The sports media landscape welcomed another debate-style program last night with the debut of FS1’s “Speak for Yourself,” featuring co-hosts Colin Cowherd and Jason Whitlock. The 60-minute broadcast featured the duo sitting adjacent to each other at a desk on-camera, mostly disagreeing about a variety of topics. Cowherd said in the opening, "I’m Colin Cowherd and Jason thinks the team that just set virtually every NBA offensive record is too cocky, which is absurd.” Whitlock replied, “Not as absurd as giving LeBron James bulletin board material before a must-win game. Time for day one of 'Speak for Yourself.'" The first topic for debate was whether the Warriors should “show King James more respect” after Warriors F Draymond Green was suspended, followed by a preview of Game 5, the events in Game 4 leading to Green’s suspension, James' legacy and comments about the mass shooting in Orlando. Cowherd then had a taped segment giving his opinion on "The Warriors Health," which was followed by a segment called "Read Between the Lines," where The Big Lead Founder Jason McIntyre asked the hosts their thoughts about what people were really trying to say in various comments and actions. McIntyre offered his opinion on each topic and interacted with the co-hosts.
BE OUR GUEST: Lakers F Metta World Peace was the only guest on the debut episode, speaking with Whitlock about various basketball topics. McIntyre returned for a segment called "Good Bet or Bad Bet?" That was followed by another Cowherd taped opinion on the word "valuable." The broadcast ended with “Last Call,” with brief discussion on the ESPN O.J. Simpson documentary, the Lakers removing Magic Johnson's honorary VP title, the questionable hygiene of German soccer coach Joachim Low and former NBAer Andrew Bynum sporting "questionable" blond hair. During the broadcast, Cowherd said about Cavaliers F Kevin Love’s comments regarding James’ actions with Warriors F Draymond Green, “You and I have talked about this before in one of our 34 tests before the show."
SOCIAL MESSAGE: When discussion turned to the mass shooting in Orlando, Whitlock said, "For the most part, what we do is a respite from the real world and real news. But there are opportunities ... for sports to be a leader in social change ... there’s a reason why the LGBT community wants the sports world to embrace people of the LGBT community and have a role model for gay and lesbian athletes. Muhammad Ali just passed and he opened a lot of doors for African-Americans. He took a bold stance against the Vietnam War. I think we've reached a time, I hope, that there's some athlete out there -- some prominent athlete out there -- that looks at this and says, ‘You know what? It's time for me to stand all the way up and take on this responsibility and be a trailblazer like Muhammad Ali.’ We need that in sports. It's important that kids have this role model. Maybe we can remove some of this hate and fear and loathing that we have towards people in the LGBT community.” Cowherd added, “Any time there's a tragedy, people rush to social media to make it one thing. It's always many things. It's access to weapons, it’s radical ideology, it’s mental health issues. It's gut-wrenching. It's disturbing. It's never one thing and it's becoming all too common that you wake up and the morning news is a mass shooting" ("Speak for Yourself," FS1, 6/13).
TWITTER REACTION: SB Nation's Luke Thomas: "Review of first-ever #SpeakForYourself: lukewarm takes, McIntyre weirdly used, Cowherd polished, Whitlock in a fedora, good pacing." CBS Radio Atlanta's Arthur Triche: "I once told Stephen A that an hour show with him was too much, it was and it went away. I feel the same about @SFY and Cowherd and Whitlock." Awful Announcing's official feed: "Speak For Yourself brought the 🔥🔥🔥 takes, like we all expected." SI.com's Andy Glockner: "What do you think the crossover percentage is between 'Watching the Copa America' and 'Watching the new Cowherd/Whitlock show'? 0.1%?" CSN Chicago's T.K. Gore: "@jasonrmcintyre Belated congrats/all the best w/ new @FS1 role. Always a fan of seeing quality digital people contribute to TV."
