Meet the new Linda Cohn. Same as the old Linda Cohn.
Only now, the pioneering sports broadcaster who delivered straight sports news at ESPN for 34 years, has shed her corporate yoke. She is embracing radical candor with her recently launched eponymous YouTube show.
“For the first time the gloves are off,” Cohn told me of her move into independent opinion journalism. “For the first time, I can speak freely on how I was feeling about certain subjects involving sports.”
And boy, had she stored up plenty to say. Cohn — who anchored SportsCenter and did play by play for the WNBA — retired from the network in June and wasted little time starting her second act.
In late July, the 66-year-old started the twice weekly (Tuesdays and Thursdays) Linda Cohn show weighing in on the biggest sports stories, including WNBA controversies (pick one), badly behaved influencers at the US Open, Arch Manning laughing at the AI video of Holly Rowe and ESPN’s round of layoffs this summer.
Three weeks ago, she added an NFL-centric Sunday show to the mix and has quickly amassed over 36,000 subscribers. She also recently signed a deal with Bleav podcast network, which will expand her footprint to other platforms like Spotify and Apple.
The response to her new chapter been “very empowering” and affirming for the Long Island native, who over her career in traditional media, was “trained in being the good girl and measured in what I said. It’s been ingrained in me for decades.”
During her tenure, Cohn showed a lot more self-restraint than some of her colleagues, who used their airtime to lecture viewers on their pet leftist causes.
Now there’s no suit hovering over her shoulder, telling her to delete a Tweet or soften her language. And she’s immediately took to her new freedom, shining a critical light on her old network.
The start of her show coincided with industry shaking layoffs at ESPN, which included beloved mainstays like Karl Ravech and David Lloyd. Cohn didn’t hold back.
“It was so many close friends of mine [who were affected]. I spoke openly, honestly and freely about it. I think people said, ‘Wow Linda Cohn’s going to be really honest about it’. People were thinking the same way I was, but I had worked there for 34 years, and I said it.”
That candor, says Cohn, lent her solo act immediately credibility and put some momentum behind her show.
Under her own banner, Cohn has become a formidable and entertaining presence on X, dishing out unvarnished takes and interacting with critics in a refreshingly polite, professional manner.
But it’s been her WNBA takes on Caitlin Clark, the self-inflicted trans controversy and A’ja Wilson withdrawing from the World Cup roster at the last minute, that have also made her polarizing to a certain segment of sports fans who see everything through a partisan lens.
Those detractors have labeled her “MAGA” and a right wing grifter.
“There are people out there making assumptions, and they don’t know who the hell I am,” said Cohn.
Who is she?
“I’m not a political person,” she said. “I’m a journalist. Guess what journalists do? We ask questions. We don’t just take the PR statement that is out there.”
She’s also taken particular heat for defending Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham saying that males don’t belong in women’s sports, a viewpoint that ten years ago would be considered banal. Safe. Normal.
“The first athlete I looked up to as an 11-year-old learning to play tennis was Billie Jean King. And she fought so hard to create Title IX. This is one topic I don’t understand. Why aren’t people using common sense here.”
Indeed, wading into opinion journalism can mean both praise and unsparing blowback.
But it’s encouraged her to grow another layer of thick skin over the one she grew as she came up in the male-centric business, breaking into the boys club.
“I’m not complaining because I chose to be in this business,” said Cohn. “It was definitely harder back then. Or more challenging.”
As she settles into this new phase, the self professed “Swiftie from way back when” has repurposed a line from the Taylor Swift song, “New Romantics” into her personal mantra.
“I could build a castle out of all the bricks they threw at me,” she said, repeating the lyric to me.
“I always come back to that.”
After all, she has years of experience, self-assurance and now independence on her side, “I’m being true to myself.”
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