TSN Host of Cabbie Presents
CABRAL RICHARDS Cabbie Richards is an innovative Canadian sports broadcaster on TSN. He is most known for hosting CABBIE PRESENTS, a weekly segment on SportsCentre. Cabbie is also well known for this interviews and relationship with basketball superstar Kobe Bryant. Over the years he has interviewed sports superstars including Michael Jordan, Alexander Ovechkin, Derek Jeter & Shaun White, to name a few. We met up with Cabbie in Toronto to get to know his story of becoming a well-known sports broadcaster. Just as you would expect he is funny, charismatic, down to earth, and this is his story: You were born and raised in Toronto; tell us a little about what life was like for you growing up here in the city. My childhood was equal parts fun, adventurous and challenging because we moved a lot. My parents were like nomads. I lived in Jane and Finch which is very working class, also lived in Woodbine and Danforth, which is also very working class. When I was 12 I moved to Cambridge, Ontario, which is completely different from Toronto. I spent a lot of time on my bike. I was adventurous because of the big age gap between me and my two younger brothers, who were 5 and 6 years younger than me, so I spent a lot of time by myself and developed a big imagination. Did you play any sports growing up? I played baseball and then when in high school I played football and a little basketball – but no hockey. I can’t ice skate (laughs). What age did you decide you wanted to get into broadcasting, and was this something you aspired to do since you were a kid? No, I had no aspirations to be a broadcaster when I was a kid. I wanted to be an actor, and I would watch Will Smith, Martin Lawrence and Jim Carrey and just rip them off and tell their jokes at school (laughs). I used to tape stand up comedy specials like Evening at the Improv. I would tape comedians on Conan – Conan, when he first started would have a lot of comedians on, more so than Letterman and Leno. When I went to Ryerson for Radio and TV, it was there where a guy was like “Hey man, they need interns at Headline Sports – which is now Sportsnet 360”, so that is how I got into sports. I started interning with my friend, Adnan Virk, who is now at ESPN. While we were at the Score, I was writing scripts for the hosts – that is where the idea of being a man on the street was born. It was a way to be creative every week, and while I was meandering doing little Tim Hortons commercials and stuff like that, I was going out on the street and bugging randoms and asking them about sports stuff – that is how it got started. How did the idea of “Cabbie on the Street” go over with the producers when you first pitched the idea? My boss wanted to see what it looked like. So I went out, shot one and got it edited. It was just me with a little handicam, and I think they liked it because it was cheap. I worked for free the first six months and then I got a few bucks, a very small amount, every time I did one. I wasn’t your tra-
14 | April 2014