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Shannon Sharpe is leaving Fox Sports “Undisputed” and reports suggest his last show will be after NBA Finals

Antonio Kozlow profile picture
Sports Editor
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After seven years co-hosting his “Undisputed” show on Fox Sports 1, it has emerged that Shannon Sharpe has decided to part ways from Skip Bayless in the next couple of weeks. 

According to reports, the former NFL athlete has agreed a deal with the media company over a buyout on his terms, committing to present his last appearance in June after the NBA Finals.

The news makes headlines after tense disagreements have been rising lately between him and Bayless, especially about how the American Football league should deal with all the controversy around Damar Hamlin’s cardiac arrest back at the start of the year.

Just as social media was learning about this situtation, Sharpe hinted at the reason why he made his decision final, after liking a tweet that expressed how his relationship with his co-host had been deteriorating over time, even speculating how jealousy might of played a part in the breakup.

“Their relationship got progressively worse over the last 2 maybe 3 years because skip fought for him to be on that show,” the tweet read. “But I feel like skip couldn’t stand Shannon succeeding without and that’s when skip was taking pot shots on air.”

Some of their coworkers at Fox have expressed their amazement after Sharpe’s announcement, as the press keeps hinting that the power struggles over what topics should be discussed on the show were the final drops to spill the cup.

“I’m stunned by this news of Shannon Sharpe. I think it’s a huge loss. I thought that he and Skip Bayless had at least gotten to a point where they could coexist, but apparently not,” said on air the host of Fox Sport Radio’s “The Odd Couple”, Chris Broussard.

Reports claim that the hosts’ disagreement over Damar Hamlin’s situation was crucial in their breakup

The night of Damar Hamlin’s collapse after his cardiac arrest in January, Bayless retweeted a post that claimed that the NFL couldn’t postpone the Buffalo Bills match against the Bengals because of scheduling, even though most were concerned if the player was going to survive after his incident on the field.

“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,” Bayless had posted.

Sharpe did not appear on the show the next episode, and waited until the day after to return and express his thoughts on the matter. On that program, Sharpe was seen clearly frustrated by Bayless’ constant interruptions as he tried to explain his position.

Even though his co-host later apologized for his tweet, he decided not to delete it.

“Skip tweeted something, and although I disagreed with the tweet, and hopefully Skip will take it down,” Sharpe said on air, until Bayless interrupted once again.

“Timeout,” he imposed. “I’m not going to take it down, because I stand by what I tweeted.”

To what Sharpe responded: “I can’t even get through a monologue without you interrupting me. I was just gonna say, Skip, I didn’t want, yesterday, to get into a situation where Damar Hamlin was the issue. We should be talking about him, and not get into your tweet.”

Antonio is a life long sports enthusiast and professional journalist, who shares an obssesive urge to find and dig up the most interesting facts to guide gamblers towards more exciting, yet safe bets. In his own words, ''you can never really know enough about the things you love''.

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