At one point in time, Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless shared the stage on “First Take,” which quickly became one of the more entertaining sports shows on television, as they debated all topics with an emphasis on the NFL and NBA.
Nowadays, these two media personalities are competitors, with things getting interesting lately after Shannon Sharpe left FOX Sports’ “Undisputed” to join Smith on ESPN.
Bayless and Sharpe stopped seeing eye-to-eye, which led to another breakup and Smith bringing him on as a co-host.
Needless to say, Bayless likely wasn’t happy about Sharpe choosing to join his old partner, especially when Smith rubs it in that “First Take” is still the superior show when compared to ratings of “Undisputed” like he did on Twitter recently with a simple tweet of an article link.
— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) September 1, 2023
According to the article by Front Office Sports, “First Take” is crushing “Undisputed” as of late, with 131,000 viewers for Bayless’ show and 448,000 for Smith.
That doesn’t look like much competition, but this is only the beginning, and things can change drastically at a moment’s notice like they did when Sharpe joined ESPN.
It’ll be interesting to see how things pan out for both shows, and if Smith continues to subtly rub it in, as one has to think at some point, this will get pretty heated, especially if Bayless continues to get crushed by his former colleague.
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