Earlier this week, the sports media landscape received a jolt when it was reported that Skip Bayless would be leaving FS1's Undisputed at the end of the summer, via the New York Post. Bayless has been on the network since 2016, which followed a long tenure with sports media giant ESPN, but the ratings for Undisputed have gone steadily downhill since the departure of Shannon Sharpe from the network last summer.
One person who is reveling in the exit is Cam Newton, who has been a target of Bayless criticism over the years and vice versa, who recently took to his own 4th & 1 podcast to relay his thoughts.
“You’re not the main attraction Skip, you’re the co-host being portrayed as if you’re bigger. The real reality was you were the co-host, sad,” said Newton. “You embarrassed a man on national television, made him try to feel so small. ‘Put your glasses back on’ like you demonized this man, so small. A person who’s done so much for the game of football. A Hall of Famer, there’s nothing higher than that, a Super Bowl, nothing higher than that.”
In his comments, Newton appears to be referring to Bayless' spats with Sharpe at the end of their run together, which did include Bayless seemingly disrespecting some of Sharpe's legendary career accomplishments.
Newton also, perhaps facetiously, offered his own podcasting talents to Bayless on his future endeavors.
“If you wanted to just do numbers, you could've called me, but you want to play horse, play pig,” said Newton. “Just make the call Skip. S—t I’m going to tell you one thing about me, I’m a lot of things, but I ain’t boring.”
An interesting legacy
Although Newton clearly doesn't know it based on his comments, Skip Bayless arguably had more influence than any other figure in creating the sports media landscape as we know it today. Bayless is directly responsible for the success of notable talking heads like Stephen A. Smith, whom Bayless brought up with him to First Take at ESPN.
Bayless also has vouched heavily for former athletes to be included and taken seriously on debate shows, including Shannon Sharpe, whom FS1 executives had doubts about prior to Bayless going to bat for him, as well as giving expanded platforms to former football players like Richard Sherman, Michael Irvin, and Keyshawn Johnson as well.
That said, there have been some very questionable moments throughout Bayless' career, including his blatant disrespect of Sharpe, as well as his comments on Twitter in the immediate aftermath of the Damar Hamlin near disaster in January of 2023.
With all of that in mind, it might be difficult to pin down exactly what legacy Bayless leaves behind if this is the end for him in sports media. Perhaps his ego ultimately became too inflated from the very real contributions he did make to the landscape, which made him forget that, even if he was the catalyst, no one can find success in that industry by themselves.
In any case, Bayless has at least a few more shows to go before his exit.
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