Skip Bayless Trying to Find New Debate Partner To Launch YouTube Show

Skip Bayless left FS1 in August. He's been relatively quiet since, resorting to uploading short videos on X and weekly YouTube shows where he takes questions from his followers.

But according to a new Washington Post profile, Bayless' plans remain grand. Specifically, he is in the process of creating a debate show on his self-owned YouTube channel.

"[Bayless] wants to create a digital network for a YouTube channel. He’s already got his weekly solo show, but he is planning to add an interview show and a debate show. He said he’s considering five or six different debate partners, though he declined to name names," Post author Ben Strauss reports.

It will be challenging for Bayless to recreate what he had with Stephen A. Smith (at ESPN) and Shannon Sharpe (at FS1) on his own. The cost of signing an established full-time debate partner might be unrealistic if Bayless has to front the money himself.

Bayless' former FS1 colleague Marcellus Wiley reported last month that Skip had discussed doing the new show with rapper Lil Wayne, who might be willing to do the show at a discount because of a personal friendship with Bayless.

In May, Bayless actually told podcast listeners his goal was to one day do a show with Lil Wayne.

"I’m going to do a show with my brother Lil Wayne," Bayless said. "I’m not talking about just a couple of segments at the end of Friday’s Undisputed, I’m talking about a show. A real live show. A sports-based show with music and life mixed in."

That day could be soon.

If not Wayne, perhaps Bayless will settle for a former athlete currently without a job, like Robert Griffin III.

The question then becomes what type of success a sports debate show can have on YouTube. Sports debate is not what it once was in terms of audience demand. 

Even "First Take" has transitioned to a more conventional format with Stephen A. Smith.

Further, Bayless is not the lightning rod he was when he joined FS1 in 2016. "Undisputed" often averaged as low as 40,000 viewers near the end of Bayless' run at the network, after Shannon Sharpe departed.

One thing is for certain: Bayless will not be the moderator for his next debate program, which FS1 tasked him with after Sharpe left the company.

"After the first show, I said, ‘This just doesn’t work for me, because I’m a fire starter, and if I moderate, I have to stay moderate,’" Bayless told the Post. "After a while, I didn’t even look at the ratings, because I knew what was coming: we would get crushed. And we did get crushed." 

 Skip Bayless Trying to Find New Debate Partner To Launch YouTube Show