Sports talk shows could be thought of as wrestling in that the show is somewhat scripted, but not to the point of choreography. Like the wrestlers require talent to pull off the choreography, the stars of these shows need the talent to pull off the show's "script" which means they have to advocate for and defend their usually assigned viewpoints and attack the opposing viewpoint. They have to be part-time actors while being full-time debaters. As far as I know, Skip started all of this and he is the best at it, IMO, but Shannon is gifted, as well. Shannon was great behind a mic ever since his playing days. For me, though, "Speak for Yourself" is the best of these shows, and "Skip and Shannon: Undisputed" is the only other one that is quality. All of these shows involve a lot of preparation similar to the work the athletes have to put in before they perform. They have their productions meetings, the "stars" personally research the topics, they talk to people connected with the athletes, lots of them have personal statisticians and researchers to provide the ammo for their debates, you could tell that each of them wants to best the other, and you can't forget that most are recorded live. I also don't think they are assigned all of their viewpoints. No way. For example, it is obvious that Shannon Sharpe is heavily invested in LeBron James and/or LeBron has invested in Shannon. You could tell how invested Shannon is in LeBron by the emotion he puts out when he discusses him. He gets so upset that you could almost see him jumping across the desk and choking Skip. Skip, for his part, choose the "Chosen One" as his #1 enemy way back when LeBron was still a teenager. There are random topics that neither cares about and that's when they flip a coin or something on who has to take which take, but they don't need a script for all of the topics. At the end of the day, these shows are just entertainment just like the sports they cover are just entertainment.
Somehow, I never made the connection that Rick Bayless is his brother until this comment. They look so much alike, not sure how I missed that.
