What's Next for Colin Cowherd?

Colin Cowherd

The timing of Colin Cowher's departure from ESPN will leave a gaping hole in its weekday lineup and has broader implications about where some things are going, according to The Big Lead.

Few will forget the great talent exodus of 2015 at ESPN, which has seen the network lose other outspoken voices in Bill Simmons and Keith Olbermann — and in general sports media. The difference here was that ESPN did make an aggressive bid to keep Cowherd, but was upstaged by Fox, who are clearly looking to make a big splash.

It’s not currently known what Cowherd would do for FS1. One potential idea is to put him at 6pm and attempt to better compete with SportsCenter with a talk-driven show.

At ESPN, Cowherd wanted to be simulcast on a network with better distribution than ESPNU, but there wasn’t any way he was going to supplant SportsCenter (ESPN) or First Take (ESPN2). As far as simulcasting goes, if Cowherd’s radio show lands at FS1 – industry sources say Sirius and DirecTV a la Rich Eisen are in play.

Cowherd recently expressed some of his thoughts about the future of radio on the About Sports Radio podcast with Zach McCrite (Click Here to listen), which could give a hint as to where his show will land, and how it could change his pay structure: “In the next 5-10 years, I don’t even think they’ll have radios in cars. I think podcast and digital and Sirius is the future. I think terrestrial — AM especially — is done in five years.”