You couldn’t glance at your Twitter feed, peruse Facebook’s trending news, or even click a link to your favorite websites yesterday without running into the news that, come August, Skip Bayless is heading to Fox Sports 1. The original report from Deadspin wasn’t all that shocking, as Jamie Horowitz, the President of Fox Sports National Networks and the man who once helped usher in ESPN’s era of embracing debate, has made no secret of his plans to woo Bayless away from the World Wide Leader when his contract runs out this year. That led to myriad angles and opinions from all corners of the sports blogosphere, with Richard Deitsch assuring us that Bayless would still be the same old hot take artist at FS1, and Awful Announcing even showcasing old tweets from FS1’s current stable of talking heads to remind us that Clay Travis and Jason Whitlock think very little of their future coworker.
On Wednesday, Bayless confirmed the news on First Take in an emotional segment. The man who is just as serious about his body as he is about his own brand of “journalism” thanked his “haters” before reaching out to shake Stephen A. Smith’s hand. They even admitted that they love each other, which could have been a perfect moment if they’d shouted it at each other and never let the other one get the final word out.
