“Now she’s on our team”: Skip Bayless raves about veteran media personality Rachel Nichols as she debuts on ‘Undisputed’

After a long career with ESPN, Rachel Nichols has now joined forces with another major network. The longtime NBA analyst recently debuted with her new place of work.

With Shannon Sharpe departing from FS1, Skip Bayless has been in search of a new co-host for "Undisputed." He's had multiple people on with him, including former NFL stars Richard Sherman and Michael Irvin. Now, another name has been added to the mix.

On a recent epsiode of "Undisputed," Bayless declared that Rachel Nichols has joined the team over at Fox Sports. He ran down her long list of career accolades before finishing up by stating "she's on our team now."

Nichols has been with multiple big name publications over the years. Other stops aside from ESPN include TNT, CNN and the Washington Post. Before joining Bayless on FS1, she was a basketball host for Showtime Sports.

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How long was Rachel Nichols with ESPN

As most know, Rachel Nichols was a regular on-air talent for ESPN for over a decade. She got her start with the network in 2004 as a sideline reporter. From there, she worked her way up to being one of the main faces of ESPN's NBA coverage.

Nichols left ESPN breifly in 2013 to work for Turner Sports. However, she wasn't gone long. By 2016, she had worked out a new deal to return to the network as an on-air host.

Despite being a mainstay on ESPN for some time, Nichols' time with the network did not end on good terms. It all began in 2020, when a private conversation of hers was recorded from her hotel room in the NBA Bubble.

During the conversation, Nichols voiced her frustration about "The Jump" being replaced by "NBA Countdown" as the pregame show for the NBA Finals.

A year later, parts of the phone call were leaked to the New York Times, who ran a story on it. In what was sent to them, Nichols stated she felt the move was made for diversity reasons. Maria Taylor is host of NBA Countdown and has become an emerging talent for ESPN.

Nichols eventually went on air and apologized for what she said, but it did not mend things between her and ESPN. Eventually, they scraped her show all together. Things officially came to an end in 2022, when Richols and ESPN settled on her release.

A year later, Nichols has now joined forces with one of ESPN's biggest competitors.