Shameless provocateur and bloviator Skip Bayless is leaving ESPN. Finally!

ESPN's airwaves will be mercifully free of one of the most loathed personalities in sports media come summer. But don't get too excited, well-meaning sports — free at last we most certainly are not.

Bayless leaving ESPN is actually bad news for sports fans. Here's why.

Bayless has been one half of ESPN's debate show First Take several years. The show's reliance on aggressive argumentation instead of facts, reason and storytelling has made it a mockery among many sports fans and observers.

First Take pulls down major ratings, though, thanks in large part to Bayless' bombast. And money rules everything. That's why — when ESPN issued a press release Tuesday saying "Skip Bayless has decided to leave ... when his contract expires at the end of August" — you can bet your bottom dollar the sports broadcasting giant didn't just let its polarizing star walk.

Twitter popped with figurative grave dancing after Bayless was reported out at ESPN — but too few people gave thought to what comes next.

They laugh @ me for not eating fried food, but why lift as psycho hard as I do, then screw it up eating crap? Sorry, want to stay RIPPED. — Skip Bayless (@RealSkipBayless) February 1, 2011

There are guys like Bayless, who yell to get attention, then there are the guys above them, the guys who pull the strings. Jamie Horowitz is one of those guys.

Horowitz's job title is President, FOX Sports National Networks. It's a job he's held since last May. He's tasked with shaping the tone and tenor the content that appears on Fox Sports TV. Previously, he held a similar job at ESPN, where one of his greatest achievements was — you guessed it — First Take.



Horowitz is the guy many point to when looking to explain ESPN's shift in recent years away from actual sports content to PEOPLE YELLING ABOUT SPORTS STUFF.

Surprised to see Tebow speaking Sunday w/ shirttail out, no coat/tie. It WAS outside, but trying to send message it's cool to be Christian? — Skip Bayless (@RealSkipBayless) April 9, 2012

Now, Horowitz is looking to pull off a similar trick at Fox Sports — enter Bayless, who is basically the Michael Jordan of garbage sports commentary.

Under Horowitz's watch, Fox has recently snatched up some former ESPNers who fit the bill. Colin Cowherd, who last year insulted the entire Dominican Republic, is one recent acquisition. Jason Whitlock, who you may remember for once tweeting a racist joke about Jeremy Lin's penis, is another.

It's all part of the master plan to overtake ESPN.

"Horowitz believes FS1 can do to ESPN what Fox News did to former cable news leader CNN: outflank a decades-long incumbent by being provocative and opinionated," Michael McCarthy of The Sporting News wrote in a profile of Horowitz last moth.



In that same interview, Horowitz spoke openly of making a run at Bayless when his ESPN contract expires this summer. With Bayless now leaving ESPN, Fox Sports is widely assumed to be his next landing spot.

For years, many sports fans have pined for Bayless to be gone at ESPN. Those fans finally got their wish. Unfortunately, winning this battle is a sign they're losing the war.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.