Beef Between Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless: A Closer Look

Over the years, we’ve seen many a legendary media partnership break up after some incredibly successful runs.

Mike & Mike, Bill Simmons and ESPN. The list goes on and on and on. There are plenty to pick and choose from across the massive sports media landscape.

But never did I think I would see the day where Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless were beefing. Never. Those two? Nah, no way.

Alas, the day has arrived.

There’s a bit of a beef brewing between these two and it all stems from their history on their most successful venture together: First Take. Bayless left the show in 2016 for Fox Sports just four years after Smith joined him on the program, but not after making it one of the most successful shows in sports media.

The day he left, Bayless told Stephen A. how much he loved him and appreciated their time together.

Now? He’s reading podcast transcripts from his “brother” live on his podcast WWE style. It’s that bad.

Let’s dive into what happened.

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Sykes, say it ain't so. What happened?

Well, Skip Bayless posted a video on his Twitter account Thursday with a snippet from his podcast.

He was reading a transcript from the JJ Reddick podcast with Stephen A. Smith about how First Take took off with ESPN. Smith credited Bayless for bringing him on, but also alluded that he was part of the reason why ratings skyrocketed.

Skip wasn’t here for it.

“Stephen A. was suggesting that he saved and then made First Take. How can you save and make a show that was already as big a billion to one success story as ESPN had ever seen? The ratings and the revenues were impossibly great when Stephen A. joined me in 2012.”

Whew boy.

Wow, he's not happy. What did Stephen A. say?

Nope, not happy at all. And, honestly, the reaction doesn’t really feel that warranted.

Smith was explaining on Reddick’s The Old Man and the Three podcast how he ended up on First Take in the first place. He explained they’d had multiple people coming through to debate Bayless initially in 2012 but didn’t like the ratings.

From that point on, he claimed Bayless asked him to come on the show.

“Skip Bayless comes to me in the parking lot of ESPN’s campus in Bristol, Connecticut, and he says, ‘I know you’ve got your plans. You love the NBA. You love being out on the road. You love being in the locker room. But I need you. I’ve done all that I could to take this as far as it can go. I need you, please. Just give me three years. I think we’ll knock it out of the park.’”

Clearly, it worked. The show did well and is still doing well with Smith in Bayless’ seat. But it seems this bothered Bayless to the point where he made the case that Smith actually made the show worse.

Wait, really?

Yes, really. If you keep listening to Bayless’ pod, he gets incredibly spicy with it. He says the show’s ratings didn’t come close to NFL Monday broadcast highs it used to hit before Stephen A. Smith came on board.

“With Stephen A. as my partner, First Take would never touch the NFL Monday ratings it hit in 2011...and I had taken First Take as far as I could? Seriously? I was just getting started...Stephen A., how dare you?”

This man is not happy. At all.

What Stephen A. Smith said isn't that bad. Why is Bayless going off like this?

Honestly, it’s hard to say. Bayless clearly feels slighted by what Smith said. But this isn’t anything new from Stephen A. He’s shared this story before while giving Bayless all the credit he could.

Here he is in 2019 on The Breakfast Club talking about how Bayless made the show.

“That’s my man. And we skyrocketed to number 1 together. No matter what I’m doing on First Take, it’s because of Skip Bayless.”

He continues to go on talking about how Bayless vouched for him to return to the show with executives at ESPN and how grateful he is for that. Now, here we are 3 years later, and Bayless is going at him.

Wow. That's pretty wild.

It almost certainly is. But this is the sort of media drama the people are here for. And, by the people, I really mean Kevin Durant and the rest of us.

Look who is in the comments stirring the pot.

Somebody find me that instigator meme. Please.

That's hilarious lololol. But, no, seriously. What's the real story here?

Bayless has his account on what happened and Smith has his account. Clearly, they don’t line up.

We’d need someone to dive into the details for us. Or maybe they’ll sit down one day and hash things out themselves to give us the best picture of what happened. I’m not sure. And, ultimately, it doesn’t really matter that much. Both sides have moved on.

So, truthfully, we may never know what the real story here is. Hopefully, KD keeps getting these tweets off, though.