If you want a place where you can watch every single UEFA Champions League match or every single UEFA Europa League match at the same time, there’s really only one option for you: the Golazo Show on CBS Sports / Paramount+. It’s here where you’ll find the reassuring voice of Nico Cantor, who has masterfully conducted the show’s whip-around show since his arrival at CBS in October 2020.
Born and raised in Miami, Cantor is the product of a Honduran mother – Liliana Williams – and an Argentine father – Andrés Cantor. As the son of one of the greatest football commentators of all time, Cantor was exposed to the broadcasting industry from an early age, learning from legendary sportscasters like Marv Albert and travelling alongside his father and watching him cover major tournaments. And after playing volleyball and soccer in high school and excelling at the goalkeeper position, leading his team to a district championship as a freshman, earning the captain’s armband in his junior year, and earning All-County honors as a senior, Cantor decided to leave South Florida for the Big Apple, enrolling at New York University and graduating with degrees in Broadcast Journalism and Romance Languages, before heading back to Miami.
“I started off calling my friends’ FIFA matches just to get reps, and then I accompanied my dad to see him get an award in New York. I saw Marv Albert and asked him for advice; he told me that he used to take a recorder to NBA games and call the games himself, and that lit a bulb in my head. After that, I started calling football matches and recording on my college laptop on a bunch of dodgy streams; I would lock myself in the room on a Saturday or a Sunday, and just call it as if I was live, and just started getting reps like that,” stated Cantor in an exclusive Joy News interview. “At one point, just being in the business, I started to go on the road with my dad in the summer at the age of 14 and understand how that world works. It was a lot of Gold Cups, a lot of Mexico national team tours in the US, and I got used to press conferences and mixed zones, being in the dressing rooms, pitchside reporting, all of that stuff.”
“It was very second nature to me by the time I was fully professional in it, and a lot of the people that work these venues, or these tournaments, or these games, be it with the U.S. Men’s National Team, or the Mexican National Team, or Gold Cups with CONCACAF, they’ve known me for a really long time, and I’ve known them for a really long time. Being in stadiums for these types of games, I feel at home, and that’s how I kind of got started. This is the Nepo baby speaking, that I had that privilege that not a lot of people had at 14 years old, and I don’t take that for granted. I loved it, I fell in love with it, I liked asking questions in the mixed zone and bumping shoulders with other journalists, and shoving my phone in people’s faces. 10 years down the line, I was showing my CBS colleague Clint Dempsey the interview that he reluctantly gave me, and we laughed about it afterwards – I must have been 17 years old!”
Cantor started working for his father’s Fútbol de Primera radio station before taking his talents to one of the biggest Spanish-language sports networks in the world in Univision Deportes (now TUDN) – the rival network of his father’s Telemundo. He worked as a studio analyst and U.S. Men’s National Team reporter and offered English and Spanish commentary for Univision’s coverage of Major League Soccer and Liga MX, honing his skills on the assignment desk and the station’s flagship program ‘República Deportiva,’ as well as its live whip-around soccer program ‘Zona Fútbol.’ It’s precisely these performances on Zona Fútbol which prompted Peter Radovich, Jr., a 45-time Emmy Award Winner and the Vice President of Production and the Senior Creative Director at CBS Sports, to hire him to do the same exact thing, but in English. Whilst Danny Higginbotham was making the opposite move across the Atlantic and starting a new life for himself in the Philadelphia area, Cantor was headed across the Atlantic and quarantining in England. He bounced around from London to Miami for three straight years before finally moving to Connecticut following the establishment of the CBS Sports Golazo Network, the first U.S.-based digital network with 24-hour, direct-to-consumer soccer coverage, which is available on CBSSports.com, the CBS Sports app, and on Paramount+. Today, he lives in Queens, making a regular 45 minute+ commute to the CBS studio in Stamford, CT.
“I was locked into the entire American soccer ecosystem at Univision, and CBS said, ‘We’re thinking of doing this show, and we’re looking for a talent, and they were obviously teasing the Golazo Show to me. I was doing the same thing in Spanish for Univision – Zona Fútbol was the Golazo Show in Spanish. I ended up taking the job at CBS, and I’ve been with them ever since. From one moment to the next, I ended up in England with my then-girlfriend, now-wife, two weeks after that Zoom interview, and I had to stay in lockdown in England for 3 months because it was Match Day 1, Match Day 2, Match Day 3, back-to-back-to-back weeks, and then a two-week break, which didn’t give me enough time to go back to Miami because of the quarantine in England, so I decided not to go. I just stayed until the end of December because then it was that break, until finally heading back to Miami after Matchday 6.”
‘
Although Cantor has worked as a reporter for CBS Sports’ Concacaf and UEFA Champions League coverage and as an analyst for CBS Sports Golazo Network’s flagship morning show Morning Footy, his main course has been as the host of CBS Sports’ live whip-around program, “The Golazo Show.” Whether analyzing Fiorentina’s harrowing descent in form, or explaining how Thomas Grønnemark has revolutionized Liverpool’s set-piece strategy, Cantor keeps all of his viewers up to date with the minute details from every single one of the simultaneous UEFA matches, earning praise from the likes of Rod Underwood and Kevin Egan. He ensures that they aren’t just getting a perfect viewing experience – they’re also getting an education.
“I’m commuting 45 minutes there and an hour back, Monday through Friday, but every so often, there’s a weekend broadcast we have to do. We have an amazing new show that’s very stats-based called Numbers Don’t Lie, so I’m recording that every Monday, and we’ve also got a bunch of matchday coverage; I’m working on Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve, I’m doing Concacaf World Cup qualifiers. I’ve been consumed in research – when I’m about to cover Haiti, I’ll find stuff about it being the first independent black-led republic in the world in 1804, maybe I’ll throw in a Ready or Not or Killing Me Softly reference as an easy transition if the game needs it. I’m co-hosting alongside Charlie Davies, so I’m researching Charlie’s records in all of these stadiums and stuff o make the broadcast fun, I’m going deep into Suriname football history, into Curaçao football history, because maybe someone watching doesn’t really care about CONCACAF, or they’re just watching it because they’re maybe Panamanian, or they’re Honduran, or they’re American, or Mexican. But I’m gonna sell you why it’s so epic that Curaçao is gonna make the World Cup. They are the smallest country to ever have qualified for the World Cup, and that is simply extraordinary…it’s understanding that moment. I’m doing a whole bunch of everything; wherever Coach wants me to play, I’m ready to play.”
- President Commissions 36.5 Million Dollars Hospital In The Tain District
- You Will Not Go Free For Killing An Hard Working MP – Akufo-Addo To MP’s Killer
- I Will Lead You To Victory – Ato Forson Assures NDC Supporters
Visit Our Social Media for More
About Author
