The longtime duo of Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe on Undisputed split up earlier this year, as Sharpe announced his departure from Fox Sports. Sharpe apparently got a buyout from Fox, and his podcast, “Club Shay Shay,” is also no longer under the Fox umbrella. It’s been a little less than a month since Sharpe left the show, and apparently, there have been major problems in trying to find his replacement.
On Wednesday, both the show and Bayless tweeted that the show is going on hiatus until August 28. That is a pretty remarkable thing to just drop on a Wednesday, but according to Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports, there is more going on than Bayless simply getting into the lab.
Instead, the risky two-month layoff was driven by Bayless and FS1 management’s inability to find a replacement for Shannon Sharpe, said sources.
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“Shannon’s exit moved way faster than they expected. So they had no choice but to go on hiatus,” said one source. “Skip has never done anything like this during all his years at FS1 or ESPN. Not being on the air during all these NBA moves is killing him.”
McCarthy put together a list of potential replacements for Sharpe, but noted that an issue that has popped up is Bayless, as Undisputed‘s star, has control over everything. As for Sharpe, it’s unclear what is on the horizon for him, but Stephen A. Smith has made very clear that he’d love to have him join his rotating cast of sparring partners on First Take.
