Skip Bayless: How is sports media’s most hated man so popular?

Skip Bayless. Perhaps the most hated man in sports. An iconoclast known for attacking Lebron James,

 and singing the praises of Tim Tebow. The infamous former co-host of First Take with Stephen A Smith

. Seemingly known by all and hated by nearly as many.

Yet, he has nearly 3 million twitter followers. Over 350,000 people search his name in google each month.

He is paid $5.5 million per year (According to The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch) to debate sports on Fox Sports Undisputed with Shannon Sharpe.

How did we get here? How did he come to embody the “Hot Take” and grab the attention of the viewing public?

Born in Oklahoma City in 1951, Bayless loved sports. Skip himself was not much of an athlete,

averaging a much publicized 1.4 PPG his senior year of High School. He goes to Vanderbilt on a sports writing scholarship.

From there, he goes on to have a very successful print journalism career spanning the LA Times,

Chicago Tribune, Dallas Herald, and a few popular Books on the Dallas Cowboys when America’s team was actually America’s team.

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