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Skip Bayless is ending a complicated and polarizing era of sports talk soon. On Monday, the New York Post reported that the veteran would be leaving Fox Sports 1 and his show Undisputed, with his last episodes airing in the summer. His former debate partner, Shannon Sharpe, had left for ESPN last year:
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Fans rejoiced at the development, with one tweeting:
"Thank the lord"
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Another wrote:
"I don't think he'll be missed. Good riddance"
More of the joy can be seen below:
"He s**ks anyway. So hard to watch," one said.
"Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Retire," another begged.
"This is the result when you have Lil Wayne on your show," yet another's "postmortem" went.
However, Skip Bayless' departure from FS1 doesn't necessarily mean the end of Undisputed. The Post suggested that it's expected to continue with new hosts.
A history of Skip Bayless' Undisputed and how it collapsed
Undisputed largely stems from Skip Bayless' desire to be the leading star of a debate show. For over nine years, he was a co-host of ESPN's First Take. Initially, he shared the spotlight with Jay Crawford, who was soon replaced by Stephen A. Smith, following which the problems began.
Over his first three years on the program, Smith started becoming the main attraction, which didn't sit well with his co-host.
FS1 wanted to make more inroads in the morning talk show segment after Colin Cowherd's success with The Herd and had the perfect target.
In 2016, Skip Bayless joined the network, premiering Undisputed with Hall of Fame tight end Shannon Sharpe. For the next six years, it competed with First Take for views and fared decently, but a pair of incidents destroyed its momentum.
In December 2022, Bayless' argument with Sharpe over Tom Brady's performance became personal when he mentioned that the former tight end had to retire at 35 (Brady was 45 by then) and was no better than the quarterback.
The next month, he posted a seemingly insensitive tweet about the postponement of the Buffalo Bills-Cincinnati Bengals game after Damar Hamlin's cardiac arrest and was condemned for it. Notably, only he was present for the following day's episode.
Sharpe left Undisputed and FS1 that summer, joining ESPN. The program was then restructured to feature former NFL players Keyshawn Johnson, Richard Sherman, Michael Irvin and rapper Lil Wayne in prominent spots. The new iteration proceeded to get destroyed by First Take almost weekly.
Sharpe's first two episodes on First Take drew more than 1.3 million viewers combined. The new Undisputed, meanwhile, could draw only around a sixth of that.
