SAVE YOUR SKIP BAYLESS ANGER FOR HIS BOSS AT FOX SPORTS: ERIC SHANKS

Until the network fires him for insensitive comments, the analyst who needs an analyst is best ignored by enraged viewers who should ask why executives keep employing him at $8 million annually

     The reason Skip Bayless remains employed at Fox Sports is because a boss keeps extending his contract, because a boss always has his back, because a boss is complicit in his incurable asininity (emphasis on the ass). You think his disturbing tweet amid Damar Hamlin’s brief descent into cardiac death — “No doubt the NFL is considering postponing the rest of this game – but how?” Bayless typed, as America needed shock therapy — was his first insensitive moment in media?

     He has criticized athletes who take days off to be with their wives during child labor. He has ripped high-school players for no good reason. In 2020, when Dak Prescott bravely spoke about his depression after his brother’s suicide, Bayless said this on “Undisputed,” his weekday morning debacle with pitiable Shannon Sharpe: “I don't have sympathy for him going public with, ‘I got depressed.’ I suffered depression early in COVID to the point where I couldn't even go work out. Look, he's the quarterback of ‘America's Team.’ If you reveal publicly any little weakness, it can affect your team's ability to believe in you in the toughest spots, and it definitely could encourage others on the other side to come after you.”

     This man is convoluted. This man is deranged. He should not have a place setting on Planet Earth, much less on a network show that, unsurprisingly, is seen by a typical audience (184,000 last Thursday) no larger than the current population of Sioux Falls, S.D. Even his wife, Ernestine, calls him a “complete psycho.” Naturally, they co-authored a clown book: “Balls: How To Keep Your Relationship Alive When You Live With A Sports-Obsessed Guy.” My question: Why would Ernestine want to maintain a relationship with Skip Bayless?

     So, if only crickets are watching his program and Bayless lacks all life perspective and Cleatus The Robot would qualify as a better Fox host, why does he continue to make $8 million a year? Why do they keep bringing him back? Your answer: Eric Shanks, the Fox Sports CEO, also is out of his mind and has ignored the bleak ratings for years to appease people important to his company’s business. Namely, in Bayless’ case, Shanks likes to keep Jerry Jones happy — Jones being the NFL’s most powerful owner and an enabler of Bayless going back to his Dallas days. Also, Shanks would lose his head up the asscracks of the two Murdochs who pay him handsomely — old man Rupert and son Lachlan, both of whom have approved rollover renewals of Bayless’ role — if they stopped suddenly in a hallway.

     The only time Shanks’ department has responded to a Bayless blunder was when it involved Jones’ prized quarterbacking investment, Prescott. “We do not agree with Skip Bayless’ opinion on ‘Undisputed’ this morning,” Fox Sports said then in a statement. “We have addressed the significance of this matter with Skip and how his insensitive comments were received by people internally at Fox Sports and our audience. We are proud of Dak Prescott for publicly revealing his struggle with depression and mental health. No matter the cause of the struggle, Fox Sports believes that Dak showed tremendous courage, which is evident in both his leadership on the Dallas Cowboys and in his character off the field.”

     Notice how Shanks did not fire Skip, choosing to protect him. After all, firing Bayless would reflect poorly on … Shanks and his direct superior, Lachlan Murdoch, as the ones who’ve paid him and subjected us to his mindlessness. This is what TV sports executives do in times of crisis — cover their own hind-ends and seven-figure salaries and shirk their professional responsibilities. We saw it on full and disgraceful display last week, when ESPN and parent company Disney refused to even release a statement admonishing UFC president Dana White, one of the network’s foremost cash cows, after he was captured on video slapping his wife across the face at a nightclub. If honchos Sir Robert Iger and Jimmy Pitaro had any guts, they’d have cut ties with White as, say, the Los Angeles Dodgers cut ties with pitcher Trevor Bauer and the University of Texas dismissed basketball coach Chris Beard in domestic violence matters. Those firings continue to be debatable, as their alleged sins were not on video and neither has been convicted; Bauer was neither arrested nor charged. White is dead to rights, virally, worldwide. Oh, you say there’s no language in ESPN’s contract with White that allows a network response? That’s b.s. Disney has mega-billions. Disney has powerhouse lawyers. Find prouder ways to generate revenues. Challenge the monster.

     But that won’t happen. Know why? White would take UFC right back to Fox and Shanks, who’d spit-shine Dana’s sneakers and perform other services to have another shot at the lucrative millennial madness. Before his New Year’s Eve rumble with his wife, White spoke with typical bro-dude arrogance about how ESPN pried the precious broadcast rights from Fox in 2018. It’s all you need to know about Shanks, Pitaro, former ESPN boss John Skipper and White’s partner, Ari Emanuel, the powerful CEO at Hollywood titan Endeavor.

     “I’ve always had good relationships with the guys we did business with,” White said in an interview with Grant Cardone. “Started with Spike, then we went to Fox; Eric Shanks, one of the greatest dudes in sports, who was at DirecTV at one time. That’s where we met. And then, now at ESPN, it’s just always worked out that way, man. Timing and — I’ll tell you a crazy story. You ever hear of John Skipper? John Skipper ran ESPN … beloved. Looks like the squarest dude on the planet, older guy, you know?

     “Hates UFC. Hates it. Hates UFC, big soccer guy — for whatever reason. Different people like different things. And I’m not shitting on John Skipper, but this is a fact. This happened and this is a true story. ESPN’s at the top of their game, these guys are killing it in revenue. They’re making, like, $5 per subscriber — when cable was the biggest it’s ever been — to have ESPN and all this stuff, right? So, our Fox deal is up, and we’re probably not going to end up doing another deal with Fox. They’re selling off cable networks and restructuring. So, they’re not the same company that they were when we started with them. John Skipper’s never, ever gonna take the UFC. So, we’re in a real tough place.”

     And then … “John Skipper’s cocaine dealer is gonna rat him out. WHAT!?” White said. “So he has to tell Disney, ‘Yeah, my cocaine dealer is probably gonna go public,’ and whatever. So, he has to step down from ESPN. Right at the time that we’re trying to make our TV deal. Who do they put in as the new president? Jimmy Pitaro, who ran Yahoo! Sports for years. And I’ve known him for a long time and he’s a great dude. He loves the UFC ... You’ve got him, a guy named Kevin Mayer — who is really close to Ari — and we end up doing the ESPN deal when our deal is up. So, you wanna talk about timing and, you know, like, WHAT!? John Skipper does coke? John Skipper was very nice to us, always treated us with respect. But, while John Skipper was there, there was no way in hell the UFC was gonna be on ESPN.”

     Cunningly, White played ESPN against Fox. And he would ditch ESPN in a heartbeat if Iger and Pitaro crossed him. Hence, their weaselly no-show amid considerable public heat after White slapped his wife. In some sick way, this explains why Fox defends Bayless. Shanks actually is afraid that Bayless, who is 71, would jump back to ESPN and reprise his debate partnership with his friend, Stephen A. Smith. Just so you know, Smith’s program, “First Take,” generated 448,000 viewers — slightly more than the current population of Bakersfield, Calif. — last Thursday in its morning slot. During my eight years as a daily regular on ESPN’s “Around The Horn,” our numbers peaked at nearly one million viewers a day.

     So where’s my $10 million a year?

     The networks were sick of me. Obviously, the feeling is mutual. The TV bosses don’t want people on the air who cut to the harsh truths of sports, with commentary beyond the everyday slog, bombs that might disrupt sports business. When Bayless speculates about a game postponement during Hamlin’s life-and-death ordeal, it doesn’t hurt Fox’s relationship with the NFL. Nor does the NBA care when Bayless torches LeBron James. But when I mocked soccer as an American failure, or baseball commissioner Bud Selig as a joke, I was subjected to our show’s silly mute button because Skipper was a soccer guy and his Bristol underlings didn’t want league commissioners ripped by our panel. College football, too, was a taboo subject when the network was negotiating postseason deals, not that I obeyed those orders. Forget what you’ve read about me, a ton of smear-campaign propaganda. ESPN was afraid of my intellect and audacity and what I might say next — incisive, real-life, big-business commentary that informed an audience. ESPN should continue to fear me now.

     After leaving the network, I visited Fox years later for a chat with executive Jamie Horowitz, now at WWE. He paired Bayless with Smith at ESPN. When I arrived at the Pico Boulevard lot in west Los Angeles, I was taken to a room, where several men stood and watched an old episode of “ATH” with me. No one said anything as I kept popping on screen. It took all my restraint not to mention that our ratings, in the day, destroyed Fox. I don’t believe Shanks was among them, but I wouldn’t know him if he appeared on “The Masked Singer.”

     My best advice to the Hate Skip camp is to ignore him. If he truly has 184,000 viewers — and networks tend to lie about these things — push that number down to 18,400. Then Lachlan Murdoch will notice and ask, “Why are we paying this moron eight million a year when all he does is get us killed on social media?”

     Until then, focus on Eric Shanks, another corporate automaton, another not-very-smart person who wants not-very-smart people on the air.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.