Shannon Sharpe Reportedly Leaving 'Undisputed' and Co-Host Skip Bayless After 7 Years
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The former NFL star previously served as a football analyst on CBS before making the jump to the FS1 show alongside Bayless
Nicholas Hunt/Getty
Shannon Sharpe is leaving his FS1 show Skip and Shannon: Undisputed, according to a report.
The former NFL star, 54, has reached a buyout with the network, ending his seven-year tenure alongside co-host Skip Bayless, the New York Post reports.
Sharpe is expected to tape his final appearance after the NBA Finals conclude later this month, per the outlet, and his popular podcast Club Shay Shay will also sever ties with the network.
Sharpe has not confirmed the report, but he has liked tweets referencing his departure, including one about his relationship with Bayless "getting progressively worse."
Through the years, Sharpe and Bayless, 71, have often had different takes on sports stories.
Sharpe notably took issue with a tweet Bayless wrote about Damar Hamlin, following the Buffalo Bills safety’s collapse during a game in January.
"No doubt the NFL is considering postponing the rest of this game — but how?" Bayless wrote at the time. "This late in the season, a game of this magnitude is crucial to the regular-season outcome … which suddenly seems so irrelevant."
Sharpe did not appear on the show the following morning, and delivered a monologue — which Bayless interrupted — to air his grievances about his co-host's tweet. During the tense exchange, Bayless insisted that none of the network executives had been upset by his social media comments.
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The Hall of Fame tight end and the former newspaper columnist debuted their show in 2016, following Bayless’ exit from ESPN’s First Take, which he hosted with Stephen A. Smith.
Earlier this year, Smith offered his own thoughts about Bayless, whom he called a “professional contrarian” during a guest spot on The Mike Missanelli Podcast.
“He’s different, man. He’s definitely different,” Smith said. “What I will tell you is this. Skip is a genuine, authentic, professional contrarian. He firmly believes in thinking that he thinks differently than anyone else on the planet. He is diametrically opposed to flowing with conventional wisdom. He believes that he sees what no one either sees or don’t have the courage to verbalize like he does. That’s how he thinks. And for people who think he makes stuff up…not at all, he believes it.”
As for Sharpe — who previously served as a longtime NFL analyst at CBS — the news of his departure serves as another recent headline for the football great.
Earlier this year, Sharpe was one of three people whom NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre filed lawsuits against, claiming that they had defamed him and ruined his "good name" in the wake of Favre's involvement in a Mississippi welfare fraud scandal.
The complaint alleged, per CNN, that Sharpe called Favre a "sorry mofo to steal from the lowest of the low," and that Favre "stole money from people that really needed that money."
According to the complaint, obtained by CNN, Favre claims that Sharpe made "egregiously false and defamatory statements" about him on the show.
Meanwhile, in late January, Sharpe exchanged heated words with Memphis Grizzlies players Dillon Brooks and Ja Morant — as well as interacted with Morant’s father, Tee — during a Los Angeles Lakers game.
Sharpe later apologized on-air for his court side commentary.
"I take full responsibility for what transpired. It does not matter what Dillon Brooks said or how many times he said it," Sharpe said on the show. "Me being the responsible person, me having the platform I have, and having so many people look up to me, I was wrong. I should have lowered the temperature in the arena. Instead, I turned the temperature up, and I let it get out of hand."
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