Colin Cowherd Crushing Dan Patrick, Dan LeBatard With New FS1 Gig
Colin Cowherd is now over a month into his new FOX Sports 1 simulcast and, to date, the ratings have shown it to be an overwhelming success.
According to the Big Lead, the former ESPN host is crushing his competitors Dan Patrick and Dan LeBatard in the TV ratings, making the move on the part of FOX to acquire the oft-controversial host look like a brilliant decision thus far.
As of the first month, Colin has pulled in a whopping 105,000 viewers compared to Dan Patrick’s 52,000 and Dan LeBatard’s 43,000. Of course, that figure isn’t a direct comparison as Patrick’s show airs from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. EST, whereas LeBatard’s show airs from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. EST and Cowherd from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. EST. But there is some overlap between commentators across the board, and the figures speak for themselves.
As reported by the Inquisitr, FOX took a big gamble to bring Colin Cowherd into the fold when they announced his deal over the summer. In fact, just before he was set to leave ESPN, Cowherd was booted prematurely for controversial comments made about Dominicans when addressing the complexity of baseball versus football.
“Like it’s impossible? The game is too complex?” Cowherd pondered during his final week at ESPN. “Like I’ve never bought into that baseball is too complex. Really? A third of the sport is from the Dominican Republic.”
Those comments angered many in both the baseball and Hispanic communities alike, which called for an apology from Colin (for which he obliged). But considering his show averaged over 2.5 million viewers a month prior to the move to FOX and that Cowherd was recently named as one of the Hollywood Reporter’s Ten Most Powerful Voices in Sports Media today, the gamble has effectively paid off for FOX to date.
Of course, not everyone is happy with the “new” Colin Cowherd simulcast of The Herd. Forbes listed the Top 3 Most Glaring Problems with the show, focusing mainly on Kristine Leahy, the brand new addition to the broadcast.
“The one thing that has been added is that of a co-host. I am talking, of course, about Kristine Leahy, someone you may also know as the host of American Ninja Warrior. However, on FS1, she has been relegated to nodding along awkwardly during Cowherd diatribes, hosting brief quiz games like the weekly “Hunch or Lunch” segment and interjecting, which is as rare as a J.R. Smith assist.”
The article continued, questioning why FOX even bothered to acquire a talent like Kristine’s if they weren’t willing to make her more a part of the show, instead forcing her into “sports talk purgatory” at the moment.
“On the outside, ‘The Herd’ looks like it wants to nurture discussion between Cowherd and Leahy—something that hopefully comes in time. However, instead we end up getting 30 seconds of Leahy Watch. The one thing they can do to remedy the situation is to go all-in with its experiment and give Leahy more opportunity to shine.”
Another complaint, this time made by Awful Announcing, is that Colin is actually stealing bits from his competitors.
“Last month, Colin Cowherd came under fire for ripping off Ryen Russillo’s ‘You played, I didn’t’ segment on Fox NFL Kickoff. Now, Cowherd is feeling some heat once again for ripping off a bit from another popular radio show – Dan Patrick’s ‘Story Time with Uncle Dan’ segment.”
The site compared a recent Cowherd segment to a previous Dan Patrick segment, and the two are, in fact, extremely similar. Of course, similarities in radio segments can certainly be explained. And Cowherd isn’t short on fresh takes within the sports industry, so this might be a case of haters wanting to hate.
As long as Colin Cowherd’s ratings are as strong as they’ve been against his competitors Dan LeBatard and Dan Patrick, FOX can live with those minute complaints.
[Photo Credit: Al Messerschmidt / Getty Images]
