Stephen A. Smith confirmed he wants Shannon Sharpe.
On Friday, the ESPN “First Take” host addressed the rumors of the move with Sharpe, who left Skip Bayless on FS1’s “Undisputed” in June, after Smith teased his Twitter followers concerning the upcoming news.
“Search for me on Friday, Folks! I’ll be addressing all of the things I would like to deal with,” he tweeted.
“I’m not going to let you know it’s true, but I’m not going to let you know it’s not,” Smith said slyly on his YouTube channel about Sharpe joining the show.
“Yeah, the talks are serious. I would like this brother on ‘First Take’… I would like him to have a shinier light placed on him than a couple of of the times we last saw him,” he continued.
“I’m not throwing shade at him and particularly not my man, Skip Bayless.”
The sentiments appear to be mutual, because the Hall of Fame tight end told USA Today it will be “great” to collaborate with Smith while hinting at a profession announcement within the upcoming days.
This might be an enormous step for Sharpe, 55, coming from the FS1 show that averaged 154,000 viewers.
A possible move to “First Take” would enable him to proceed to construct on his podcast “Club Shay Shay,” which boasts 1.23 million subscribers on YouTube.
The role would likely be as a part-time contributor, as Smith likes to have a rotating panel of co-hosts slightly than a everlasting partner.
“I would like Shannon Sharpe on ‘First Take’ and I aim to get him…..I’m hopeful. I’m very hopeful and really confident that ultimately we can be announcing prior to later that he can be on ‘First Take,’” Smith said.
Sharpe and Bayless began to have a rocky relationship, notably after Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the sphere against the Bengals this past season.
Bayless was slammed for a tweet after the collapse but before the sport was canceled saying, “Little doubt the NFL is considering postponing the remaining of this game — but how? This late within the season, a game of this magnitude is crucial to the regular-season end result … which suddenly seems so irrelevant.”
The next morning, Sharpe stayed home and later expressed he wished for Bayless to delete the tweet.
From that, Smith knew Sharpe wouldn’t be with Bayless for much longer.
“That was the day (Damar Hamlin clip) I knew Shannon could be gone from Undisputed on FS1,” he said.
