The Colin Cowherd Podcast this week featured 670 The Score afternoon drive host Danny Parkins as Colin’s guest. In addition to talking about the Bears and the NFL Draft plus the Michael vs. LeBron debate, Cowherd and Parkins talked sports radio as well.
In the introduction of the podcast, Cowherd said about Parkins, “A really talented guy. I really hope you will listen to the next hour with Danny Parkins, Chicago radio host. And the most talented sports talk radio host I think out there right now at his age…”
To start the interview, Cowherd told the story about how he found out about Parkins. “I first heard of Danny Parkins from Nick Wright,” he said. “…Nick had introduced me to two or three people. A couple of them were just obnoxious and annoying and then he introduced me to Danny and told me to listen to his show. And so, I fashion myself as some sort of talent scout, obviously not, but since I started The Volume, I really enjoy it…I go to Chicago regularly and listened and I thought, ‘wow this guy is about the best young guy I’ve heard in the country.'”
Cowherd, who spent time on the air at KFXX radio in Portland before taking his show, The Herd, to ESPN in 2004, said, “Sports radio can be, on our best days, somewhat mindless. I listen now to sports radio and I contend New York, Detroit, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Philly is better sports talk than Los Angeles…I think they have very talented people in LA…but in LA if I turn on sports talk, there’s a 50-50 shot it’s going to be guy-talk and that doesn’t really interest me.”
Other markets such as Cleveland, Kansas City and Minneapolis were also mentioned by both Cowherd and Parkins as they talked about those markets having fans who live and die with the moments from their teams versus another city like Miami where there is just too much to be doing and the sports fans aren’t nearly as passionate.
Noting that 70% or so of his show is football talk, Cowherd asked Parkins what he thinks it is for his show, having several other pro teams in the market outside of the Bears. “…[Recently] the Bears have been the dominant storyline…it’s over 50% for football, even in opening day week with two [baseball] teams in town because it’s all about Caleb Williams and the 9th pick and are the Bears on the come.”
As for the dominance of football on sports talk radio, Parkins explained, “Everybody cares about the Bears, everybody has an opinion on the Bears…but I think the simplest way to explain it is – every game matters, it’s one of 17… If I miss Bulls-Hawks and I don’t talk about it on the show the next day, we don’t get a single text call or tweet saying ‘hey you missed this really important thing,’ because if a really important thing happens I see it on social media, it cuts through and we talk about it. But if you came out on a Monday after a Bears game…even if they were 5-10, and you didn’t do 4 hours on it…people would think you are insane.”
