NFL Hall of Famer and “Undisputed” co-host Shannon Sharpe is leaving FOX Sports’ “Undisputed” show — and the network. Sharpe has reached a buyout agreement with FOX Sports that allows him to leave the FS1 talk show “Undisputed,” which he’s co-hosted since 2016. Sharpe’s final show will be after the NBA Finals conclude.
The NBA finale is fitting since Sharpe actually played basketball in college at Savannah State (where he also played football and competed in track & field). He was a three-time All-American who led his team in receptions and caught 40 touchdowns during his four years in college. Going to the NFL seemed inevitable, though his size proved to be a liability: at 6’2″ and 230 pounds, Sharpe was considered too large to be a receiver and too small to be a tight end. But he still found a home. The Denver Broncos drafted him in the seventh round of the 1990 NFL Draft. Sharpe would stay with the Broncos until 1999.
After two underwhelming seasons, the Broncos switched Sharpe from wide receiver to tight end. Sharpe shined in his third season, leading the Broncos with 53 catches for 640 yards. He earned the first of eight total Pro Bowl selections, becoming a perennial Pro Bowl player. Sharpe’s stellar play — he had career highs of 1,100 receiving yards one season and 10 touchdowns the next — helped the Broncos win back-to-back Super Bowls in 1998 and 1999.
After winning a second championship with the Broncos, Sharpe left in free agency and joined the Baltimore Ravens (2000-2001). He won another Super Bowl with them in 2000.
He then returned to the Broncos, where he stayed until retiring in 2003.
After his retirement, Sharpe became an NFL analyst for CBS, where he remained for a decade. (In the interim, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2010.) In 2016, sports pundit Skip Bayless left ESPN’s “First Take” and joined Sharpe as co-host of the sports debate show “Undisputed.” Their spirited debates led to success, as ratings steadily climbed year after year. The debates between Sharpe and Bayless are often heated, and they sometimes engage in shouting matches on the air.
Tom Brady
Things took a particularly ugly turn in December 2022. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers suffered a blowout loss to the San Francisco 49ers, who won 35-7. Sharpe criticized then-Bucs quarterback Tom Brady for subpar play. That drew the ire of Bayless, a staunch Brady defender. The results were explosive.
“Is Tom Brady playing well? Yes or no?” Sharpe charged.
“Well, yes. He played poorly yesterday,” Bayless admitted.
Sharpe responded that Brady played badly the whole year, leading Bayless to respond defensively: “You have no objectivity. This is straight jealousy because he’s still playing at a high level at 45, when you had to stop at 35.”
“That’s what you do!” Sharpe exclaimed. “Every time I call something into question, I’m jealous.”
“I never said you were jealous of Baker Mayfield,” Bayless protested.
Sharpe responded: “Skip, I did what I did. You make it seem like I’m a bum. I’m in the effing Hall of Fame!”
“So what?!?” Bayless fired back.
Amid crosstalk and yelling, both men raised their volumes. “You would take a personal shot at me?” Sharpe fumed, as he removed his glasses.
“Put your glasses back on,” Bayless ordered him.
“You’re willing to take a personal shot at me, to say this man is better than me, because I said he played bad this year?” Sharpe asked.
Damar Hamlin
Tensions escalated further in January, after a near-fatal incident on the football field. In a game between the Cincinnati Bengals and Buffalo Bills on January 2, Bills cornerback Damar Hamlin tackled Bengals receiver Tee Higgins after a 13-yard reception. It looked like a routine hit (albeit one with apparent head-to-head contact). Hamlin popped back up after bringing Higgins to the ground. But within seconds, he fell backwards onto the ground. He fell flat on his back, appearing to hit his head. It later emerged that he had suffered cardiac arrest.
Hamlin remained on the ground for over ten minutes. Medical personnel had to come on the field and perform CPR while fellow players wept and prayed. After several minutes, an ambulance came onto the field. Hamlin was loaded onto a stretcher and inside the ambulance, which took him to UC Medical Center.
Some time later, around 9:30 pm, Hamlin’s friend and marketing rep tweeted that his vitals were normal. Hamlin was intubated to allow doctors to place a breathing tube inside his throat. By that point, the game had been postponed indefinitely; it was later canceled. Hamlin eventually recovered. But his condition was still delicate (and nerves still very raw) when Bayless sent a tweet that night:
Per Bayless’ Twitter account: No doubt the NFL is considering postponing the rest of this game – but how? This late in the season, a game of this magnitude is crucial to the regular-season outcome … which suddenly seems so irrelevant.
That last phrase is the most crucial: it was irrelevant. A 24-year-old man was on a ventilator, fighting for his life. He had suffered cardiac arrest on the field and collapsed; his teammates (and rivals) were in tears on the field, praying for him to recover. A man nearly died on the football field. Whether a game was postponed or canceled did not matter.
Bayless’ tweet sparked widespread opprobrium from those who saw it as insensitive.
“You’re a sick individual. Real talk,” tweeted Kendrick Perkins, the former NBA player and ESPN analyst. Dez Bryant called for Bayless to be canceled “ASAP.” Even former FOX Sports vice president Scott Ackerson reacted with disgust.
“You’ve created the worst take ever. A man could be dead you f–king POS. You actually make me f–king embarrassed that I helped start the network that pays you millions of f–king dollars,” he tweeted at Bayless. “You truly are a worthless POS. What in the actual f–k are you thinking?” (Ackerson eventually deleted his tweet).
Sharpe sent a subtle message by staying home the next day instead of taping “Undisputed.” The next morning, he appeared on air to address the absence.
“There has been a lot of speculation of why I wasn’t on-air yesterday, and I won’t get into speculation or conjecture and innuendo, but I will say this: In watching that game on Monday night, what happened to Damar Hamlin struck me a little different,” Sharpe said. “As a brotherhood in the NFL, when injuries happen, and we know injuries are a part of the game, I’ve seen guys suffer ACL and Achilles tears, but I’ve never seen anybody have to be revived and fight for their life on the field.”
“Skip tweeted something, and though I disagreed with the tweet — and hopefully Skip will take it down…” Sharpe continued.
“Timeout,” Bayless interjected. “I’m not going to take it down. I stand by what I’ve tweeted.”
“Go ahead,” a frustrated Sharpe said. “I mean, I cannot even get through a monologue without you interrupting me. I was just going to say, Skip, I didn’t want to yesterday to get into a situation where Damar Hamlin was the issue. We should’ve been talking about him and not get into your tweet. That’s what I was going to do. But you can’t even let me finish my opening monologue without you interrupting.”
“I was under the impression you weren’t going to bring this up,” Bayless said, “because nobody here had a problem with that tweet.”
“Clearly the bosses wanted you to offer an explanation,” Sharpe responded.
“No, they didn’t,” Bayless protested. (This contradicts what he said elsewhere. “My boss here at FOX called and said, ‘Hey, people are really reacting strongly to your tweet. Maybe you should clarify.’ Which I immediately did,” Bayless said, per Front Office Sports.)
On Saturday, June 3, Sharpe tweeted photos of himself in what appeared to be a garden, asking viewers to “stay tuned for the seeds I’m planting.”
That same day, Damar Hamlin kicked off a multi-city tour at his home stadium. Hamlin handed out automated external defibrillators to roughly 50 youth sports and community organizations on the Bills’ field at Highmark Stadium at the event launching his Chasing M’s Foundation CPR Tour. The event provided free CPR training to over 1,000 people.
Automatic external defibrillators are portable devices that can diagnose and then treat heart arrhythmias. They are used in cases of life-threatening arrhythmias that cause cardiac arrest. According to the American Heart Association, cardiac arrest usually occurs when an electrical disturbance causes the heart to stop. An AED can shock the heart back into a normal rhythm.
According to a study cited by the AHA, someone who suffers cardiac arrest in public is more than twice as likely to survive if a bystander uses an AED before emergency crews arrive. And timely CPR intervention can double or triple a cardiac arrest victim’s chance of survival, per the AHA.
“Growing up playing sports, I never really remember ever thinking about where an AED was, or ever thinking about CPR training,” Hamlin said during a brief speech. “I don’t ever remember a coach or a parent ever knowing where an AED was in a gym or stadium, or anywhere, for that matter…As we learned from my personal experience, it is very important and life-changing. This program is very important because it gives life-saving care to kids in their own communities and on the field.”
Jason Stulb, executive director of the American Heart Association for the Buffalo/Niagara region, said the purpose is “to turn a nation of bystanders into a nation of lifesavers.”