Nico Cantor Opens Up On Trailblazing Career for CBS | OneFootball

CBS Sports analyst and commentator Nico Cantor sits down with Urban Pitch to discuss his career path, following in his father’s iconic footsteps, and the importance of the 2026 World Cup. 

The apple doesn’t always fall far from the tree, and that has certainly proven to be the case with Nico Cantor.

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Born and raised in Miami, Cantor is the son of a Honduran mother Liliana, and an Argentine father Andrés — one of the greatest soccer announcers of all time. Growing up in the shadow of such an iconic figure, Nico didn’t have any second thoughts about following his father’s footsteps, and to polish his skills, he started off by commentating his friends’ FIFA matches.

“I have a bunch of other interests in life, but the one that spoke to me the most was sports broadcasting,” said Cantor in an exclusive Urban Pitch interview. “From a young age, I always knew that I wanted to do this, and I just kind of went in it. I didn’t even give myself time to pursue anything else.

“I started calling my friends’ FIFA games in high school and college. Can you imagine calling a back-and-forth, six-minute FIFA match and all of the drama?”

By the time that he was 14, Nico was already going on cross-country trips with his father and following every step of the six-time Emmy winner, watching the United States and Mexico take part in the Gold Cup as well as a number of other soccer tournaments. These father-son bonding experiences would prove instrumental in Nico pursuing a career in the broadcasting industry and carving out his own path in the game.

While Cantor played volleyball and soccer in high school and excelled in between the sticks as a goalkeeper, going pro was never in the cards for him. He continued playing soccer at the collegiate level at New York University, but his main priority in college was in the academic field rather than the athletic field.

He graduated from NYU with degrees in broadcast journalism and romance languages, then made his return to South Florida to work with his father’s Fútbol de Primera radio station before making the move to Univision Deportes (now TUDN), the rival company of his father’s Telemundo. Cantor was able to juggle both English-language and Spanish-language duty as a studio analyst in addition to serving as a United States men’s national team reporter and a commentator for Liga MX and MLS matches.

“I’ve been in the TV industry since I graduated college in 2016,” Cantor said. “The only air time I got during the 2014 FIFA World Cup was a flash interview, so technically, 2026 will be my fourth, but I would count it was my third World Cup. Obviously, through the pipeline of my dad’s radio company, I learned so much about soccer and broadcast being in that extremely privileged position for countless years. But it almost doesn’t stop at the radio station; I was sitting at so many dinners with my dad, talking football, so many Sundays with just the two of us, sitting on the couch, drinking maté, and to this day, I’m still learning from my dad.”

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Cantor wore a number of different hats at Univision, be that announcing games in Spanish or English, covering MLS or Liga MX, or working the assignment desk for two years from Wednesday to Sunday from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m., or cutting his teeth in the the station’s flagship program República Deportiva. He had the chance to absorb information from ex-footballers like Iván Zamorano and Hristo Stoichkov, and legendary commentators like Enrique Bermúdez de la Serna and Diego Balado, learning on the job from icons of the TV industry.

After enjoying success in Univision’s live whip-around soccer program Zona Fútbol, he’d soon be doing the same thing in English for CBS. When Turner Sports reneged on their TV broadcasting deal in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, CBS filled the void and became the American TV broadcaster of the UEFA Champions League in July 2020, two years earlier than originally planned. And one of their first hires was none other than Nico Cantor.

“I hadn’t seen a lot of the the CBS Champions League coverage, because I was broadcasting Champions League for Univision at the same time,” Cantor said. “English-language TV rights were up for grabs during the pandemic, and I remember working at Univision thinking, ‘We’re going to be the only people broadcasting the Champions League Final…people will have to listen to it in Spanish.’ And then CBS came into the picture and broadcasted the COVID tournament in Portugal, but I was working every single matchday by doing Spanish-language TV.”

In between the 2020 final and the kickoff of the 2020-21 UCL season, CBS got in touch with Cantor, whose CV made him an ideal fit for the team. With Univision, Cantor was covering a wide variety of leagues and national teams, giving him unique insight and knowledge about the sport at large.

“I was on a Zoom call with [CBS Executive Pete Radovich] and CBS’ head of talent, and they started grilling me, asking, ‘What type of soccer do you do?’ I was like ‘I watch absolutely everything.’ Working for a Spanish language broadcaster in the U.S., you’re just not broadcasting for one nation, you’re broadcasting for all of these countries. I’m watching La Liga, I’m watching Serie A, I’m watching Bundesliga, I’m watching Premier League, I’m watching Turkish football and obviously Latin American leagues and MLS.”

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Two weeks after that Zoom interview, Nico flew out to London, where he spent three months in lockdown covering European football for Paramount Plus. Over the next three years, Cantor would fly back and forth from Miami to London before finally settling in Connecticut in 2023 after the establishment of the CBS Sports Golazo Network, the first U.S.-based digital network with 24-hour, direct-to-consumer soccer coverage. After one year in Connecticut, Cantor made the move to Queens, where he has remained ever since.

Whether he’s serving as a reporter for CBS Sports’ CONCACAF and UEFA Champions League coverage, or working as an analyst for CBS Sports Golazo Network’s flagship morning show Morning Footy, Cantor has thrived thanks to his relentless work rate and insatiable passion for the beautiful game. However, his main gig has been with The Golazo Show, a live whip-around show in the ilk of NFL Red Zone, which keeps viewers up to date with the most important actions in the UEFA Champions League on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, as well as the UEFA Europa League on Thursdays.

In addition to our conversation, Nico answered a few quick hit questions as part of our interview:

Urban Pitch: Who are your top five sports broadcasters of all time?

Nico Cantor: I’ve got to throw my dad in there as well as Mike Breen. Breen is unbelievable, he’s next level. I think you have to throw Stephen A. Smith in there; if there’s anybody that understands how this sports world works to perfection, it’s him.

I’m gonna throw in a name that might not be that familiar to people in the American soccer world: Mariano Closs. He is one of the best broadcasters for soccer in not just Argentina, but Latin America. He is the symphony to Copa Libertadores for so many years, for some of our greatest memories for adults my age. Growing up and listening to him call games, he is an excellent analyzer of the game, he reads the game beautifully. He analyzes and does play-by-play at the same time, and I’ve had the privilege of working alongside him, and just seeing him do his thing, I’ve gotten better.

For my last pick, I’m thinking it’s probably gonna be a Spanish-language broadcaster. I’ll throw in Norberto Longo, who was my father’s co-commentator for so many years, the original Spanish-language American broadcast partnership. I was really young when he passed away, but people still come up to my dad to tell him about the partnership with Norberto, and he was just very honest. I’ve learned from Norberto from my dad’s anecdotes.

Rank them: Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Pelé, and Diego Maradona.

Messi, Maradona, Cristiano, Pelé. I obviously never watched Pelé, but I watched Ronaldo play, and when I watched him play, there were times that he looked like the best player in history. Obviously, I might be leaning towards my modern football background, but I’ve got to put Ronaldo over Pelé. I think Ronaldo Fenômeno is up there as well. When I was a kid, I was in love with Zinedine Zidane at one point, I thought he was unbelievable, but I don’t think he cracks that top four. If I were to sculpt the football Mount Rushmore, I would go Maradona first, then Messi, then Ronaldo, then Pelé. Even though Messi’s the GOAT, I would sculpt Maradona first.

Favorite soccer kit of all time?

1991-92 Boca Juniors away kit.

Better food scene: New York or Miami?

New York. Queens is arguably the best food city. Like, New York is the best food city in the world because of Queens. If Queens was a city by itself, Queens would be the number one food city in the world. The only time that I stepped foot in Queens when I was in college was to go to LaGuardia Airport, and now I never want to leave. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to discover this part of New York. Every time my dad comes visits me, he’s been coming here for 30-40 years, and he’s telling me that he’s discovering a part of New York for the very first time. You can literally you can walk to some of the best Chinese restaurants you will ever go to.

Favorite restaurant in New York and Miami?

My favorite restaurant in New York has gotta be Taverna Quiklades in Astoria. It’s a Greek restaurant. My favorite restaurant in Miami is an Asian place called Mandolin, it’s so good.

Finish this sentence: the 2026 World Cup will be:

The most pivotal point in American soccer history. I’d put it over 1994 just because of modernization and how the globe is connected, and how we’re all in sync, it’s gonna serve as a new launching point. I think it’ll catapult this sport. But I feel like it kind of has to go hand-in-hand with the US performing at the World Cup. I think a lot of people are going to be disheartened if the U.S. doesn’t do well. I think it can really push the sport and inspire a new generation of kids if the U.S. performs.