Bomani Jones Injects Himself And OutKick Into Stephen A. Smith–Whitlock Feud

Bomani Jones tried to inject himself into the feud between Stephen A. Smith and Jason Whitlock, claiming that others make a living talking about him.

"I am amazed at how many people are able to make a living covering us," Jones said on his podcast. "Nobody goes to a sports game to watch the refs. Nobody goes to watch the media. But when the game is over, I am shocked by how many people make their living doing that.

"I can name people who make a living talking about me," he concluded.

We can skip the guesswork. Jones is referring to me.

I am the only person in the media who has notably criticized him. Nearly everyone else in the space has fawned over him, afraid he would declare them racist if they do not. 

Second, he has done this before, whether on Ethan Strauss’s podcast when asked about me or on X when he called me the "single worst person in the world." He will not refer to me by name, but everyone knows who he is talking about. Stephen A. used to do the same thing when he talked about Whitlock. They think they are sneaky.

Nonetheless, there are a few points to make in response to Jones' latest claim.

Jones, as usual, is putting himself on a pedestal on which he does not belong. I did not build a career talking about him. Since joining OutKick in April 2020, I have covered just about every topic in the news: two presidential elections, multiple wars, media, sports media, sports, streaming, aliens, Game of Thrones, race, crime, history, true crime, weather, business and more.

My coverage of Jones is among my lowest-read content. It has, however, caused some good laughs among industry people.

Put simply, covering sports media has always been a topic at OutKick. And Jones was a notable player in the sports media space at one time. Nearly a decade ago, ESPN earmarked him as the future face of the network.

In 2017, ESPN canceled Jones’s radio show after it posted record lows in the afternoon drive slot. Yet the cancellation only accelerated his rise. A year later, the network gave him a television show with Pablo Torre called "High Noon." The program aired directly after Stephen A. Smith’s "First Take," one of the most-watched programs on the channel.

Even with that lead-in, "High Noon" lost nearly 70% of the audience. Months later, ESPN cut the show from 60 minutes to 30 minutes and moved it to an afternoon block alongside "PTI," the most-watched show on the network.

ESPN canceled the program two years later after it struggled in its second time slot.

At that point, most commentators would have to rebuild. Jones did not see it that way. In a public interview, he said he was offended that ESPN did not immediately rename him a full-time co-host of "Highly Questionable" after his show failed. He believed the network owed him another show for canceling his.

Watch below:

ESPN did not do that. But HBO did.

In 2021, HBO signed Jones to host a show called "Game Theory." Its first season aired after "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" and lost more than 80% of the lead-in audience. HBO later moved the program behind "Real Time with Bill Maher" in an attempt to save it. It again lost roughly 80% of viewers and was eventually canceled.

To recap, Jones was given three shows between 2018 and 2023, with lead-ins from Stephen A. Smith, John Oliver and Bill Maher. Each show failed.

Considering how limited opportunities are in media, it is notable when others are passed over while someone with repeated failures continues to receive chances.

Moreover, Jones has consistently conducted himself with arrogance and without accountability. After blaming others at ESPN for his earlier failures, he declared himself a "winner" after losing his HBO show:

"I can’t say that I was a victim, because I was a winner. I got to do this in the first place. For two years, I could legitimately say that my professional peers were John Oliver, Bill Maher, Trevor Noah, up and down the list. And I firmly believe that not only were they my peers, if you looked at the product I put together, I wasn’t as good as those dudes but I wasn’t in a ‘you got no business being here’ sort of situation."

According to the ratings, he did not belong there.

More broadly, we have long noted that the story of Bomani Jones says more about the industry than the individual.

Jones was a beneficiary of that era. Under John Skipper, ESPN prioritized replacing older white sportswriters with diverse, highly educated voices focused on the social and racial dynamics of sports. That group included Jones, Pablo Torre, Jemele Hill, Michael Smith, Sarah Spain, Kate Fagan, Israel Gutierrez and Mina Kimes.

Notably, Kimes and Torre are the two who found sustained success. Kimes is the only one who remains at ESPN.

We cannot say for certain why this group struggled to find a broad audience, but we can make an educated guess. Jones, in particular, often spoke not to his audience but down to them. His approach frequently centered on identifying examples of racism and assigning blame in sweeping terms.

"White people," Jones responded when Dan Le Batard asked what needed to change in the NFL.

"I just don’t know why people try to make this far more complex than it is," Jones added. "What’s the problem? White people."

Those same "white people" helped build Jones’s career.

Television executives saw value in putting him on air as a voice willing to frame topics almost exclusively through race. They found comfort in this. It was their proof that they were racists themselves.

I found that worth covering, especially as those same executives sidelined more popular hosts who did not fit the preferred profile at the time.