Colin Cowherd's Latest Minnesota Take Proves He's Stuck in the Past

Colin Cowherd is clearly bored again or needs a ratings boost. Despite the NBA and NHL playoffs providing plenty of drama and on-court/ice action to break down, Major League Baseball in the early stretches, and the NFL Draft on the way, the national sports commentator and radio host decided to dust off the old "market size" argument.

Look, it's nothing Minnesota sports fans haven't had to endure before. It's a common trope for the national talking heads when an athlete reaches stardom in this market. They start screaming and blathering about how said athlete needs to get to a bigger market to boost publicity and jersey sales, yada yada yada. It's dumb, lazy, and completely ignorant of the times we currently live in.

But here is Cowherd, once again dusting off that trusty talking point to get attention during one of the biggest weeks on the sports calendar. So, in honor of giving him what he wants, let's give him a listen to see how outdated and irrelevant his argument is this time.

"Well, the NBA has always been a sport where cool matters," Cowherd said on Monday following the opening weekend of the NBA and NHL playoffs. "Big markets, more television games. You know, if you look at the greatest players in NBA history, or the most discussed, Michael Jordan, big market Chicago. Magic Johnson, LA. Shaq, LA. Kobe, LA. You know, the late Jerry West, Wilt, LA."

We get it, back in the day, when everything wasn't at our fingertips, you actually "needed" to be in a big market to get attention. That's changed. Social media and the internet make everything and everyone, for better or worse, easily accessible. The internet has made the ability to make a name for yourself remarkably easy, and it means guys who don't play in the big markets can become stars so much more easily than in the past.

"Market size DOES matter... If you put Ant in LA, San Francisco, or New York do you know how big of a star he would be?"@colincowherd argues Anthony Edwards' talent is under-appreciated in Minnesota pic.twitter.com/nb8qBlYCio
— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) April 20, 2026

"I mean, Jalen Brunson gets more publicity than Ant in Minnesota," continued Cowherd.

What? No he doesn't. Edwards has 5 million followers on Instagram. Jalen Brunson has 1 million. That's not even close. As The Athletic's Jon Krawczynski pointed out, Ant has been in a movie, while Adidas has been building its brand around him.

"Ant lost the opener," continued Cowherd. "Ant doesn't look like he quite has the juice. Did not shoot the ball particularly well from three, usually does. But people always say 'market size doesn't matter,' but not a lot of free agents want to play in a winter league in Minneapolis. I'm sorry. I mean, KG and Kevin Love were bigger stars when they left. One went to Cleveland with LeBron. and one went to the Celtics."

Again, what? Love was absolutely not a bigger star in Cleveland. He was the third wheel on a Cavs team that had LeBron and Kyrie Irving. Garnett was already a nationally recognized star before leaving Minnesota. Did he get bigger joining a Celtics team that was a dominant force over the following handful of seasons? Absolutely, but that's not because Boston is a bigger market than Minnesota. It's because he was part of a dominant team. More on that in a second, but Cowherd has more to add to help that point.

"You can be a star in Minnesota. but the top-selling jerseys in the NBA this year went to a guy from San Francisco, and LA, and New York," said Cowherd. "You get more games on TV. I look at him right now, and it just doesn't quite feel like he feels underappreciated. It's like Shohei Ohtani. With the Angels, he was a great Major League Baseball player. Fifty minutes up the freeway to the Dodgers, he's an international superstar."

Note to Cowherd here, the Angels and Dodgers both claim LOS ANGELES as their home market. Just because it takes 50 minutes to get from one stadium to the other doesn't mean they're not both in the same market. That just means your traffic system is awful. Aside from bad L.A. traffic, Cowherd actually made the counterargument to his original point.

By trying to use Ohtani as an example, Cowherd actually points out that market size, in fact, doesn't matter at all. Ohtani was a star with the Angels, but arguably took on another level when joining the Dodgers. Why? Because the Dodgers are perennial winners and the Angels haven't been for a long time. People want to watch winners, no matter where they are. American sports fans love a sports dynasty. It gives them something to latch onto and either cheer or hate. The Warriors and Chiefs are great examples over the past decade. Fairly irrelevant in the years before they became really good, and then sensations after Steph Curry and Patrick Mahomes donned their jerseys.

In sports these days, it's about whether you're a winner. If you do that, eyeballs will follow. There's a reason the New York Jets rarely have nationally televised games: they stink. They're in the biggest media market in the world and still can't get on national TV. When Ohtani moved from the Angels to the Dodgers, his star grew because he was playing on a winning team that was making the playoffs and going to the World Series, not because he went to a bigger market; he was already there.

"Where you play matters," continued Cowherd. "The publicity you get. The merch you get. The marketing you get. Jalen Brunson and Austin Reaves get talked about more than Ant. Now in the playoffs, you're going to get a lot of attention."

Reaves has 1.5 million Instagram followers. Again, Ant has 5 million.

"But the NBA, a majority of the season, 75-80%, is October until the playoffs start in April. So, I'm just watching him," added Cowherd.

Thanks for telling on yourself again, Colin. You haven't watched him all season...

"Smaller markets are fine," he continued. "Oklahoma City may dominate forever. And you could say, 'Well, what about San Antonio?' Wemby is such an outlier physically, the players call him an alien, he's going to get publicity everywhere."

Checks notes: Victor Wembanyama has the same amount of IG followers as Ant.

"But go look at the history of the NBA. Michael Jordan, Magic, Bird, it started with Dr. J for me," said Cowherd. "Go look at a lot of your great players. Big market. Houston, Hakeem, Clyde Drexler. Market size does matter. It matters for merch, for publicity, attracting free agents. It matters."

According to the latest Nielson market ratings, Houston is the 6th-biggest TV market in the country with around 2.7 million TV households. Minneapolis-St. Paul is 16th with 1.8 million. While the ratings number shows a big difference, the actual number of TV households isn't all that big of a difference.

It's an outdated argument that Cowherd, and most national talking heads, love to trot out when a star rises up in a middle market.

Add us as a preferred source on Google