Skip Bayliss getting major heat over Damar Hamlin injury tweet

[Billy F 1988]

Okay, first of all, I'd like y'all to help me understand a few things regarding the senseless overreaction to Skip Bayliss' tweet regarding the injury to Buffalo safety Damar Hamlin.

It's a major conundrum. Why in a fraction of mere seconds would Skip make something that strong of a tweet without actually verifying what he's reporting to his followers? In a sports journalism culture, especially America, where everything has to be lightning fast and there's virtually no time to analyze what one has witnessed, this "report now, check later" mentality has, at least to me, begun to rear its ugly side. And here we have truly a shocking example of what can happen when someone this well known in the sports journalism field blurts a quick tweet, but fails to verify exactly what has been reported, and now fans are "virtually" raising pitchforks and burning torches in a bid to cancel Skip Bayliss and the staff of FOX Sports altogether because of a mistweet. I haven't read the tweet Skip made regarding the Hamlin injury, so I can't really give an honest reaction on my end as to what I believe Skip should have said and should not have said in that tweet and I'm not in any position to tell Skip "you can't tweet this" or "you can't say that on the air". I believe the message we should send to Skip is that no matter the sports you cover, and no matter how long you've followed certain sports, when a human being's life is in grave danger and you don't know what exactly the frack is going on, it's in the best interest to all parties involved to shut up when necessary. And this tweet by Skip sadly puts him in a bad position. If he owns up to it, okay, great. But if not, then, all the trust we as fans put in to these pundits, reporters, commentators or sports anchors to give us the exact information as described has all become moot.

Does Skip deserve all this heat from the fans that follow his social media accounts, or is all this just getting too far overblown?

[gonealookin]

It wasn't "failing to verify" something, it was the timing of the opinion he expressed.  With Mr. Hamlin's status very much uncertain and possibly in grave danger Skip was too quick to address the issue of the impact on the NFL standings.  That matter needed to be set aside at least until this morning.

https://twitter.com/awfulannouncing/status/1610109675869212672

Some of the reaction I've seen to this whole situation has been too sanctimonious, and in the case of the controversial and outspoken Bayliss a lot of it is ad hominem.  Hamlin may well still be in the hospital in critical condition this Saturday, but most people will have moved on from "nothing matters but Damar Hamlin's health" to "Where will my team be seeded in the NFL playoffs?"

[thspfc]

I don't think the tweet had bad intentions behind it. It just came off the wrong way. But this type of thing happens so frequently that it makes me wonder why famous people don't have someone else proofread their tweets and give a gut reaction. Even in the inconsequential setting of this forum, I find myself editing sentences all the time before posting them to make sure that they're not misinterpreted.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Not getting enough heat are the people in the "but what about the poor bettors?" camp. Yes, I know sports betting and fantasy concerns are far from new, but as more states have legalized betting and sports leagues that formerly shunned associations with betting have done a full 180 on the subject, the catering to this faction has gotten completely out of control.

[webny99]

He deserves some heat... but I thought it was more odd than anything else. Adding in the last line about it now seeming so inconsequential made it even more awkward. It was sort of like he realized and was acknowledging that it didn't matter right now, but it never occurred to him that maybe he just shouldn't send the tweet.


Edited to add...

Why in a fraction of mere seconds would Skip make something that strong of a tweet without actually verifying what he's reporting to his followers? In a sports journalism culture, especially America, where everything has to be lightning fast and there's virtually no time to analyze what one has witnessed, this "report now, check later" mentality has, at least to me, begun to rear its ugly side. And here we have truly a shocking example of what can happen when someone this well known in the sports journalism field blurts a quick tweet, but fails to verify exactly what has been reported, and now fans are "virtually" raising pitchforks and burning torches in a bid to cancel Skip Bayliss and the staff of FOX Sports altogether because of a mistweet. I haven't read the tweet Skip made regarding the Hamlin injury, so I can't really give an honest reaction on my end as to what I believe Skip should have said and should not have said in that tweet and I'm not in any position to tell Skip "you can't tweet this" or "you can't say that on the air".

Actually, it wasn't really misreporting at all. gonealookin hit on this and you can read the tweet in his post above. He was questioning how the NFL was going to reschedule such an important game, which was the furthest thing from anyone's mind in that moment. It was just unclassy and a failure to understand the moment, not anything blatantly false or factually incorrect.

And this tweet by Skip sadly puts him in a bad position. If he owns up to it, okay, great.

FWIW, he did send a follow-up tweet in which he said that Damar Hamlin's health is most important and nothing else is relevant, but I think whatever damage was done was already done at that point.

[tchafe1978]

I'm no fan of Skip, but people are ignoring the last line "...which seems so irrelevant." I think he was trying to say something to those people that were more concerned about all those other things besides Hamiln's health. That's how I see it.

[hbelkins]

I think people pay way too much attention to these sports commentators -- Bayless, Portnoy, Stephen A., etc. I wouldn't know who any of them are if they didn't spill over into other discussions, such as this one. I've never been a watcher of sports commentary -- and these days, I'm even less of a watcher of actual sporting events. NASCAR and UK football are it for me, and I'd quit NASCAR for a year.

[GaryV]

NASCAR and UK football are it for me,

Every time you mention UK football, I think of Arsenal, Man U, Chelsea, etc.

[SP Cook]

I think people pay way too much attention to these sports commentators -- Bayless, Portnoy, Stephen A., etc. I wouldn't know who any of them are if they didn't spill over into other discussions, such as this one. I've never been a watcher of sports commentary -- and these days, I'm even less of a watcher of actual sporting events. NASCAR and UK football are it for me, and I'd quit NASCAR for a year.

99% of the value in ESPN is what it shows from 6-midnight, ET, plus noon-midnight on Saturdays, non-NFL Sundays, and holidays.  The rest is just filler.  Not that long ago, it would just show reruns of the previous last final SportsCenter and then reruns of some ball games from the last few days all day on weekdays. 

Then, for reasons that make little sense, they started paying these talking heads eight figure salaries to argue with one another.  Then Fox, which could have been a choice, decided to be an echo, doing exactly the same thing ESPN does. 
These shows pull in about 500K or less viewers per day, which is, in the grand scheme of things, totally trivial.  Most people, and especially most people in the sports demographic, are at work.   Both Disney and Fox are losing money based on how much they pay these people.  They could just replay games and the score shows like they used to do, which really would cost them nothing. 

[gonealookin]

I think people pay way too much attention to these sports commentators -- Bayless, Portnoy, Stephen A., etc. I wouldn't know who any of them are if they didn't spill over into other discussions, such as this one. I've never been a watcher of sports commentary -- and these days, I'm even less of a watcher of actual sporting events. NASCAR and UK football are it for me, and I'd quit NASCAR for a year.

99% of the value in ESPN is what it shows from 6-midnight, ET, plus noon-midnight on Saturdays, non-NFL Sundays, and holidays.  The rest is just filler.  Not that long ago, it would just show reruns of the previous last final SportsCenter and then reruns of some ball games from the last few days all day on weekdays. 

Then, for reasons that make little sense, they started paying these talking heads eight figure salaries to argue with one another.  Then Fox, which could have been a choice, decided to be an echo, doing exactly the same thing ESPN does. 
These shows pull in about 500K or less viewers per day, which is, in the grand scheme of things, totally trivial.  Most people, and especially most people in the sports demographic, are at work.   Both Disney and Fox are losing money based on how much they pay these people.  They could just replay games and the score shows like they used to do, which really would cost them nothing. 

The talking heads do generate content that can be posted on the sports network's website.  Stephen A. Smith is always all over the front page of ESPN.com so plenty of clicks come from that.  Plus once in a while somebody says something so outrageous that it reaches those of us who would never be caught dead watching one of those programs.  That Awful Announcing Twitter account, which reposts that sort of thing as a staple, has a tweet of this morning's confrontation between Shannon Sharpe and Bayless on "Undisputed" over the matter, and the embedded 1:41 video already has over 8 million views.

There are plenty of commentators on the politics and culture side, Tucker Carlson maybe the most prominent, who generate that same sort of content.

[skluth]

I think people pay way too much attention to these sports commentators -- Bayless, Portnoy, Stephen A., etc. I wouldn't know who any of them are if they didn't spill over into other discussions, such as this one. I've never been a watcher of sports commentary -- and these days, I'm even less of a watcher of actual sporting events. NASCAR and UK football are it for me, and I'd quit NASCAR for a year.

99% of the value in ESPN is what it shows from 6-midnight, ET, plus noon-midnight on Saturdays, non-NFL Sundays, and holidays.  The rest is just filler.  Not that long ago, it would just show reruns of the previous last final SportsCenter and then reruns of some ball games from the last few days all day on weekdays. 

Then, for reasons that make little sense, they started paying these talking heads eight figure salaries to argue with one another. Then Fox, which could have been a choice, decided to be an echo, doing exactly the same thing ESPN does. 
These shows pull in about 500K or less viewers per day, which is, in the grand scheme of things, totally trivial.  Most people, and especially most people in the sports demographic, are at work.   Both Disney and Fox are losing money based on how much they pay these people.  They could just replay games and the score shows like they used to do, which really would cost them nothing.

It makes perfect sense. It's not about the total numbers but the type of viewers. Sitcoms work to attract that 18-35 audience because they're not stuck in their consumer habits yet. It's even more blatant with toys and sugary cereals in kids shows. ESPN televises sports shows that attract a certain demographic (mostly male, often older, often with the right type of discretionary spending). Some shows, like PTI, have quite a few upper income watchers who watch very little other live programming. That's why you see commercials from Bud Light and Dr Pepper to every bloody financial firm with an ad budget during the NCAA basketball tournaments, bowl games, MNF, and all the non-NFL pro sports playoffs. Those financial firms are targeting a specific demographic among the fans.

I'm not arguing that people pay too much attention to them. People do and I'm guilty of it as well. I don't get why so many people follow them on Twitter because many of them seem to tweet more than they talk (e.g., Adam Schefter); I don't carry a phone so I can be bothered by idiots every five minutes. It's also that desperate need for attention/eyes which causes the garbage that prompted this thread in the first place.

[Scott5114]

I mean, it says right there in his name what you're supposed to do with his content.