Colin Cowherd moves “The Herd” to Chicago

First national daily show to be set here since Steve Harvey left in 2017

Fox Sports announced Thursday that The Herd, a daily talk show strip hosted by Colin Cowherd on FS1, will shift production to Chicago later this year. 

The move is part of a new contract with Fox that Cowherd recently signed, as he and his wife are already living in the city since she’s an interior designer in town. According to Crain’s, Cowherd bought a downtown condo last year for $3.25 million and reported purchasing a home in north suburban Winnetka last December for $4.45 million. Cowherd plans to split time between time Chicago and Los Angeles, which experienced wildfires in recent weeks, and an ongoing exodus of TV production in recent years to other locales. The new studio is being built in Fox’s Big Ten Network headquarters on the city’s near North Side, located down the street from the old Montgomery Ward building. 

“I love Chicago. My two favorite cities are London and Chicago. I like urban areas where I can walk all day long. In Los Angeles, I don’t have that. In Chicago, I can just walk downtown,” Cowherd said on his podcast Wednesday (separate from The Herd, also available as a podcast), confirming the move. “My wife has given a lot to my career and sacrifice. . . .She’s got her sister there, and I have a ton of friends. I think it’s time to be a better guy and a better husband.”

The Herd is the first national daily talk show broadcast from Chicago since Steve Harvey’s syndicated program wrapped up production at the NBC Tower in 2017 and moved to Los Angeles. But unlike his show, and others such as Oprah Winfrey, Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones, and a short-lived Rosie O’Donnell effort on OWN, The Herd is a sports talk show not shot in front of a studio audience. 

Cowherd is known for making controversial and bizarre statements on-air. In September, he insisted the Tennessee Titans beat the Chicago Bears in their season opener when the opposite happened. In October, Cowherd anticipated a New York Mets-San Diego Padres World Series. The problem? Both teams are in the National League. 

While Cowherd’s live ratings are modest at best (averaging 142,000 viewers a day through June 2024, down from a year before), Cowherd relies more on clips of the show on social media platforms to reach more people, especially those who don’t subscribe to cable. Sports channels such as ESPN and FS1 have found success in targeting male viewers in daytime with programs like Get Up, The Pat McAfee Show, and First Things First – a demo TV marketers have traditionally ignored in the daypart for decades as women usually make up the largest number of TV viewers.

While Cowherd’s move to Chicago is a boost to the city’s production, his name recognition might not make a difference in drawing more non-scripted, daily production here as these shows are niche offerings and don’t have the same broad appeal as Oprah, Steve, or even Drew Barrymore. Cowherd’s genre is niche at best, even in a place where sports are embedded in the fabric of the city. 

The Herd airs on FS1 weekday mornings and is also available on Fox Sports Radio, iHeart Radio’s app as a podcast, and its same-day airing is streaming on Tubi and Fox Sports’ FAST channel.