Just one year after Shannon Sharpe suddenly bolted from FS1’s popular sports talk show Undisputed, his former co-host, Skip Bayless, is said to be calling it quits as well as the show has struggled to rediscover its appeal since Sharpe’s exit.
The New York Post is reporting that the often hated and sometimes insufferable Skip Bayless has decided to pack it up after eight years of going back and forth with Shannon Sharpe and his replacements, Richard Sherman and Michael Irvin.
Unfortunately for Bayless, audiences began to tune out after Sharpe took his talents to ESPN. In an attempt to shake things up, Bayless recruited the talents of Paul Pierce, Keyshawn Johnson, Rachel Nichols, and even Lil Wayne to stir things up, but to no avail.
With ESPN’s First Take continuing to overshadow whatever was going on on Undisputed — thanks to the big personalities of Sharpe, Stephen A. Smith, and Molly Qerim — it was only a matter of time before Skip Bayless had to accept that inevitable “L.”
Per the New York Post:
“Undisputed” ratings numbers were also hurt on the margins as Craig Carton’s lead-in show has not yet reached the metrics that “First Things First” had in the early mornings before it got moved to mid-afternoon, following “The Herd” with Colin Cowherd.
While Cowherd and Bayless were warned by colleagues that they would get “lost” leaving ESPN for FS1 in 2015 and 2016, both were successful in making the shift, as digital platforms like YouTube, X and Instagram made their audiences portable beyond linear TV.
It is expected that “Undisputed” will continue without Bayless.
For years it was rumored that Skip Bayless would eventually find his way back to ESPN where he and Stephen A. Smith had some undeniable chemistry brewing on First Take for years before Skip went to FS1 and kicked off Undisputed with Shannon Sharpe, helping launch his star into another stratosphere.
Would Skip entertain a return to First Take? Would Stephen A. and Shannon Sharpe even want to bring him into their circle given the way things have soured between Skip and his former co-hosts over the past few years? We doubt it, but hey, you never know.
Skip’s final show is said to be going down later this summer.
Would you want to see Skip Bayless back on ESPN, or are y’all good on him at this point? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Photo: gotpap/Bauer-Griffin / Getty
