2011-12 NBA Season

[CS85]

That was awesome. Bayless watches sports with a total non-attention to the game - all he watches are the facial expressions and interprets his idea of what the human drama is. He doesn't know a goddamn thing about the actual sport itself.

[FiddySicks]

That's what irks me about ESPN so much, they try so hard to infuse drama into every aspect of sports like its a damn reality TV show. And granted, sometimes it works. Their 30 for 30 specials and Outside The Lines short stories are fantastic. But those are great because the dramatic aspect of them speaks for itself. But when they hire idiots like Skip Bayless to try and force this nonsense drama into Lebron's fifth free throw shot or whatever, it nearly negates any of the merit their good programming has.

[Lights Out]

That was awesome. Bayless watches sports with a total non-attention to the game - all he watches are the facial expressions and interprets his idea of what the human drama is. He doesn't know a goddamn thing about the actual sport itself.

It was quite hilarious to see Skip try to explain a defensive scheme by only saying who was guarding or "supposed to" guard LeBron. Total moron who knows nothing about sports and loves to bash athletes.

[shaydre1019]

I know, and I mean KNOW, I'm the minority here, but Colin cowherd doesn't (at least not from what I've seen/heard) speak any nonsense like skip Bayless does. I've yet to hear him say anything ridiculously dumb, while skip, well... I don't think I need to explain skip...

[Kramerica Industries]

It's whether you hear it, or want to hear it.

I don't listen to Cowherd, so I don't know. I don't watch SportsNation, so I don't know. I will say that I remember a recently canned blowhard on 620 WDAE in Tampa - Dan Sileo, and even though I thought he was a pretty solid football analyst (shocking, since he played football at Miami and in the pros briefly), his baseball and hockey analysis left much to be desired. I used to listen to him between 2009-2011 just to hear what ridiculous tripe he would come up with to hype up the Rays and trash the Yankees and Red Sox*. His only way of analyzing pitchers was through wins. All in all, he was a walking disaster during baseball season. That said, I do miss the bastard, since this is a football market first and foremost, and I need better Bucs coverage. So that's that.

*which was surprising, since he claimed to be a Yankee fan. I mean, if he had switched allegiances in later years to pander to the market, fine, but he never made that clear.

[Kevin W.]

Cowherd isn't nearly as bad as Bayless. Not by a long shot.

[Saintsfan]

Bayless is the worst of the talking heads I've seen, and that Cuban bit shows why. All he does is take a side and argue that point, no matter what else is said by who. A hands on owner who has a good handle on his team and its play explains explicitly how his team played Le Bron in the finals last year, and despite that Bayless just keeps on going down his 'James didn't play hard enough' line.

[CDixonDesign]

I've always said theres a reason why Skip Bayless on is First take, which comes on mid-morning when the majority of intelligent individuals are busy....

[Cujo]

So if nobody on the face of this planet likes Skip Bsyless, WHY IS EVERYONE STILL WATCHING HIS SHOW????

[evanmaldonado]

Because its called ESPN First Take, not ESPN Skip Bayless. Meaning there's more than one person on the show. Plus it's fun watching him make a jackass of himself over and over again.

[Punch]

So if nobody on the face of this planet likes Skip Bsyless, WHY IS EVERYONE STILL WATCHING HIS SHOW????

You don't have to like someone to watch them, which is where ESPN succeeds. People tune in to watch Skip make a fool out of himself while Stephen A. Smith sits there with his face in his palm. All of this while Jay Crawford acts like (or truly believes) that the things Skip says are not ridiculous. I find it hard to take any of their "arguments" and "discussions" seriously as Smith always prefaces every point with "Now you know I love you LeBron" or "I respect your opinion, Skip". Nonetheless, I still enjoy it because I take it for what it is - entertainment.

[pmoehrin]

So if nobody on the face of this planet likes Skip Bsyless, WHY IS EVERYONE STILL WATCHING HIS SHOW????

Because at 10AM its pretty much either him or Rachel Ray.

I haven't watched First Take in about two months but when I do its mainly background noise.

I view him as a professional troll. His entire job is to just generate a reaction. In that sense I actually take very little issue with Skip Bayless because he's just doing what he gets paid to do. I take far more issue with ESPN putting him on TV and then still calling themselves a legitimate news source for sports. Although that's the problem with our news in general. There's no differentiation made anymore between what's opinion and what's actually news.

That's really what I think Mark Cuban was trying to get at. Its impossible to tell with ESPN what is actually analysis and what's just opinionated BS because both are presented the same way. Skip Bayless just happens to be the best example of that at ESPN.

[shaydre1019]

I'm not gonna lie, it's entertaining watching him and Stephen a go at it. Stephen a isn't a genius but he usually makes more sense than skip. He yells quite a bit though.

Cowherds my favorite and I like the pti guys too.

[tBBP]

So if nobody on the face of this planet likes Skip Bsyless, WHY IS EVERYONE STILL WATCHING HIS SHOW????

Probably for the same reason you kept transforming into ESPN4 (with sig to boot) and posting every single last bit of Brett Favre news you could get your cursor on...even while seemingly hating every bone in the man's body with every fiber of your being.

#workthatout

[Lights Out]

I view him as a professional troll. His entire job is to just generate a reaction.

I disagree. This has been Skip's act since back before his 15 minutes, when he was an obscurely horrible newspaper columnist instead of a famously horrible TV host. He made up Troy Aikman gay rumors in Dallas to sell a book, then wrote an article in Chicago in which he tried to claim that Barry Bonds was a better person than Sammy Sosa. It's beyond trolling, he's a bitter, delusional attention whore with a strong hatred of athletes.

[rams80]

Because at 10AM its pretty much either him or Rachel Ray.

Or DVDs. Or Netflix. Or Tivo. Or turning the damn thing off.

[HedleyLamarr]

So if nobody on the face of this planet likes Skip Bsyless, WHY IS EVERYONE STILL WATCHING HIS SHOW????

Because at 10AM its pretty much either him or Rachel Ray.

My girlfriend asks me why I still go to work on days where tell me I don't have to come in (or still leave home at 7am for half-days).

I'm already awake. My job allows me access to Turner's gym at CNN Center, so I can go get a workout. Plus, what else am I gonna do at 7 in the morning.....watch Al Roker's fat ass on the Today show?

Thankfully, I'm almost never home to watch daytime TV. I tried watching stuff when I was sick, and there was nothing good to watch. I just went to the office room in the house, put on Howard Stern 100 on the internet, and went in and out of sleep.

[pmoehrin]

So if nobody on the face of this planet likes Skip Bsyless, WHY IS EVERYONE STILL WATCHING HIS SHOW????

Because at 10AM its pretty much either him or Rachel Ray.

My girlfriend asks me why I still go to work on days where tell me I don't have to come in (or still leave home at 7am for half-days).

I'm already awake. My job allows me access to Turner's gym at CNN Center, so I can go get a workout. Plus, what else am I gonna do at 7 in the morning.....watch Al Roker's fat ass on the Today show?

Thankfully, I'm almost never home to watch daytime TV. I tried watching stuff when I was sick, and there was nothing good to watch. I just went to the office room in the house, put on Howard Stern 100 on the internet, and went in and out of sleep.

For me its usually something I stick on if I'm at home and working on the computer or am working out. If I do either activity in total silence I go crazy, so I need some type of distraction to go with it and I don't want to watch something I could get too caught up in especially if I'm doing computer work. For background noise materical its perfect for me. Its just enough to keep my interest, but I don't get caught up watching it.

[Saintsfan]

Cowherds my favorite and I like the pti guys too.

Funny thing about Cowherd, I've always found his show more watchable when he's not on it. Unless Bayless is the replacement. Although Cowherd obviously understands sports, he still says a fair bit just for the reaction.

[Cujo]

So if nobody on the face of this planet likes Skip Bsyless, WHY IS EVERYONE STILL WATCHING HIS SHOW????

Probably for the same reason you kept transforming into ESPN4 (with sig to boot) and posting every single last bit of Brett Favre news you could get your cursor on...even while seemingly hating every bone in the man's body with every fiber of your being.

#workthatout

I forget, what ESPN show did Brett Favre host?

If each and every one of us stopped watching SportsCenter back then, aka FavreCenter, Brett would still have become a New York Jet and Minnesota Viking and would still have played out the final years of his NFL career. It's not even close the same with Skip Bayless. If all the Bayless haters (everyone with a pulse) were to stop watching First and 10 or First Take, whatever that show is called, he WILL go away. Instead, everyone goes crazy and blows up Twitter when puts himself ahead of the story (LeBron, Tebow, everything). As long as THAT happens, Skip is here to stay.

That, my friend, was a horrible comparison.