The day after the Kansas City Chiefs lost Super Bowl LIX to the Philadelphia Eagles, First Things First was full of perpetual surprises and sarcastic celebrations. Nick Wright, who hosts the program since its debut in 2017, did not recall ever having to appear on the show after the Chiefs had lost a meaningful football game. In fact, he and his colleagues had such confidence that his favorite team would complete the quest for history that they purchased mega-sized banners, confetti and balloons to celebrate, along with booking break dancers, and the St. John’s University marching band.
Although the program was an unfortunate reminder that the Chiefs had lost the most consequential game of the year, it was an opportunity for those on the show to demonstrate their distinctive chemistry and creativity in adapting to an unforeseen situation. Whereas this could have been viewed as a significant predicament, the program ended up producing an episode breaking down the action while subsequently leaning into personality by showcasing Wright’s fandom amid a losing outcome.
“The only way, in my opinion, to approach that is to be a good sport about it,” Wright said. “I am not necessarily always a humble winner when my team wins, and so I have to take it as I give it, and so I think for the show, the Chiefs getting clocked the way they did was probably good.”
Wright considers himself to be unapologetic in his opinions and does not concern himself with criticisms or dissenting considerations without evidence. Conveying a passionate delivery with a license to editorialize, he has built a legion of fans who follow his work and regularly consume his content. At the same time though, being associated with a fervent subset of the sports media business that can occasionally be subjected to disparaging commentary is a perspective towards which Wright draws upon what consumers crave.
“Some people view ‘hot take’ as a pejorative – I don’t,” Wright said. “Our industry relies on strong opinion, and I am a strong opinion guy, and I think that being the strong opinion guy so to speak, that flame can go out quite quickly if you are constantly flip-flopping [and] not have a consistent kind of train of thought on your established beliefs and if you’re just pulling out of thin air as opposed to backed up with a little data or information. I do a pretty good job at that.”
Being Part of a Team in Afternoons
Wright has been regarded in the past as the face of FS1 or having the potential to garner the honor. He affirms that such a designation belongs to Colin Cowherd. Furthermore, he does not distinguish himself to be the face of First Things First either, underscoring the collaboration that exists with Chris Broussard and Kevin Wildes.
“The best version I’ve ever been and the best version the show’s ever been is with Wildes and Brou,” Wright said. “We compliment each other really well, we all are totally comfortable in… kind of our specific roles on the show, and we really love each other, and I think that comes through on the show.”
Reflecting on his time working with Broussard on First Things First, Wright regards him as one of the best people he has ever known and someone willing to work hard. As it pertains to Wildes, he personifies him as someone who brings humor to every room he enters. Each member of the trio assists in facilitating the success of the program and offers their thoughts to the viewing audience on a variety of topics spanning the world of sports.
“We have a really good mix of some of the absolute dumbest, silliest, outlandish things imaginable with actual real smart analysis. We have walked that line pretty well,” Wright said. “We just have these shorthand things that almost make some of the show feel like an inside joke.”
Aside from typical sports conversation and debates, there are a variety of creative recurring segments that spark interesting dialogue and debate. For example, Wright utilizes tiers to rank different football quarterbacks based on their recent performances in a segment named for Super Bowl champion Patrick Mahomes. Even though some people disagree with his logic on the segment, he does not read his mentions on social media and protects his own sanity.
“My son, who I do my podcast with, used to occasionally say, ‘Oh man, you are getting flamed today,’ and my response every time is, ‘No, I’m not,’” Wright said. “There are a lot of people in media who get paralyzed by online criticism, and because of that, they either soften their takes or water down or change or apologize for whatever it is.”
Last October, FOX Sports brought First Things First to Yankee Stadium for a live broadcast ahead of Game 4 of the World Series between the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers, something Wright felt was an unbelievable experience. Later this week, the show will be broadcasting live from the Indianapolis 500 as FOX Sports prepares to broadcast the race for the first time under a media rights deal with the IndyCar open-wheel series.
“FOX Sports does live sports better than any place in the world. It’s really a huge compliment to the show that they want us to be a part of the FOX festivities in Indy,” Wright said. “….Even though I have not in my life been to an Indy race, I’m super excited to be at the most prestigious race on the circuit and one of America’s longest-standing sports institutions, and to not only be able to go, but to be a part of race week with FOX is really thrilling.”
Working with Colin Cowherd
Wright reportedly signed a long-term contract extension with FOX Sports last fall to remain on FS1 as he approaches a decade with the network. Although he does not discuss his contract publicly despite acknowledging that other people have chosen to do so, he just completed his ninth year with the company and feels that he is treated very well.
Moreover, he considers himself lucky to have arrived at this point and hopes to be able to mark another nine-year milestone in the future. Yet he tries to focus on effectively fulfilling his role and meeting the demands associated with being on television every weekday.
“I might rewatch a segment if I particularly liked it or thought I screwed something up or whatever, but the thing is you’re doing two hours a day every single day,” Wright said. “The gift and the curse of that is the moment the show’s over, the next show, you’re only 22 hours away from it. It’s coming down the pike.”
A few months after the reported contract extension, The Volume reached a deal with Wright to bring his podcast, What’s Wright?, to its platforms. In making the decision to bring his digital show elsewhere, Wright noticed how his colleague Colin Cowherd had started the successful platform featuring popular shows from several former athletes and industry personalities. On top of that, he knew he wanted to partner with someone on the project, perceiving that he did not possess the necessary bandwidth or business acumen.
“It was maybe less strategy based than one would expect, and it was more, ‘If I’m going to work with anyone, I should at least see what working with Colin’s like,’ and I just love him,” Wright said, “and so that was as much a personal decision as a professional one.”
Wright considers his relationship with Cowherd to be one of the biggest blessings in his life, and he listened to every show he hosted throughout his time attending Syracuse University. While he initially struggled to find his footing at the student-run radio station, taking part in talk programming alongside future stars such as Danny Parkins, Andrew Fillipponi and Adam Lefkoe helped him gain experience and land a job hosting weekends on 610 Sports Radio in Kansas City. Wright eventually hosted afternoon drive and later joined SportsRadio 610 in Houston where he hosted alongside John Lopez.
“If you can do four hours of solo talk radio, then you can do anything in the field because there is nothing more naked and daunting than that,” Wright said. “That’s self-serving of me to say, but I think it is, and I think it was the exact training I needed, especially when First Things First started. It was a three-hour morning TV show, and there was a lot of content to fill, but I was very used to filling that type of airtime.”
Reaching the Summit on FS1
The FS1 lineup has gone through various iterations through the years in the morning and afternoon timeslots, and many of its personalities have backgrounds in the radio business. There are various hosts and analysts who used to appear on radio across other television networks as well, underscoring an issue surrounding talent retention. Wright remarked that the topic could merit its own podcast and estimated that there are not enough people who have programming backgrounds with oversight of local radio outlets.
“In my experience, the best producers or hosts that go to management, they very often top out at program director while the best sales or businessperson ends up being the person, the market manager or general manager,” Wright said, “A lot of your most valuable personnel is not viewed as as valuable as they are.”
When Wright was offered the chance to relocate to New York City and join the new morning iteration of First Things First with Cris Carter and Jenna Wolfe, he accepted the opportunity and credits his colleagues for helping immerse him into television.
Although there are questions surrounding the future of linear programming as the pay television penetration rate diminishes, media conglomerates have taken steps to innovate and retain their audiences. Fox Corporation recently announced that it will launch its FOX One streaming service that will grant viewers access to branded content spanning multiple genres under one platform. Wright trusts those running the company about subjugating future challenges and has more anxiety about his performance in the World Series of Poker tournament.
“I don’t spend much time at all thinking about it because I think there will always be a market and a demand for sports talk, and the people in charge are smart enough to make sure if the delivery mechanism needs to be tweaked or changed or whatever, they’ll change it,” Wright said, “I’ll just keep doing what I do.”
During a recent family gathering, Wright remembered being asked what was next for him, to which he replied that he already felt like he was at the top of the mountain. While he has an enemies list of people in the business his age or younger with whom he feels is competing, he does not know exactly what it entails and considers the accumulation sarcastic yet serious. Nonetheless, Wright values his position on the airwaves and maintains perspective through it all.
“Obviously you can always get bigger and more popular,” Wright explained. “This show has been on since Labor Day 2017. It’s damn near Memorial Day 2025. There can’t have been 10 sports talk shows in history that are longer running, I don’t think, and maybe there are, but it’s not a long list. Success is just being able to continue doing this for as long as I possibly can.”
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Derek Futterman is a former associate editor and sports media reporter for Barrett Media. He previously interned for Paramount within Showtime Networks, wrote for the Long Island Herald and served as lead sports producer at NY2C. Find him on X @derekfutterman.
