Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless are debating with each other again.
Two of the most iconic faces of sports debate television are arguing on separate platforms about their shared history from ESPN’s “First Take,” the show popularized by Bayless, but that is now hosted by Smith.
The issue started when Bayless spoke to Richard Sherman — the former NFL star with whom he had a public spat with on “First Take” in 2011 — during Sherman’s first show as one of Bayless’ debate partners on FS1’s “Undisputed” on Aug. 28.
Bayless explained to Sherman that their incident came at a bad time for the “First Take” duo because they were auditioning to move to an afternoon time slot. The show was also “on probation” due to incidents that Bayless said he was not involved with.
Smith retorted to these statements on his podcast “The Stephen A. Smith Show” a few days later saying that while he had some fault in the probation status of “First Take,” specifically because of the statements he made about the domestic abuse case of former NFL player Ray Rice, Bayless was not without blame either.
Smith claimed that Bayless’ coverage of former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow, which raised the popularity of the show, was actually not well-received by top management at ESPN.
“They had accused Skip Bayless, meaning public, of being a caricature of himself,” Smith said. “And even though Skip was incredibly proud of his Tim Tebow coverage, and what was peeled from it, the bosses weren’t necessarily enamored with it.”
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Bayless fired back at Smith’s comments on his own podcast, “The Skip Bayless Show,” calling it “baloney.”
“Stephen A., I love you with all my heart and soul, but that is just so wrong,” Bayless said.
Bayless first clarified the timeline of events, saying that Sherman’s guesting on “First Take” was in March 2013, over a year before Smith made statements about Rice, and well after Bayless first started covering Tebow.
He then pushed back on Smith’s accusation that bosses thought Bayless was a “caricature” of himself during Tebow coverage.
“Did you read three people on Twitter calling me a caricature? I don’t know because there was no shtick involved,” Bayless said.
Bayless then said that the reason the show was under probation during the time of the Sherman episode was due to statements made by their former colleague Rob Parker in 2012, and not because of anything Smith or Bayless had done.
Smith hopped back on his podcast on Sept. 8 and confirmed that Bayless’ timeline and Parker’s incident were correct. However, he reiterated that Bayless’ Tebow coverage was still a part of the show’s probation status.
“What Skip is either wrong about or has forgotten was that the honchos at ESPN were not happy with the constant Tebow coverage everyday,” Smith said. “Because the show was about Tim Tebow everyday before I arrived, that was a problem for the bosses here.”
Smith went on to recount a story where Bayless passionately defended his Tebow coverage in the ESPN lounge.
“You pounded your fist on the table and said, ‘I'm proud of it and I should be proud of it because we had the ratings,’” Smith said about Bayless.
Smith ended by naming three of ESPN’s big bosses at the time — John Skipper, Norby Williamson, and John Wildhack — and said they were “not proud of the coverage” of “First Take.” He challenged any doubters of his story to ask them.
“It’s not throwing any shade on you, Skip, I wouldn’t do that. I’m just saying that me or Rob Parker, we’re not the only reason we were on probation,” Smith said.
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