When it’s summer and the Olympics are going on, it is a pretty limiting time for sports talk radio. Yes, football is right around the corner for real, but still, it’s light, and many hosts take vacation to gear up for fall. This week, for the second time in two weeks, I was driving a daughter to college. I needed something uplifting, something that would make me laugh and just entertain me. So I chose to eavesdrop in on the FOX Sports Radio afternoon drive show, Covino & Rich.
Afternoon drive is a bit of a strange daypart when it comes to national sports radio. If a station airs mostly national programming but airs one local show, generally that show airs in afternoon drive and the national show gets bumped. Otherwise, you are on a lot of stations that only air national programming which means you are either on in a lot of smaller markets or you’re on a market’s secondary sports channel.
No matter who is listening, if you’re doing good programming, people will find you and that has been the case since Covino & Rich began 20 years ago on SiriusXM’s Maxim Radio. Knowing the show’s origin may help you understand the content you will get when listening to hosts Steve Covino and Rich Davis. Maxim was about all things men like – sports, women, entertainment, cars, style, food and drink and more. With sports at the forefront now on FOX Sports Radio, you get a well-balanced show that hits on all of the main topics of the day.
Covino & Rich joined FOX Sports Radio’s weekend lineup in 2021. The pair also worked at ESPN Radio before the COVID-19 pandemic forced budget cuts and their contract wasn’t renewed. They also hosted a show on SNY from 2013-2015.
Covino and Rich, from New Jersey and New York respectively, both also have backgrounds in music radio and are still involved with it as part of SiriusXM. Covino hosts nights on SiriusXM’s Turbo and used to be on KROCK in New York City. Davis hosts on SiriusXM’s Pop2K and was previously heard on Hits1. He also worked at Z100 in New York, Q102 in Philadelphia, and Hot 107.9 in Syracuse.
From the start of the Friday August 9th edition of the show to the very ending, it was a big blast of energy coming through the speakers. This day happened to be Covino’s birthday, so he was super excited, and his crew didn’t let him down, bringing in gifts and cake. Davis shared some funny stories about trying to get the cake decorator to guess how to spell ‘Covino’ and his journey trying to find a pack of matches to light the candles on the cake. The conversation turned into a good one about how bad customer service has gotten in our world. They even came up with an idea of having a Yelp-type service where instead of people complaining about things that went wrong, they are only allowed to praise those who went out of their way to be kind, provide good service or just simply thanked you for your patronage.
Eventually they got around to some sports and in this case, it was Olympics talk. The break dancing was going on and everyone weighed in on what they thought about the new Olympic sport. Ultimately, they decided the Olympic games should be all about evolving with the times and used events done many years ago that were taken out such as hot air ballooning, horse jumping (literally seeing how far a horse can jump) and poodle clipping. Today, the guys said, it’s flag football and most likely soon will be pickleball that gets added. This led into talk about Logan Paul and his new stated goal of boxing in the 2028 Olympics. Sports, information, entertainment and some humor all mixed in – the staples of a good Covino & Rich segment.
The first hour of the show on this day, in total, didn’t have a whole lot of sports talk and that was completely ok. While I am sure some people out there wanted to hear a breakdown of every play of the NFL preseason games from the day before, those people have plenty of other places to go for that. While these guys can talk sports just as well as anyone out there, they are never going to take it that seriously. They are both huge sports fans, as is the entertaining crew around them, but they’re also all guy’s guys and they know when it is time to go heavy on sports subjects and when not to.
As they rolled into hour two, I was thinking about how the show operates almost like the two hosts are twins, who have been known to be able to finish each other’s sentences. There is very little time in between when one person talks to the next. Mostly between Covino and Davis, but it works with their team as well. On this day, producer Danny Garite, who goes by ‘Danny G’ and might have one of the best voices in radio, along with ‘Iowa Sam’ Kienzle and update anchor Isaac Lowenkron all jumped in at various times and it is all natural. Just a group of guys having about as much fun as you are allowed on terrestrial radio.
The last hour of the week flew by and was a lot of fun. From the line, “We are Covino & Rich, We are Fox Dorks,” to tying Minnesota Governor and Vice-Presidential candidate Tim Walz in with former pro wrestler, ‘The Genius’ Lanny Poffo, to discussing what in the world RGIII and his wife were thinking with the croissant picture on social media, you got a bit of everything.
Next up was a game, ‘Chipotle Worker or Olympian?’ which is an Olympics version of a game they normally do with WNBA players. Even the rules were kind of funny, where everyone in the studio competed as did one caller, for the caller to win they just needed to not finish in last place.
Danny G would throw out a name and each person had to guess if it was the name of an Olympic athlete or someone who works for Chipotle. Everyone had a lot of fun, with the exception of ‘Iowa Sam’ who struggled mightily trying to keep score, but that just made the segment all the more entertaining as he was crushed for not being able to keep up.
Throughout the show I also took note of how good a job they would do letting you know what was coming up later, giving you reasons to keep tuning in. It all runs very smoothly, including the endorsement ads where the two hosts work together and just like when they are doing talk content, they go back and forth in a way where they just know the other person is going to pick up right where they leave off.
About 90 minutes in there was some NFL talk, you just can’t get away from it completely. The topic was quarterbacks and after mentioning DeShaun Watson, Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow, Davis threw out a ‘This or That?’ asking which is more likely to happen: Jayden Daniels is the rookie quarterback that turns heads (essentially over Caleb Williams) or Devante Adams doesn’t finish the season as a Raider? The whole crew weighed in and you got your fill of NFL talk before it was time to really put a bow on the week.
A sponsored bit, ‘The Express Pro, Pro of the Week’ went to Steph Curry for his play with the USA’s men’s basketball team. That led into a ‘Weekend Hobknobbin’ bit where they talked about what was happening on television in sports and entertainment. Once again – sports, information, entertainment and humor.
As they wrapped it all up the guys mentioned they would be filling in for Dan Patrick on The Dan Patrick Show this coming week, which gives you a pretty good idea of what the network thinks of them and their show. It will be another opportunity for Covino & Rich to shine and they’ve proven over the years they are usually up for the task.
Covino thanked everyone for the fun show on his birthday and for them celebrating him. He pointed out they used to celebrate birthdays on the air together when they were in their 20’s and now, they are doing it together in their 40’s.
20 years together and still doing it with as much energy as they had when they started, if not more.
In 2021, Brian Noe interviewed the two hosts for a Barrett Media feature. In it, Rich Davis talked about that energy. “Covino and I, sometimes people say man, their energy is too high; I don’t feel like you can have enough energy,” he said. “I really don’t.” He would later add, “…If [a show is] not having fun and laughing and busting chops, to me, that bores me.”
If that’s what they’ve set out for with Covino & Rich, I’d say mission accomplished.
Dave Greene is the Chief Media Officer for Barrett Media. His background includes over 25 years in media and content creation. A former sports talk host and play-by-play broadcaster, Dave transitioned to station and sales management, co-founded and created a monthly sports publication and led an ownership group as the operating partner. He has managed stations and sales teams for Townsquare Media, Cumulus Media and Audacy. Upon leaving broadcast media he co-founded Podcast Heat, a sports and entertainment podcasting network specializing in pro wrestling nostalgia. To interact, find him on Twitter @mr_podcasting. You can also reach him by email at Dave@BarrettMedia.com.
