Stephen A. Smith will reunite with Skip Bayless on First Take this Friday as part of a special ‘one-time’ show, according to reports.
The high-profile pair previously spent four years as sparring partners on ESPN’s daily sports talk show, before Bayless left to join rival FS1 program Undisputed in 2016.
Their relationship had become fraught in recent years following his controversial exit, yet back in November they finally buried the hatched after being spotted out for dinner over Thanksgiving weekend.
Smith and Bayless then both appeared on The Arena podcast earlier this year, with the latter telling his old colleague: ‘No one has ever quite matched the chemistry that maybe God above gave us.’
Now Front Office Sports is reporting that the iconic duo are set for a reunion on Friday’s edition of First Take.
Bayless’ shock return, which will only be a one-off, will mark the first time they have appeared together on ESPN’s top-rated morning show since June 2016.
Stephen A. Smith is set for a shock reunion with Skip Bayless on ESPN’s First Take this Friday
The iconic duo previously spent four years as sparring partners on the daily sports talk show
Smith, who is ESPN’s highest-paid talent after signing a five-year, $100million extension in 2025, was brought to First Take by Bayless as a guest debater following the cancellation of his talk show, Quite Frankly with Stephen A. Smith, in 2009.
Three years later he joined the panel full-time, before going on to become one of the most influential sports hosts in the country.
Yet following his FS1 move, Smith was perceived to have taken a sly dig at Bayless in 2022 when he appeared to suggest he was primarily responsible for First Take’s sky-high ratings.
‘Skip Bayless comes to me in the parking lot of ESPN’s campus in Bristol, Connecticut, and he says, ‘I know you’ve got your plans. You love the NBA. You love being out on the road. You love being in the locker room. But I need you,’ Smith recalled on the ‘The Old Man and the Three’ podcast in 2022.
‘I’ve done all that I could to take this as far as it can go. I need you, please. Just give me three years. I think we’ll knock it out of the park.”
Bayless later shot back on his own show. ‘Stephen A. was suggesting that he saved and then made First Take. How can you save and make a show that was already as big a billion to one success story as ESPN had ever seen? The ratings and the revenues were impossibly great when Stephen A. joined me in 2012,’ Bayless said.
Meanwhile, last December, Smith claimed he no longer had any form of relationship with Bayless, explaining why he ‘can’t vibe’ with his former colleague.
‘When I say we don’t have a relationship, it’s not anything negative from my end,’ Smith said on the Talk With Flee podcast.
After feuding in recent years, Bayless and Smith went out for dinner together in November
‘It’s me letting you know, “Yo, bro, I picked up the phone on several occasions.” He never called me back. To me, if you that kind of person, that doesn’t make you bad, it just means that we can’t vibe. Because I’m gonna answer a call.’
He added: ‘I got a lot of people over the last year or two that have really, really pissed me off. I’m picking up the phone if they call. There’s only one person that I won’t pick up the phone for, everybody knows who that is. Skip had his right not to pick up the phone when the whole Shannon thing was going down and that’s fine. That’s his prerogative. But live with that.’
However, they reunited on air in early 2025 for the first time in nearly a decade when Smith became the first guest of ‘The Skip Bayless Show.’
Bayless admitted feeling some ‘trepidation’ over hosting Smith, but their instant rapport came flooding back and appeared to stay.
A photo shared to social media by a fan in November showed Smith and Bayless sat in a diner booth at Nate ‘n Al’s, a famous and historic deli in Beverly Hills, along with the latter’s wife Ernestine.
