On its face, the tweet Skip Bayless sent out at 9:30 on Monday night is not offensive at all. The wording is clunky, but with some time and distance between reading it now and seeing Damar Hamlin collapse in the middle of the field in Cincinnati, the sentiment expressed comes across more as disbelief and confusion rather than a callous assertion that the outcome of the game between the Bills and Bengals is too important to just abandon.
When it comes to Bayless, it is hard to react to the things he says and tweets without the context of history, and his history certainly has not earned him any benefit of the doubt. He is a living and breathing hot take. I don’t doubt that Skip Bayless is an intelligent guy. That is why it is so hard for me to believe that he believes even half of the bullshit he spews into the world
Colin Cowherd has perfectly defined this business in the past – being interesting is more important than being right. That being said, if you are so desperate to be interesting that you are willing to say anything so that people pay attention, you run the risk of being labeled a fool.
Whether or not it was his intention, insinuating that the outcome of a game between two of the AFC’s top contenders is too important to the NFL not to finish while a player is being resuscitated on the field is kind of par for the course for Bayless. I, for the record, take him at his word that the intent of his words was easy to misconstrue inside the bubble of the moment. If almost anyone else had tweeted the same thing, they too probably would have been blasted as being callous, but the general consensus would be shock and we would probably give the person a chance to explain before we jump straight to calling them an asshole.
But with Bayless, being an asshole is the brand. You can hardly blame anyone for leaping to that conclusion.
That wasn’t always true.
There was a time in the infancy of “embrace debate” TV, when the most we heard from Skip Bayless in electronic media was when he would fill in for Jim Rome or maybe when he would guest host PTI. On those platforms, he was positioned as someone that said the things we wondered about but dared not ask or as someone that was willing to say what we were all thinking. His takes weren’t necessarily less salacious, but we were exposed to them less frequently.
Now, Bayless is in a crowded space. Everyone fighting for attention. They’re fighting for downloads and retweets online and fighting for rating points on television. Leaving ESPN for FS1 may have delivered a bigger paycheck to Bayless, but it put him behind the proverbial eightball. Fewer people watch his show Undisputed than watch First Take and while Stephen A. Smith fields some of the same criticisms that Bayless does, he occupies a place in the consciousness of the public that doesn’t watch sports that Bayless likely never will.
Is that why Skip Bayless took his decades-old act and removed the brakes? Is that why he is willing to humiliate his partner on television? Is it why he calls the players and coaches he covers names like he is a fifth grade bully? Is it why he has become a cartoonish adversary to LeBron James and a cartoonish stan of Tom Brady?
Honestly, I want to know and understand the answers to these questions, because I do not believe Skip Bayless is so dumb that he thinks he is the world’s lone truth-teller, or even that he believes half the stuff he says is okay. He may have meant no harm to Damar Hamlin, the Hamlin family, the Buffalo Bills, or anyone that read his tweet and thought he was way out of line, but the guy has a history that makes it hard not to assume the worst when he is involved. This is, after all, the same person that saw Dak Prescott on TV crying over his brother’s suicide and decided the best thing to do would be to turn it into content about what it means for the Cowboys’ locker room.
Skip is the Jerry Seinfeld of being a jackass. It is a brand new year and he is still doing the same old act. I am not even sure who it is for or what the point is anymore.
Demetri Ravanos is a columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. He is also the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host on the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
