Skip Bayless returned to First Take last week, and the reunion with Stephen A. Smith looked less like a fresh start than a greatest-hits replay of the argument-driven formula that made the show famous more than a decade ago. Bomani Jones said that was exactly the point: First Take became a giant because plenty of people kept watching, even when others dismissed it.
Jones made the case on his podcast that First Take has long been an easy target for sports media critics. He said daytime programming has always drawn a huge Black audience, and that some of the backlash against the show sounded to him like criticism of the audience itself. White viewers, he said, often know a signal when something is not aimed at them and move on, while Black viewers tend to keep watching.
That argument lands now because Bayless is back in the mix and the show is once again being measured against the version that Smith and Bayless built together. In the years since Bayless left, First Take has evolved into more of a vehicle for Smith, but the blueprint the two laid remains one of the main templates for sports and opinion media across television, radio and podcasts. Its influence reached well beyond sports, shaping the style of programs that thrive on debate at, and local radio.
Jones did not pretend the show escaped criticism on merit. He said First Take has earned plenty of it. But he pushed back on the idea that the audience was small or incidental, saying there were plenty of topics where viewers wanted to hear what Bayless would say after a major news event. That, he said, was proof of how effective the show could be when the two were at their peak.
“People act like First Take became such a big deal because nobody liked it,” Jones said. “There are a lot of people who like that show. There are a lot of people who watched that show.” He added that on many days, “you were like, ‘Yo, I gotta go see what Skip Bayless has to say about that,’” and called that reaction a testament to what Smith and Bayless had built.
Bayless’s return also underscores how much First Take has changed since its early rise. What was once a two-man engine of loud, combustible television now looks more like a platform centered on Smith, with Bayless back briefly as a reminder of the era that made the show unavoidable. The reunion may have been styled as nostalgia, but its real value was simpler: it showed that the formula still has pull, even now, and even among the people who say they are tired of it.
