Jobless Skip Bayless Admits He ‘Felt Guilty’ Praising Caitlin Clark Because She's White

At first, Skip Bayless was reluctant to praise Caitlin Clark. Bayless says he tried to fight his inner urge to celebrate her for one reason: they are both white.

On "The Skip Bayless Show" Thursday, he discussed why he initially favored Angel Reese over Clark.

"Here came this white girl from Iowa. And I started watching the WNBA much more closely than I ever have," Bayless said. "And I started to think, deep down in my psyche, ‘Wait a second, she’s really good.’ But I’ll be the first to admit, I felt guilty saying so on TV or on social media. I did not want to look like this red state white guy cheering for this red state white girl. Our country feels split enough racially already. I didn’t want to pour gasoline on that fire.

"Maybe I was wrong about this, but Caitlin Clark started to feel like some sort of new right-wing symbol. ‘White woman dominating game dominated by Black men and women for years and years.’ I could almost hear some people thinking, ‘White power baby!’ 

"And please, I’m not saying Caitlin Clark is far-right in her politics or beliefs. I have no idea what her politics or religion are because she has carefully, and I say smartly, avoided taking any rookie-year stance because she is already such a lightning rod. But obviously, I know what a powerful point of pride basketball has been to the black community in this country, black men and women obviously have been routinely and consistently better at basketball."

In other words, Bayless is desperate and auditioning for a new job.

Bayless left FS1 in August. The network did not re-sign him because he is 72 years old, and his ratings had collapsed. "Undisputed" often averaged as low as 40,000 viewers over its last year on air.

ESPN has already publicly confirmed it has no interest in bringing Bayless back. His self-owned podcast is only averaging around 2,000 views per clip on YouTube.

Bayless understands that the easiest, and perhaps only, way back into the industry is to pretend to have white guilt and proactively apologize for his positive coverage of Caitlin Clark. Maybe that'll be enough for Peacock or Roku to take a chance on him.

He looked and sounded like such a eunuch, apologizing for his whiteness on camera. 

Granted, Bayless surely isn't the only white pundit in the sports media who felt the same fear. The vast majority of on-air basketball commentators are black, most of whom aggressively shamed Clark fans this season.

Few groups in sports are nastier than the black commentators, players, and fans who spew racist vitriol toward Clark and her supporters. Hence, the disproportionately pro-Reese, anti-Clark bent found on networks like ESPN.

By the way, Bayless admitting that he worries about the perception of rooting for white players might explain some of his more puzzling hot takes – such as arguing that Robert Griffin III was better than Andrew Luck, that Nikola Jokic and Luka Doncic are overrated, that Lamar Jackson is better than Josh Allen, and that Mike Tomlin is superior to Bill Belichick.

On Thursday, Bayless applauded Kamala Harris for her debate performance against Donald Trump. He says it was his first ever "political post." We now know why.