Bomani Jones Blames OutKick's 'Bad Faith Actors' For Narrative He's A Failure

Former ESPN and HBO host Bomani Jones joined the "House of Strauss" podcast this week, where he addressed criticism that his media career is a failure.

The host, Ethan Strauss, told Jones his appearances on the show drive more subscriptions than his other guests do. 

Jones appreciated the note. He responded with the following comment:

"I did appreciate you reminding some people, who honestly listen to the words of bad faith actors, and simply remind them that no, no, no, there's a non-significant amount of people who care about what I say and are willing to invest in it."

Five minutes later, Jones uttered again about the same "bad faith actors."

"Contrary to popular belief, I've been pretty successful. Let me stop that ... I don't even want to give that [narrative] oxygen. I've been part of some pretty important things with some pretty important people. 

You can listen to the full conversation here, starting at the 4-minute mark.

Bomani Jones didn't name us. But he's talking about OutKick. 

Clay Travis and I are the only two people in the media who have covered Jones' on-air failures. 

Strauss also brought up OutKick the last time Jones appeared on his podcast, in July, to which Jones said he doesn't respect us, and we are out to get him.

So, let us first address our coverage of Bomani Jones.

It started in 2017, when Clay reported that ESPN canceled Jones' radio show and explained why:

I reported last June that HBO had canceled Jones' television show, "Game Theory," having lost more than 80 percent of its lead-in audience. 

Jones would later confirm our report but claimed to be "unaware" of the ratings -- despite his viewership appearing on daily cable charts, to which the public has access. 

In between Bomani's canceled radio show and canceled HBO show, ESPN canceled another television show on which he starred: "High Noon."

If you are keeping count, that’s three straight shows ending in cancelation. All three set record lows in their respective time slots at the time of cancelation. 

There’s a trend. Yet the people employed to write about the media won’t acknowledge that trend.

One of the priorities at OutKick is to correct false media narratives, particularly narratives rooted in political biases. 

For example, the hall monitors covered Bill Simmons’ struggles at HBO at length – from USA Today to GQ to Awful Announcing. However, those very outlets didn’t utter a word about Jones drawing half as many viewers as Simmons.

Why the double standard?

Bomani Jones is like a quarterback who keeps failing, but getting new opportunities as a starter.

And yet, Jones called himself a "success" during his interview with Strauss.  He’s not. He’s mistaking "success" with "privilege."

Few people in sports media have been awarded more opportunities and succeeded less than Bomani Jones has. That's privilege.

He didn’t earn his opportunities. He failed-up, moving from ESPN Radio to ESPN television to HBO.

It's not difficult to understand why. 

There are heightened racial tensions within the media. Most media executives are white. They want to prove to their superiors and outside critics they are not racist, as in job security.

What better way to prove you are not racist than by platforming a black man known for spewing racial animus and often overt anti-white racism?

Just last week, Jones, claimed without evidence, that white media members favor Josh Allen over black quarterbacks out of spite. He added that fans will stop watching the NFL if black quarterbacks continue to succeed.

Neither claim was accurate. 

The NFL set viewership records this postseason with several black quarterbacks at the forefront. So did last year’s Super Bowl, which set the all-time viewership record with two black quarterbacks starting for the first time.

Jones' outrage over Allen was completely manufactured. Several available posts disprove his tirade, like the two below. 

"The secret sauce for viewership is white," Jones said previously. 

"What’s the problem [with the NFL]? White people," he said on a separate occasion.

We believe rants like those will eventually land Jones back on television. Some sucker is going to give him another chance, trying to win the press release. 

Nonetheless, Bomani Jones has yet to shoulder any accountability for his struggles. 

Last week, he posted a Q&A on X during which he blamed former co-host Pablo Torre’s "lack of chemistry" with him for the reason "High Noon" didn't succeed. 

He has since deleted that tweet and the entire Q&A. He seems overly emotional right now. And bitter.

Last May, he told Fortune the cancelation of "High Noon" "had zero to do with me." Amusingly, he made that comment weeks before HBO canceled his other show -- which he similarly blamed on everyone but himself, including sharing a tweet attributing the fault to "white folks."

The same white folks who made him a millionaire by choice, that is.

As for him drawing subscriptions for Ethan Strauss’ podcast – we aren’t sure what that proves, other than that he draws subscriptions for Ethan Strauss’ podcast.

Seriously. 

That’s great for Strauss. But to use that statistic as proof Bomani is a success, as Bomani tried doing, is pitiful. 

No one ever said Bomani has an audience size of zero. We argued that he’s more of a niche player than a star.

Bomani thought he was the next Stephen A. Smith at ESPN and Bill Maher at HBO. He, at one point, asked his agent to convince Comedy Central he could be the next Jon Stewart. 

Turns out, he’s just another YouTuber complaining about racism online. There’s a market for that. But it’s limited and already over-saturated.