There aren’t many sports media personalities more synonymous with the daily debate format than Skip Bayless.
But when ESPN decided to truly “embrace debate” in the early 2010s, even the former Dallas Morning News columnist was hesitant to do so.
During the latest episode of The Sage Steele Show, the show’s host and Bayless reminisced about their past lives at ESPN. And while doing so, the 73-year-old admitted he wasn’t so sold on the idea of First Take moving from a show featuring both news and debate to one that was fully focused on the latter.
“We were still kind of this hybrid morning variety show plus sports debate, which was pretty weird in [2007-2009] all through there until Jamie Horowitz took over and just said, ‘OK, enough of all that. We’re just going to go two hours solid of debate,'” Bayless recalled.
“Embrace debate,” Steele added.
“Embrace debate, which I didn’t love. I didn’t love it,” Bayless continued. “Look, we were told by a lot of people in the hallways in those days that this would be career suicide for everybody involved. For Jamie, for me, for anybody who was on the inside of the new First Take, that it would collapse quickly. And the rest is ratings history.”
Of course, it didn’t hurt that this was also around the time that Tebowmania ran wild on the NFL.
“We had Tim Tebow for that one year in 2011,” Bayless said. “We did it for two hours a day and nobody turned it off.”
“Nonstop Tebow. Just brutal,” Steele said.
“I know. But it was captivating,” Bayless insisted. “The numbers we were doing on NFL Mondays off Tebow escapes, like miracles that he wrought… it was just madness. It would be me against the world. I would just sit there and we would move in more bodies.”
Bayless proceeded to reminisce about some of his favorite Tebow-related debate moments, which you’ll have to listen to the podcast if you want to hear.
Say what you will about Skip Bayless — and we’ve certainly said plenty — but it was actually interesting to hear him speak transparently about the First Take format and his initial doubts. For better or worse, the shift to an all-debate format did prove transformative for ESPN’s morning programming and the industry at large, as perhaps best evidenced by the fact that his Tebow obsession is still being mocked on his former employer’s airwaves nearly a decade after he left the network.
About Ben Axelrod
Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.