Sports media is the finest form of entertainment that surrounds the game. From shoulder programming surrounding play-by-play to sports radio programs, columnists, podcasts and network studio shows, there are more options than ever for fans to find content surrounding their favorite teams. There are also more opinions and predictions that come along with them. Then there’s Fred Segal, the founder of the social media account Freezing Cold Takes. A lawyer by trade, but a fan at heart.
For the last decade, Freezing Cold Takes has operated on a simple premise: take the opinions and predictions made across sports media and expose them for how wrong they were. The goal was simple — celebrate how incorrect the experts were about the biggest games, players and storylines surrounding sports.
“I was never interested in doing this in the first place,” says Segal about the founding of Freezing Cold Takes. “But it picked up fast, but I was only going to use it to mess with people. I did not plan on it being big at all. But it lends to what I do, which is find stuff. And because it’s sports, it makes it that much better for me.”
Since 2015, Segal has chronicled sports predictions posted to social media. The Freezing Cold Takes accounts on X and Instagram feature quotes and predictions from sports media personalities and fans that aged poorly.
Why College Football?
The results have built a massive following online, where sports fans love seeing hot takes that went cold. That success has resulted in Segal publishing two books centered on his passion for exposing the worst takes in sports history. His latest book, Freezing Cold Takes: College Football: An Incomplete History of the Game’s Most Inaccurate Statements and Predictions, examines some of the most ill-fated college football predictions ever made, including those from before the invention of social media.
For Segal, the details are what make chronicling those takes possible. He admits the system he uses is not as organized as many might believe.
“It’s pretty disorganized, but I have a system in place. I’m good at deleting bookmarks for stuff, because I’m pretty good with bookmarking,” explained Segal. “Once a week, I’ll clean my bookmarks to see if it’s still something I can use. But a lot of the times, people are sending me stuff. I get so many tags and direct messages too, which helps me a lot.”
Segal says there’s an added layer of searching when news breaks. He’ll search for predictions made before a hire or signing, bringing forgotten takes back into the spotlight. In the end, finding the coldest takes isn’t a daily ritual of spending every waking hour online searching for material.
Instead, much of Segal’s time over the past two years has gone toward his latest book, which examines some of the coldest takes in college football history.
“College football is the sport I’m most passionate about. But the sport lends to bad predictions more than any sport there is,” notes Segal. “There’s so many teams, players, coaches, and more. There’s so many elements that you can select from. Everyone is so attached to their teams. That’s why college football is a gold mine for reactions.”
While Segal has many passions of his own, one he thoroughly enjoys is reading old newspapers. It allows him to step into a time machine and see what people were saying about the news and personalities of the past. Based on the success of Freezing Cold Takes online, he felt elevating that approach to a book could enhance the experience, even when examining sports stories from before the beginning of social media.
However, not everything Segal wanted to target made the final cut. In fact, he explained that the criteria he established for Freezing Cold Takes became an even bigger challenge when writing a book about college football.
“The standard had to be someone who was notable. Not just a fan. Also, it had to be something where they’re grossly wrong, or overconfident about being right,” explains Segal. “There were a lot of things I left on the cutting room floor for this latest book. That happened a lot. There just wasn’t that much direct criticism back then of coaching hires. But also, there wasn’t a lot of provocative language or criticism about game predictions either.”
Challenges Of Social Media
At its core, Freezing Cold Takes is one of the most popular social media accounts in sports media. It’s also no stranger to the changing algorithms and challenges creators and publishers face when using the platforms.
Segal continues to focus his bookmarking strategy on finding potential targets for Freezing Cold Takes on Instagram and X. Other platforms haven’t proved as effective for the way he discovers content.
But when it comes to discovery, reach and engagement, Segal has been a victim of the changing social-media landscape, not unlike anyone else.
“I like to post screenshots of things with no captions. That’s hurt me generally speaking. I don’t get as much engagement anymore because of it,” said Segal. “It’s hard for me to change. The ways the algorithms have changed have hurt. I don’t get as much engagement as I used to get, it’s not even close. That’s where it’s affected the feed the most, especially on Instagram. I get maybe a quarter of what I used to get.”
Because of those changes, Segal admits he’s at times considered pulling back from the Freezing Cold Takes feed.
“Unless you can handle it [social media] monetarily and you love it, it’s really hard. You must love it. It’s really hard to figure out social media. But I’ve never had so much work where I’ve thought about [fully walking away]. It was great when it first started, but I’m not planning on changing the feed anytime soon,” said Segal.
While Segal stays away from accepting advertising dollars from gambling companies, he has created revenue streams through merchandise sales, book sales and occasionally running other companies’ social media feeds.
Finding Gold With The Cold
Now more than a decade into Freezing Cold Takes, the former lawyer remains an avid sports fan committed to providing entertaining content online. His brand has grown from satire into a badge of honor in some cases for sports media pundits and fans.
“Sometimes talent will tag me on social media to their take,” said Segal about the evolution of accepting a nod from Freezing Cold Takes. “It’s gotten to a point now where talent will do segments on where they got their takes wrong as content for their audience.”
Although he amplifies the worst takes in sports history on social media, Segal is no stranger to making a few of his own. The difference, he noted, is that he never says them to a viewing or listening audience outside his own family and circle of friends.
“I have plenty of them, but the one that stands out is my cold take on Jimbo Fisher. I’m a UF graduate. When Fisher came on with Florida State, I was laughing about the hire. I didn’t think he’d amount to anything, and he crushed the Gators in everything and had a great run,” admitted Segal. “Thankfully for me, social media wasn’t a big thing at the time Bobby Bowden left.”
Segal does have his all-time favorites when it comes to the coldest takes in sports history. They include Ian O’Connor saying the New England Patriots would regret hiring Bill Belichick, Jeff Schultz blasting Alabama for signing Nick Saban to an eight-year contract and Jason Whitlock crushing “The Big Three” with the Miami Heat after the team lost in the NBA Finals for the first time and demanding the formula be broken up.
Over the past decade and into the next, Segal doesn’t think he’ll ever run short on potential targets for Freezing Cold Takes.
In the end, that may be the ultimate appeal of Freezing Cold Takes. Sports never stop producing opinions, predictions or people willing to put their confidence on display. Some will be prove to be right. Others will become tomorrow’s punchline.
Perhaps that is why Freezing Cold Takes has lasted for more than a decade. In a sports media landscape that continues to expand, change and move faster than ever, there will always be another prediction to uncover, another opinion to revisit and another take waiting to go cold.
Segal may have started Freezing Cold Takes to mess with people. More than a decade later, he has turned being wrong into its own form of sports entertainment — one bad prediction at a time.
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