{"id":789647,"date":"2026-05-11T22:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T22:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/789647\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T22:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T22:02:13","slug":"bomani-jones-criticism-of-first-take-often-becomes-about-audience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/789647\/","title":{"rendered":"Bomani Jones: Criticism of ‘First Take’ often becomes about audience"},"content":{"rendered":"

As\u00a0First Take has grown into the biggest show on sports television, the show and its host, Stephen A. Smith, have become lightning rods for criticism of the entire industry. Many attribute the sensibility of First Take as a root cause for why talk shows on TV went downhill.<\/p>\n

Skip Bayless\u2019s return to the show last week provided an opportunity for these sorts of critics to rail against it once again (including us<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In reality, the reunion between Smith and Bayless was far more of a greatest-hits compilation<\/a> than a return to the abrasive energy that propelled the show to great heights a decade-plus ago. But seeing the pair on screen brought fans and media together to trash debate television and the hosts, just like the good old days.<\/p>\n

But in his own reaction to Bayless\u2019 return to\u00a0First Take, former ESPNer Bomani Jones offered a defense of the show, and more specifically, its audience. Jones underscored the way in which he sees the criticism toward\u00a0First Take\u00a0often veers into criticism of the audience, which is to say regular people with their televisions on during the day and, in the case of\u00a0First Take\u00a0specifically, a large subset of Black viewers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have always felt about the class of people who critique sports media, when they talk about\u00a0First Take, that\u00a0First Take is an easy scapegoat for them,\u201d Jones said on his podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cDaytime programming at ESPN has always had a huge Black audience. I bring that up to say, generally speaking, white people don\u2019t really know what to say when they watch something, and they get a signal that it ain\u2019t for them. Black people typically keep on watching. But a lot of those criticisms of First Take, I have always heard in a way and have felt to a degree like they were also, a wee bit, criticisms of the audience. Whether people intended for it to be that way or not.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

While Jones acknowledged that\u00a0First Take has \u201cearned\u201d plenty of criticism, he also believes Smith and Bayless earned the popularity that the show had at its peak. Just because First Take may be repulsive to some, Jones argued, is not proof that it is not relevant or influential in the big picture.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople act like\u00a0First Take became such a big deal because nobody liked it. Just because your friends didn\u2019t like it, you think that nobody liked it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s not true. There are a lot of people who like that show. There are a lot of people who watched that show.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a lot of topics where when something happened in the news, you were like, \u2018Yo, I gotta go see what Skip Bayless has to say about that.\u2019 And a lot of you don\u2019t want to admit that\u2019s how you felt about it. But it\u2019s the truth, and that\u2019s a testament to how good that show could be when those two guys were doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the years since Bayless left ESPN,\u00a0First Take has evolved into more of a vehicle for Smith, which often means it is looser and goofier. At the same time, the rest of the media took a cue from the show. From Fox News and CNN to your favorite local radio show or sports podcast, the blueprint that Smith and Bayless laid is one of the primary blueprints for all of media these days.<\/p>\n

Despite the clear issues that fact presents for news consumption and national discourse (or even a given viewer\u2019s patience for yelling), Jones offered a reminder that the show is still successful in spite of what it might represent \u2014 especially among contingents of sports fans who do not have platforms to opine about the industry:<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo guys who really enjoy each other\u2019s company and really respect each other, arguing with each other about sports, wins.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As\u00a0First Take has grown into the biggest show on sports television, the show and its host, Stephen A.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":789648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[30],"tags":[322598,171,2230,11070,2233,322599,173,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-789647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-bomani-jones","tag-entertainment","tag-first-take","tag-skip-bayless","tag-stephen-a-smith","tag-the-right-time-with-bomani-jones","tag-tv","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}