ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas makes it a point to follow zero accounts on Twitter/X — and he doesn’t plan on following anyone anytime soon.
On the latest edition of Sports Business Journal’s The Sports Media Podcast, Bilas tells his 0 follower origin story and why he’ll continue to follow no accounts into the future.
SBJ’s Austin Karp asked Bilas flat out, “You have over a million followers, what’s it going to take for you to follow someone on X?” Bilas quickly responded in the negative.
“I won’t do it,” Bilas said. “I actually don’t look at Twitter that much.”
He then explained how the 0 follows trope began and how it got to this point.
“When I first got on Twitter, I didn’t know how it worked. So I didn’t follow anybody and I got guff for it. Somebody said, ‘What, are you too good to follow somebody?’ And I joked back, ‘Yes, I am!’ So I never did it. It’s just a joke.”
Recently, Bilas has acquired the reputation as somewhat of a curmudgeon, thanks in part to his opinions on NIL and court-storming. It’s caused media members like 97.1 The Ticket host Jim Costa to call Bilas out for his comments.
