NEW YORK — Nick Wright makes a living off his strong, confident opinions. It’s nice to see the sports world catching up on their own opinions of the talented FS1 host and his show, First Things First.
FS1’s weekday program with Wright, Chris Broussard, and Kevin Wildes was just nominated for its first Sports Emmy for “Best Sports Studio Show” against four ESPN nominees: NFL Live; The Pat McAfee Show; NBA Today; and SportsCenter.
It’s a long-overdue nod to Wright, who’s been on a rocket ride through sports TV. And to FTF, which started as an early morning lead-in to Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe’s Undisputed nearly a decade ago.
Earlier this week, Wright visited the FOS newsroom to discuss his show and career. Plus, his current beef with the Ball family after ripping LaMelo Ball as a “clown” and his response to former cast-mate Brandon Marshall saying he nearly quit FTF after an off-the-air dispute.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Front Office Sports: Tell us your reaction to FTF earning its first Emmy nomination.
Nick Wright: I was probably more thrilled than I’m supposed to admit that I am. Ever since it became me, Brou and Wildes, and we got back in-studio together, I thought the show was at least worthy of consideration. And the last two years, again, maybe you’re not supposed to say this, I have felt it’s the best daily sports show.
And so each of the previous two years, when the Emmy nominations come out, it’s like, “Not only are you not the best show, you’re not even in consideration for it.” I got super bummed. KW would tell me, “Don’t worry about it.” But I would get super bummed. And so I’m really, really happy about it. I know I’m supposed to be cooler about it, but that wouldn’t be genuine. I have no idea if we’ll win or not, but the fact that it is us nominated against ESPN’s flagship NBA show, ESPN’s flagship NFL show, SportsCenter, the greatest daily sports show in the history of the whole thing, and ESPN’s flagship interview show, McAfee, that it’s those four shows and us is meaningful to me. So I was really happy and proud about it.
FOS: Talk about the impressive on-air chemistry between you, Broussard and Wildes.
NW: The chemistry is the credit to those two guys. Because I think I have my strengths and weaknesses as a human being, as a talk show host, as a co-worker. My history would say I can be a tough guy to work with on the air over long periods of time, because of my argument style. I don’t know, it can wear on people. I have to be self-aware enough to know that is my history.
FOS: You’re trying to win the argument?
NW: That’s right. Brou and I joke all the time that we are trying to do competitive sports debate—and Wildes is trying to have a fun hang. But I say that because I would imagine Brou and Wildes, in their regular lives or in previous jobs, have always had great relationships, great chemistry, all those things.
Brou makes fun of me. I saw him at an All-Star party, and I’d maybe had a few cocktails, and he said that I gave him a giant hug and told him how much I loved him. But it’s true. I mean, I love those guys. I really, truly love those guys, and I’m so grateful that I get to work with them every day. And that is the key to our show. I do think we are really smart and hardworking, while also doing the most ridiculous stuff, coming in with hospital beds, dropping banners, all this nonsense. But the through line of all of it is the audience correctly feels like we truly care about each other and are enjoying spending time together.
FOS: Is it true that the key to doing a show like yours is the viewers have to feel that either you truly like each other, or that you truly hate each other?
NW: You can’t fake it without the bottom falling out eventually. And you can’t fake how you feel sitting across from someone. We do 2.5 hours (a day), five days a week, 220 days a year. Brou and I sometimes try to get KW to come to dinner. He’s the least accessible of all of us. He says, not incorrectly, “I talk to you guys more than I talk to my wife.” So if you don’t really enjoy your time with each other, the audience will know.
FOS: Talk about First Things First’s journey from morning lead-in for Skip Bayless to hit afternoon show in its own right?
NW: The show started September 5th, 2017. It was me, Jenna Wolfe and Cris Carter. I had a shaved head. I was fresh out of local radio in Houston. If anyone knew me, I was just the guy who filled in for Colin Cowherd and the “LeBron guy.” And the nose. To [Carter’s] credit, that show got cooking. That show, by a year in, was far exceeding Fox’s internal ratings expectations. We had a good thing going. CC and the company obviously parted ways somewhat abruptly.
Because I love him so much, personally, it was a little devastating. And professionally, it really made me anxious. The show was in flux. We then went 18 months with a revolving door of co-hosts. So professionally it made me feel a little uneasy about, “Man, what’s going to happen to the show?” The flip side, though, is it became my show. Jenna did a great job in her role, but she was truly a moderator. Jenna was super into fitness and super into certain local sports teams, but was not the super die-hard sports fan about everything. That wasn’t her job. That’s not a knock at all.
So the show had to become my show–even if I hadn’t really earned my own show yet. And that then evolved into us bringing in Wildes. Three weeks after we bring in Wildes, the whole world shuts down (due to COVID-19). We bring in Brandon (Marshall). We worked for a year. Brandon left, we then moved to the afternoon and Brou had been our go-to NBA guy. Brou did a daily two-hour radio show, where he talked about everything. I was like, ‘Man, he can do everything. He’s the best fit.’
And you can get in trouble trying to chase the rabbit of, ‘Well, Charles Barkley and Shannon Sharp can talk about everything.’ Those two guys are uniquely gifted broadcasters. So it is incredibly difficult to find another. The audience sees an athlete. They know what sport they played. And they think of them in that. Even if they are experts in other things, they don’t think of it. So I was like, ‘Let’s go! Me, Brou and Wildes can talk about everything.’ And that’s, you know, how we got to where we are.
FOS: You’ve said Colin Cowherd is your role model. Why?
NW: I think I’ve probably used stronger language than that. He’s my professional idol. I know, it’s so embarrassing. I get a little emotional talking about this sometimes. When I grew up, I wanted to be Colin. It was when I was doing local radio in Kansas City, I cold-called agents and my pitch was, “You don’t represent Colin Cowherd. Do you want to represent the next one?” I joke with Colin that he ruined a generation of sports talk radio guys because he was so uniquely gifted at “I’m gonna tell you why the Lakers are like LAX airport” and take you on this journey of these weird analogies of life, and all these things and, no pun intended, land the plane. Everyone was trying to be Colin.
I adore the other legends of the industry. But Colin’s the greatest solo sports talk radio host in the history of the medium. And that is not a matter of opinion, the record reflects it. And so I hold him in the highest esteem imaginable. It’s why like 18 months ago, there was a little spate of like, Awful Announcing, I don’t know if you guys did it, but there were a few articles that referred to me as the ‘Face of FS1.’ And I really don’t text with, or respond, to a lot of stuff, maybe to your annoyance at times. But I reached out to people privately and directly and I was like, “That is not true. FS1 does not exist without Colin Cowherd.”
The reason the network rose from the fray of the other cable sports networks that were all coming up around the same time was because we got Colin Cowherd. Then, yes, they added Skip and Shannon, that show became a huge hit. But Skip doesn’t come if Colin’s not already there. Colin gave the network heft. And a decade later still does.
FOS: Agreed. Colin leaving the worldwide leader also blew a hole in ESPN Radio’s that’s never been filled.
NW: Certainly. He has proven to be irreplaceable is what I would say.
FOS: You mentioned Brandon Marshall. He just told FOS he nearly quit First Things First over an argument with you. Tell us your side of the story.
NW: Let me say this on the front end: Brandon obviously has some unique physical gifts. As a receiver his size and his strength? He’s the size of a tight end and he played receiver, which is one of the reasons he was so great. But the other reason he had such an awesome career, and probably a little historically underrated, is his work ethic. I didn’t know him as an athlete other than to watch him, but I knew him as a co-worker and he cared, man. He cared, he worked, he wanted to get better. And so I have nothing bad to say about Brandon.
By my recollection, what happened was I was criticizing Kawhi Leonard for what I thought was a wanton lack of leadership with the Clippers, which by the way, not anybody’s keeping score, but five years later that take aged pretty well. Brandon on the air then tossed at me, ‘Well, you’re late to our morning meetings. Why are you criticizing him for being late?’ He’s not wrong. We had a set meeting every day at 5 o’clock, he said I got there at 5:05, 5:06, I got there every single day at 5:02. I don’t really know why. If I can get there every single day at 5:02, I could get there every day at 5:00. But I got there every day at 5:02. That is true. As I said, at times, I’m maybe not the easiest guy I work with.
I was nonplussed that he tossed that to me on the air. And so in our kind of post-show meeting, I was like, ‘Hey, tonight everybody, when I’m up at 1:00 AM watching the West Coast Lakers game, let’s have a group chat to make sure everyone’s watching together.’ He correctly, in his defense, viewed that as a not-so-veiled shot and got very upset. But by the next day, it was fine.
There’s no one I’ve done the show with, either on a long-term or short-term basis, I think, maybe they would tell you differently, that I don’t have a good relationship with. Like, if I see Brandon at the Super Bowl, I hug him. It was weird. He got hired. We never once were in the same room together. He got hired during the pandemic. He was in Florida. But I did see that clip. I don’t know. I’m weird. Him being like, “I got there at 5:06.” I was like, ‘I got there at 5:02. But that is late. To be fair.
FOS: You’ve been having fun with the Ball family too.
NW: They’ve had fun with me. Listen, KW always says, “Criticize actions, not, people. Don’t say that guy’s a clown. Say he is acting as if a clown would.” Technically, he is correct. I said something that I thought was a pretty universally held opinion, which was in not so many words, LaMelo Ball does not treat his profession seriously. And he’s wildly—seemingly on the court and with his driving record off the court—immature.
Now, I used the word clown, maybe in part because, and I said this on the air, I think I underestimated how offensive that word was for the general public. Maybe because I am so used to people calling me a clown. If I open up Twitter right now, I don’t think it would take me 10 replies to find someone calling me a clown. So listen, his dad got upset. Good for him. Supposed to protect your son. His big brother got upset. Good for him. You’re supposed to protect your little brother. Those guys handled it the exact way they’re supposed to. You protect your family. Anybody going against your family, you’re mad at. Could I have used more delicate language? Sure. Do I stand by the take 100%? Obviously. Did I watch the next game when the Hornets got beat by a thousand, and LaMelo had two first-half points with a slight little smirk on my face? Maybe.
FOS: The late great Howard Cosell talked about the ‘jockocracy.’ Is there always going to be tension between those who played the game and those who didn’t? How do you respond to the old criticism: “You never played the game.”
NW: I think for some, that’s also usually a sign you’re losing an argument. I certainly believe there is real, intense value in having played when analyzing, dissecting and explaining the game. There are certain things, certain things, that definitively you cannot truly understand without having played. I think that is undeniably true.
I think in certain corners of the media, certain podcasts, I think they disregard too often the wisdom of guys who have played, and they’re like, ‘Well, the numbers say this.’ The example I always use is, ‘Yes, in the NFL for the better part of the last decade, the numbers have said almost across the board, that throwing is a more efficient option than running the ball.’ But when every single person who’s ever played in the NFL says, ‘Man, there is something to the emotional toll of when you can run it down another team’s throat.’ Maybe they know what they’re talking about. Maybe in a physical gladiator sport, something like that doesn’t show up in the numbers. So I do think that those voices are super valuable and add context that I couldn’t add.
With all that said, do I, of course, think that if you didn’t fight the Civil War, you can’t write a book on it? No. I mean, that’s ridiculous. Everyone in day-to-day life across the board forms informed or not-so-informed opinions on things they’re not experts in. I think the audience knows that. KW also makes this point: The audience didn’t play. So when they’re like, ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, you didn’t play,’ the audience is like, ‘Well, I think I know what I’m talking about, and I didn’t play, so you talking about me?’ It’s a bad way to win an argument.
FOS: Nick Wright is celebrating 10 years at FS1. What do you want to do next?
NW: Ten more would be pretty good. Ten years is pretty crazy. The show being on for eight and a half years is, crazier. I went from sports radio in Kansas City to sports radio in Houston to Fox Sports. I would love to keep doing this show as long as I can possibly do it. I obviously own What’s Right? With Nick Wright (podcast) that I do with my son. I am wildly invested in literally and figuratively the high stakes poker community. So I like doing more and more stuff there.
Fox is the greatest. They didn’t have to let me buy my podcast back from them. They did. They don’t have to let me do poker commentary. They do. So I love doing our TV show. I understand delivery mechanisms change or whatever. But as long as shows like mine exist, I want to keep doing mine. And I love my little side quests as well.
