By Ben Koo on

Below is the only evidence of what led to plenty of yucks on Twitter last evening. It first appeared on Twitter via Cox Media sports reporter Ollie Connolly’s twitter account:

skipcomment

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Although Connolly posted the tweet, he later said it came from Dylan Goodin who can be seen leaving replies to Skip’s compliment to himself. With the comment now gone, we essentially only have Goodin’s screenshot and word to go on that it indeed happened, and he’s pretty firm that it did.

That’s a few of many replies from Goodin insisting the screenshot’s authenticity. He also changed his Twitter bio to read “I am a real person, I helped expose Skip Bayless I guess.” Goodin’s screenshot (if authentic) came from a Facebook Live video previewing the Cowboys Sunday Night game.

Bayless and Fox aren’t going to cop to this, and we’ll spare their PR department an inquiry, given they ignore these kind of inquiries and are primarily focused on sending out press releases and leaking fluff stories to the Sporting News.

My thought is that this indeed did happen, but let’s run down all of the possibilities.

1- It’s fake. We’ve seen similar hoaxes. Fake News! Maybe it’s another covert George Soros funded native advertising campaign?

2- Putin.

3- Bayless, or someone else with access to his Facebook account, was trying to leave a comment under a different profile and flubbed doing so by not switching to the proper account.

4- Someone who has admin access to the Skip Bayless page (likely a Fox/FS1 employee or someone involved with the show) was trying to further amplify engagement to the video via a dummy account and screwed up.

I’ll just say that I like the Bills’ playoff chances more than I like options 1-3. A quick survey of industry professionals seems to place a similar likelihood that the cause of comment stemmed from someone working in social media for the show or the network. I’ll spare you a long explanation, but will just say media companies LOVE engagement on social media, and increasingly you’re seeing a lot of media companies go deeper into their bag of tricks trying to give the impression of organic social media engagement.

The most likely explanation is that someone was trying to post that comment under a fake profile, and that he or she likely has a few profiles in which they’re able to use to comment from to hype Bayless or other FS1 shows. I actually don’t think Bayless even knows about this practice. Best not distract the Lord of the Takes with particulars on sketchy social media practices that are being resorted to pump a show that is flailing in the ratings.

Anyways, people obviously ate this up because Bayless is the most hated person in sports media, which somehow made him the perfect choice to be the face of a network that wants to challenge ESPN. Below some schadenfreude to enjoy at the expense of Bayless and whatever social media professional that has to spend their Sundays writing two complimentary sentences about Bayless that includes SIX exclamation marks.

https://twitter.com/andyroddick/status/810694424233738245

https://twitter.com/JulieDiCaro/status/810691920334913537

Well if FS1 wanted people engaging about Skip Bayless on social media, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

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About Ben Koo

Owner and editor of @AwfulAnnouncing. Recovering Silicon Valley startup guy. Fan of Buckeyes, A's, dogs, naps, tacos. and the old AOL dialup sounds

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