This originally appeared in Friday’s edition of The A Block, Awful Announcing’s daily newsletter with the latest sports media news, commentary, and analysis. Sign up here and be the first to know everything going on in the sports media world.
We here at Awful Announcing are probably in the top 0.1% of sports studio show viewers in America. It’s how our stud social team is able to churn out clips from all across the sports media landscape to share with all of you on X, Bluesky, Threads, or wherever else you spend your time scrolling.
That means we spend a concerning amount of time consuming the daytime shows on ESPN and FS1, the two cable sports networks that at least resemble the 24-hour networks that used to dominate the broader sports media world not even 10 years ago.
The space has changed considerably since then. Now, our team spends just as much time scouring the countless podcasts and digital shows that influence sports media as we do locked into our television screens. And as we and others have documented, those two mediums increasingly look like one and the same. Television looks a lot like a podcast these days, and your favorite podcast likely looks a lot like a television show.
One of the most common refrains in our social media posts, particularly when we take a clip from First Take, First Things First, or another daytime studio show, is a yearning for a bygone era. Why can’t ESPN just be Dan and Keith reading us highlights anymore? Why is everything a debate? Can’t we just talk about sports like normal people?
It’s true. There’s very little about today’s sports television programming that resembles what many grew up with. No doubt, nostalgia is a large part of what fuels comments like these. The reality is, it’s quite difficult to program a show like that in 2026. If you’re a tennis fan, you’re going to listen to Andy Roddick’s podcast and watch Tennis Channel for your fix; you’re not going to First Take. The same applies for almost every non-NFL or NBA sport. And even at the NFL or NBA level, people are often seeking more niche coverage that better fits their interests. Maybe you’re a Hornets fan and listen to a couple Hornets-focused podcasts. Maybe you’re a data wonk who is consuming analytics-focused coverage. Or maybe sports betting is your thing, and you’re choosing shows that help you become a more informed bettor.
Whatever it is, there’s a place for you that isn’t daytime sports television. But if you look through the replies on any given Awful Announcing post, it’s clear that there is still some thirst for generalist sports coverage. A show that gives you, in a broad sense, what happened or is happening in sports that day. There’s a reason, after all these years, Pardon the Interruption is still the top-rated daily show on ESPN: there’s still a dedicated cohort of general sports fans out there that crave the PTI-style rundown that hits on everything.
And hiding in plain sight is an entire outlet doing just that: CBS Sports HQ.
As a bit of an experiment, I spent much of the past week substituting my usual background noise of ESPN and FS1 with CBS Sports HQ. I wanted to see what the network did differently and whether there was anything to glean from this rarely discussed 24/7 sports network that you probably see most often on the corner television at your local sports bar. What I found was a delightful, refreshing change of pace that, in many ways, felt like a throwback to when sports television embraced generalism.
For the uninitiated, CBS Sports HQ launched in 2018 as a free streaming channel dedicated to sports news and highlights. In the eight years since, its sensibilities haven’t changed. You can still access it for free online, on your phone, or on your smart TV through any number of FAST platforms. And it is still almost wholly dedicated to real-time sports news and highlights. No frills.
“Our goal is to provide fans the full national view of what’s happening in sports over an hour of viewing. We want every fan who watches to leave feeling informed about all the major national storylines across sports,” Jeff Gerttula, CBS Head of Digital, told Awful Announcing earlier this week.
That makes HQ a unicorn in today’s television environment. It’s the one place a sports fan can go at any hour of the day to get straight, up-to-the-minute information about what’s going on in the broader sports world. This is especially true as ESPN plans to cut even more SportsCenter hours from its schedule in favor of a 2 p.m. ET show starring Peter Schrager. That means between 8 a.m. ET and whenever ESPN wraps up whatever live game coverage is on that night, ESPN will air just 90 minutes of SportsCenter: a 30-minute mini-show at 5 p.m. in the old Around the Horn slot, and the 6 p.m. hour following PTI. If you’re looking for sports news and highlights at any other hour, CBS Sports HQ might be your best bet.
HQ programs about 70 hours of live coverage per week, with cornerstone morning, afternoon, and evening shows anchoring that lineup (with some re-airs in between to fill the gaps). And instead of the oft-contrived segments that have become familiar on daytime sports programming, the HQ formula is simple. A one-hour show tends to be split into about four segments, each dedicated to a different sport or league. A typical hour could lead with NFL, shift to college football, then hit baseball and golf. This structure isn’t always the case, but it tends to hold true on a standard day in sports.
Each segment is teed up by an anchor, who might show some highlights, read some headlines, and fill viewers in on the top stories in that sport before bringing on an analyst or two to break down what it all means. For the sports fan who just wants to be informed about what’s going on in the sports world without all the gimmicks, it’s a breath of fresh air.
That’s not to say the product is perfect. If you care about super high production quality and guests appearing in-studio, which itself is a rarity these days, HQ might not check all the boxes for you. Most guests are remote, though the anchors are in a nice-looking studio. Video quality for the highlights can be hit-or-miss depending on how CBS has to capture the feeds. And overall, there’s just less polish to the product from a visual standpoint than what you’d find on ESPN or FS1.
Then, there’s the aforementioned re-airs. While HQ prides itself on keeping viewers up to date, the lineup is interspersed with reruns of the previous live hour. Unfortunately, it’s not realistic for a free 24/7 sports network to produce new, live programming every single hour. That means you might catch the same show twice in a row depending on when you’re tuned in.
I’d also be remiss not to mention that it sometimes misses the mark on covering the top stories as they’re happening. Just like ESPN and FS1 failed to cover the breaking news about San Francisco 49ers owner Jed York in the hours after the story first broke earlier this week, CBS Sports HQ also did not cover the story during those first few hours. This is where I’d have liked to see HQ thrive, but the network stuck to its standard rundown.
But even for its faults, I know I’ll be returning to HQ in the future. There’s something about its style of sports coverage that feels bespoke in an age of algorithms and hyper-personalized content. Sometimes, I just want some smart people telling me what’s happening in sports and what it means, without leaning on some sort of unanswerable question to peg a segment to. That’s what HQ provides. And the fact that it’s free, no subscription required, and it can still produce 10 hours of live sports coverage every single day? That might be the most impressive part of the whole story.
So if you’re in the market for a refresh to your sports media diet, you could do much worse than giving CBS Sports HQ a shot. And if it’s not for you, well, at least you didn’t spend a dime trying.