Skip Bayless. Perhaps the most hated man in sports. An iconoclast known for attacking Lebron James and singing the praises of Tim Tebow. The infamous former co-host of First Take with Stephen A Smith. Seemingly known by all and hated by nearly as many.
Yet, he has nearly 3 million twitter followers. Over 350,000 people search his name in google each month. He is paid $5.5 million per year (According to The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch) to debate sports on Fox Sports Undisputed with Shannon Sharpe.
How did we get here? How did he come to embody the “Hot Take” and grab the attention of the viewing public? For that, we have to go all the way back to the beginning.
(Infographic courtesy of Slice of Sports)
Born in Oklahoma City in 1951, Bayless loved sports. Skip himself was not much of an athlete, averaging a much publicized 1.4 PPG his senior year of High School. He goes to Vanderbilt on a sports writing scholarship.
From there, he goes on to have a very successful print journalism career spanning the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Dallas Herald, and a few popular Books on the Dallas Cowboys when America’s team was actually America’s team.
ESPN hired Bayless full time in 2004 to be a TV debate partner with columnist Woody Paige and from there he only rose in prominence once paired up with Stephen A smith on ESPN First Take.
But what makes him popular? Lots of columnists have hot takes. Lots of athletes have hot takes. Skip is eloquent and a strong TV personality but that isn’t enough.
To find out the answer, I went on a 12 hour Skip-A-Thon content binge. Hour one, starting from his archives at the LA times, it seems he has always had the clickbait gene. The first article had the title: “Is Rose Cheating on Him? Or Jill?” (Which was in reference to safeties getting a step on QBs without them noticing).
He describes a racehorse as a dark chocolate beauty in a curiously anthropomorphic fashion in one article and uses the oxymoron ticky-tack-technical foul in the next.
In an ESPN Sportsnation chat from 2009 he seems to explain the origin of his LeBron hate
- “Dear LeBron … never have I seen a player with zero rings heap more pressure on himself by acting more brazenly cocky about how he’s going to go win this championship. You dance during blowouts, you flex, you snap pictures before games … it’s as if you’re going to have the ring ceremony before Sunday’s Game 1 vs. Pistons. You have now hit one walkoff jumper in six NBA seasons — Jordan did that every other week. So now it’s time to start showing us what you’ve got. No more excuses. Back it up, and you will be King.”
But it is a 2006 youtube video that begins to explain how he got so popular.
- Skip Crushes Allen Iverson for not being a team player and says the AI-Melo duo will never work. In a response video, AI claims Skip motives him more than anybody else on the planet. Skip laughs, says AI has lost all perspective and can’t contribute to a winning team. Invites him to come onto the show.
- Allen Iverson, the dude who openly talks about how much he doesn’t care about team practices… can’t get over some comments Bayless has made.
Fast forward a few years: Skip has repeatedly called Chris Bosh “Bosh Spice” for playing “soft” with the Heat. Bosh is so annoyed he comes onto first take, like an adult, and explains that he takes pride in his family name and resorting to name calling isn’t real analysis. It’s a cheap shot Skip looks him in the eyes, takes a deep breath, goes on a tirade about how he is a soft player and he won’t stop unless Bosh plays tougher. Bosh admits Skip motivates him.
That’s our first hint. He’s popular because he gets in feuds with pro athletes. Then they go on the show – like Richard Sherman did – to confront him for his ridiculous claims.
It doesn’t stop with Athletes either – Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban, wearing a Smurfs shirt, went on first take and annihilated him for not even knowing the basics of how a zone defense works.
I think here is a good point to note that Skip Bayless is not a sports expert. Cuban exposes that. His arguments are anecdotal and opinion based with cherry picked stats. First Take/Undisputed is something you grow out of if you get smarter and learn about each sport in depth.
But why learn about double elevator screens, horns offensive sets, and the intricacies of Spider Y 2 Banana when you can argue about Jordan vs. Lebron? There is room in Sportscenter for play breakdowns where fans can learn more about what is going on when their favorite teams are playing – but not for two hours. Even if it’s a fun subject that turns into school quickly.
So if breaking news and increasingly highlights are left for social media, and we are limited as to how much complicated explaining shows can air – what’s left?
That’s where Bayless comes in. How he fits into that landscape – is shockingly explained in a Youtube comment section of all places… in a cold as balls video where Skip and Kevin Hart talk about sports submerged in a cold tub.
Youtube commenter David Ferguson says:
“A lot of people can’t stand Skip but honestly I love the guy. He’s the face/voice for the “not so public opinion” and what a lot of people don’t understand is that his job isn’t to be a likeable character, his job is to be entertaining and he is that. There’s people you hate, and then there’s people who you just love to hate and that’s Skip. Not to mention he owned this debate, balls deep in an ice bath, while a man half his age made us all laugh to take focus off the fact the old man straight took his man card and slapped him with it (No hate, I love Kevin Hart too.) And aside from everything else the dude worked his way up from the average paper reporter to be one of thee faces of sports and still has that 3 hours of sleep, run 2 miles at 2 am, work ethic that guys much younger than him couldn’t possibly compete with. Skip’s one of those guys that is “so hated” but when his time on earth is up people will appreciate him in his absence. Without him, Shannon, and Stephen A these sports shows would be as entertaining as the today show. Sorry to rant but someone has to give him his props lol.”
Top Response: David Ferguson i feel you. i can’t stand skip 90% of the time but i’ll always love watching that guy
Psychologists have determined the line between love and hate is extremely thin. According to a Public Library of Science study by Semir Zeki, the same area of our brain is activated both when we love and hate someone. So perhaps the hate many feel for Skip, even the same people who call him Skip Baseless, may like him more than they think.
Personally, I have gone back and forth that tenuous line between love and hate. I appreciate his entertainment value, but I’m not a fan of bullying athletes on national television.
But as his Twitter Bio says:
It’s “Maybe not what you want to hear, but you need to hear.”
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