Fox Sports, Skip Bayless, and Logical Fallacies

[jficke13]

Fox pays (a lot) to lure Skip away from ESPN. It looks to me like they are engaging in the logical fallacy of "affirming the consequent."

ESPN has good ratings. ESPN has Skip Bayless. If we had Skip Bayless, then we'd have good ratings.

Not. Going. To. Work.

Personally I detest the "Embrace debate" ESPN-dom so much that I haven't watched that channel for anything but live sports in... man... I can't even remember.

[GGGG]

First Take gets good ratings.  By my opinion is that it gets good ratings because its on ESPN, not because it has Skip Bayless.  They'll just put some other hot take guy there with Steven A. Smith and it will do just as well.  Skip Bayless will languish.

Fox should have saved that $$ for rights fees.  That is the only way you will get eyeballs to FS1. 

[ChicosBailBonds]

Fox pays (a lot) to lure Skip away from ESPN. It looks to me like they are engaging in the logical fallacy of "affirming the consequent."

ESPN has good ratings. ESPN has Skip Bayless. If we had Skip Bayless, then we'd have good ratings.

Not. Going. To. Work.

Personally I detest the "Embrace debate" ESPN-dom so much that I haven't watched that channel for anything but live sports in... man... I can't even remember.

There's some of that, but this one is simpler in my opinion.

The person that worked a ton with Skip at ESPN is the one pulling the strings at Fox for talent...he reports into my old boss.  That person, Jamie Horowitz, is a big fan of Bayless and brought him over to Fox.   ESPN offered Bayless $4M per year to stay, so it's not like he wasn't going to be handsomely provided for, but Fox agreed to build programming around Bayless and that's why he is jumping.

There will be others.

[jficke13]

There's some of that, but this one is simpler in my opinion.

The person that worked a ton with Skip at ESPN is the one pulling the strings at Fox for talent...he reports into my old boss.  That person, Jamie Horowitz, is a big fan of Bayless and brought him over to Fox.   ESPN offered Bayless $4M per year to stay, so it's not like he wasn't going to be handsomely provided for, but Fox agreed to build programming around Bayless and that's why he is jumping.

There will be others.

But will anyone who wasn't watching Fox before start now that Skip is blathering at Fox rather than ESPN? Will he bring enough additional ratings that Fox will get revenue exceeding the cost of his salary? I doubt it.

From a non-professional, casual observer's POV, Fox has tried building FS1 by emulating ESPN, rather than differentiating themselves from ESPN. I think that's a losing strategy, but what do I know?

[mu03eng]

But will anyone who wasn't watching Fox before start now that Skip is blathering at Fox rather than ESPN? Will he bring enough additional ratings that Fox will get revenue exceeding the cost of his salary? I doubt it.

From a non-professional, casual observer's POV, Fox has tried building FS1 by emulating ESPN, rather than differentiating themselves from ESPN. I think that's a losing strategy, but what do I know?

Having a twitter debate on this very topic as we speak. Fox has recognized that sports "news" is dead, but instead of replacing with analysis/analytics they are replacing it with fake controversy and hot takes which just piss people off. Basically they are taking the worst of ESPN and trying to amplify it.

I don't want FS or ESPN for anything other than live sports any more, I can get analysis much quicker and easier via twitter and websites.

[jficke13]

Having a twitter debate on this very topic as we speak. Fox has recognized that sports "news" is dead, but instead of replacing with analysis/analytics they are replacing it with fake controversy and hot takes which just piss people off. Basically they are taking the worst of ESPN and trying to amplify it.

I don't want FS or ESPN for anything other than live sports any more, I can get analysis much quicker and easier via twitter and websites.

They have decided to make entire cable networks into nothing more than live sports (good) and clickbait (embarrassing)

[ChicosBailBonds]

But will anyone who wasn't watching Fox before start now that Skip is blathering at Fox rather than ESPN? Will he bring enough additional ratings that Fox will get revenue exceeding the cost of his salary? I doubt it.

From a non-professional, casual observer's POV, Fox has tried building FS1 by emulating ESPN, rather than differentiating themselves from ESPN. I think that's a losing strategy, but what do I know?

Great question, Dan Lebetard certainly feels the answer is no. 

[MU82]

I'll be honest. As a guy who had a very similar newspaper gig to Bayless not all that many years ago ... I'm jealous as hell.

Just keepin' it 100.

[Mr. Nielsen]

But will anyone who wasn't watching Fox before start now that Skip is blathering at Fox rather than ESPN? Will he bring enough additional ratings that Fox will get revenue exceeding the cost of his salary? I doubt it.

From a non-professional, casual observer's POV, Fox has tried building FS1 by emulating ESPN, rather than differentiating themselves from ESPN. I think that's a losing strategy, but what do I know?

FS1 did try differenting from ESPN with Crowd Goes Wild (Regis). Fox Sports Live 1.0 with the panel from former athletes talking all sports. Fox Sports Live 2.0 pure highlight show. Fox football daily, Fox Soccer Daily, America PreGame with Mike Hill. Didn't get the ratings.