh). Radio gig will start September 8. — James Andrew Miller (@JimMiller) August 12, 2015
A source also told Awful Announcing that Cowherd will interview Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh on the telecast’s pregame show, resuming the painfully awkward conversation that the two shared on ESPN Radio in early July.
This new interview will presumably be less of a clunker than the previous exchange, now that Cowherd and Harbaugh are a bit more familiar with one another. Maybe there will be some pre-interview preparations this time, along with the host being perhaps a bit more focused on the game at hand, rather than trying to find out if the famously intense Harbaugh has his softer moments.
Of course, Cowherd’s exit from ESPN wasn’t as graceful as either he or the network would have imagined, with ESPN taking him off the air a week early in light of controversial comments he made about Dominican baseball players on the air. Cowherd addressed the matter, speaking with THR‘s Marisa Guthrie.
“I chose my words very poorly. I made a mistake,” said Cowherd. “I can be harsh but I don’t think I’m mean. I hurt people with my words and I regret that. But I don’t want that ending to overwhelm what was a great relationship.”
Corroborating what Miller reported in his tweet above, Cowherd also told Guthrie that moving to California was a big factor in relocating to Fox Sports, the importance of which was made clear to ESPN. When asked about the rumors that he also wanted to branch into political content, Cowherd said he talked to MSNBC and CNN about the possibility but “there was no traction.”
Cowherd’s radio show will be titled “The Herd” and broadcast from 12 noon to 3 p.m. ET on Fox Sports Radio with a simulcast on Fox Sports 1. The program will also be available through FoxSports.com and iHeartRadio.
“Colin is the first person I hired for my first daily studio show at ESPN [SportsNation in July 2009], so it’s fitting that he’s the first one I’m hiring at FS1,” said Jamie Horowitz, Fox Sports president of national networks. “Colin is a unique voice in sports media with a loyal following of fans, and we’re looking forward to building our daytime programming around him.”
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