Stephen A. Smith wants Shannon Sharpe on First Take, ESPN knows he wants Shannon Sharpe on First Take and he expects them to announce an agreement soon.
Since Sharpe reached a buyout agreement with FS1 last month, effectively completing his divorce from Skip Bayless, Smith has been open about attempting to recruit the Pro Football Hall-of-Famer to First Take. That recruitment pitch has been ramped up recently, and reached the point where it will now be deemed a failure if Sharpe doesn’t land at ESPN to sit in the chair and show that previously belonged to Skip Bayless. This information is coming directly from the current architect of First Take, and he admitted it on the latest episode of The Stephen A. Smith Show.
The man @ShannonSharpe can pull up with a bottle of Hennessy for all I care.
I want him on First Take pic.twitter.com/FdL78bnGps
— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) July 21, 2023
“Make no mistake about it, I’m not apologizing to a damn show. I want Shannon Sharpe on First Take and I aim to get him,” Smith said definitively. “We are talking to him and I am hopeful, very hopeful and very confident that ultimately we will be announcing sooner than later that he will be on First Take.”
Smith scoffed at the notion he should stay quiet as negotiatons between Sharpe and “the honchos” at ESPN remain ongoing. “All this politically correct stuff and being quiet, I want Shannon Sharpe on First Take. Okay? PERIOD!” Smith said.
“I want this brother at First Take. I want him as a part of the ESPN family. And I want him to have a shinier light placed on him than a few of the times that we last saw him,” he continued. “I’m not throwing shade on anybody, especially not him and especially not my man Skip Bayless. But what happened, happened, it was for public consumption.”
Just saying “I’m not throwing shade” doesn’t mean Smith wasn’t throwing shade. Because even if it wasn’t his intent, Smith was throwing some shade at Bayless. After nearly eight years together on Undisputed, Sharpe exited the show after a series of uncomfortable on-air blowups with his debate partner, the worst of which stemmed from Bayless’s untimely tweet about Damar Hamlin.
Smith proceeded to play that clip of the infamous bout between Sharpe and Bayless from Jan. 4, 2023. Like most of us, Smith believed that moment was the beginning of the end for Sharpe and Bayless. But Smith also claimed to know Sharpe was going to be off Undisputed by the end of the NBA season, which is precisely what happened.
“I not only want him for First Take, I want him for our network because I consider Shannon Sharpe an asset,” Smith said. “And I’m not here to throw shade on any other show, on any other network, but I think with a talent like that, I don’t think you let somebody like that walk out the door. Somebody else’s loss, I intend for it to be my gain. I sincerely hope and pray that ESPN works it out, but more importantly, I expect them to.”
Smith maintains that he wants First Take to feature a rotating cast of debate partners, of which he expects Sharpe to be a part of. But acquiring the Pro Football Hall-of-Famer would certainly require more than the $10,000 per episode of First Take deal that ESPN previously signed Chris Russo to, which means Sharpe would likely be featured in other roles as well.
