Colin Cowherd took a unique approach building out The Volume by focusing on live digital video and YouTube to craft a brand identity and release format. And it turns out he took a unique approach financially as well.
In an interview on the House of Strauss podcast released Wednesday, Cowherd revealed that he has not paid himself a salary as the founder of The Volume since launching the company in 2021. Instead, Cowherd has reinvested the company’s growing pool of revenue back into the business, largely by hiring other well-paid executives.
“When I built The Volume, my takeaway was I didn’t want to take a salary,” Cowherd told host Ethan Sherwood Strauss. “We created, very quickly, multiple revenue streams, and I wanted to build a really good management and support staff. So it’s very easy lifting for me.”
Instead, Cowherd serves as the visionary and public face of the network. Cowherd hosts three to four episodes of The Colin Cowherd Podcast per week during the fall, winter and spring and has final say on business decisions, but is not the company’s CEO and does not get a regular paycheck.
“I put my money, in the first three years of the company, into management, and it’s been very fruitful,” Cowherd explained. “We just have a really good group all over the country, and it’s allowed us to grow very quickly.”
Among others, Cowherd hired Logan Swaim from DAZN and NFL Media to be COO, Allyson Porter of ESPN and Activision to be head of programming, and Dane Aagaard of Barstool Sports to be CRO.
But Cowherd also attributed landing Shannon Sharpe and Shay Shay Media to his decision to defer his salary.
“(Sharpe is) gonna need multiple producers and a big support system, and if I was gobbling up all the salary, we wouldn’t be able to do that,” Cowherd said. “So I think I was in a pretty unique position that I could build a company while having two corporate entities paying me.”
Cowherd in some ways got a late start in the talking head turned production chief game. By 2021, Bill Simmons, Pat McAfee and Dan Le Batard already cashed out running their own operation.
So Cowherd knew he had to put his best foot forward with The Volume. And he fortunately makes millions at Fox Sports and iHeartMedia that allowed him to allocate resources elsewhere with The Volume.
“This stuff doesn’t come easy. It’s really hard,” Cowherd said. “And my theory was build a really strong management team.”
Reports suggest Cowherd could look to eventually sell The Volume to a venture capital firm, which would likely result in a massive payout. So the point here is less about Cowherd being a martyr and more about his business strategy and how it allowed The Volume to grow quickly in a crowded marketplace.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.