Skip Bayless has never been my cup of tea, but I don’t have anything against him. I would see his face when the TV in front of my favorite elliptical at my gym was tuned to FS1 and think “oh, not for me” and throw on a podcast. I don’t recoil at the sight of him the way some people in our industry do.
With that being said, I do think it’s undeniable that his departure from Undisputed and FS1 was necessary for the network to form a viable identity. His star shined too brightly for the network to build a future. Any time he said something dumb or picked a fight with his co-host, it ate up all the conversation about FS1, of which there was precious little to begin with. There was no way to build a brand identity outside of him.
There are some really talented people on the network. Nick Wright may be the guy the network sees as its face, but between him, Joy Taylor, Emmanuel Acho, and Richard Sherman, there is no shortage of stand-out young stars comfortable giving big, sometimes wildly unpopular opinions.
Maybe you read that and think “Isn’t that exactly what they had in Skip Bayless? Why did he have to go if the strengths of FS1’s young stars are what he has been doing for years?”
It’s fair to ask, but that question answers itself. Skip Bayless had to go because he has been doing this for years. Everyone that was ever going to watch Skip Bayless has already watched him. He isn’t going to bring any new eyeballs to the network.
I compare where FS1 is right now to my teenage daughter. She will be 15 next month. It will be her first year of high school. She’s the age where you are your most paranoid, self-conscious to the point that every time you enter a room, you’re convinced everyone else is looking at and judging you.
As her dad, I have had to find ways to gently say “Do you know how freeing it is to realize no one gives a damn about you?”. It doesn’t mean no one cares. It means that no one cares enough to bring their own day to a screeching halt because you made the wrong choice or said the wrong thing.
FS1 has an opportunity here to build a weekday talk lineup that it can stick with for years to come. The network enjoys widespread distribution, and its ratings are trending upward, but let’s not sugarcoat it – there aren’t many people watching anything on FS1 that isn’t a live game.
That gives Eric Shanks and his crew an opportunity to grow by adding new faces. Maybe they’re all stars from day 1. Maybe you make some mistakes and have to start over. Who cares?
I stand firm in my belief that the “star era” is over for networks like FS1 and ESPN, but I can make a concession. Maybe that era is only over for its current crop of stars. When we say that no one is going to pay $50 per month for a streaming ESPN to watch Stephen A. Smith, maybe what we’re talking about is a mismatch of talent with the streaming audience.
We know what the national audience thinks of Skip Bayless. We know how they feel about Keyshawn Johnson. Danny Parkins is a fresh face, not unlike Joy Taylor or Nick Wright when the network first launched.
Taking chances like that paid off in the early days of FS1. The media landscape has changed a lot since 2013 and it will only change more in the days ahead. A lot of the rules have changed, but at the heart of it all, success in any form of media is about connecting with your audience.
If FS1 wants a lineup that is going to connect with a younger audience, excite them and win their loyalty, Skip Bayless had to go. He’s still capable of doing the job he has done for decades, but FS1 has seen the results that yields. The results were never going to change with the same 70-something star it has always been building around.
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.
