Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe have taped a reunion episode together, their first on-camera pairing since Sharpe left Fox Sports 1’s “Undisputed” more than three years ago, Front Office Sports reported Wednesday.
The session was filmed in the Los Angeles area for Sharpe’s “Club Shay Shay” podcast on the Playmaker network. A release date has not been announced. It was not immediately clear whether the appearance is a one-off or the start of a larger collaboration. A Playmaker representative did not respond to a request for comment from Front Office Sports.
The taping comes as the 2026 NFL season gets underway and as both men work primarily as independent digital hosts rather than weekday studio partners on a national cable network.
Bayless and Sharpe co-hosted “Undisputed” on FS1 for nearly seven years after the show premiered Sept. 6, 2016. The pairing was built on a familiar sports-debate formula: Bayless as the polarizing hot-take antagonist, Sharpe as the Hall of Fame tight end who pushed back with playing credentials, storytelling and volume.
The act worked. The show became FS1’s signature weekday program and one of the most-watched debate shows in sports television. It also grew more combustible near the end.
Tension spilled on air in early 2023 after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field. Bayless posted a tweet questioning how the NFL could postpone a high-stakes game so late in the season. Sharpe skipped the next taping and later said he wanted the post removed. Bayless apologized but did not delete it.
The relationship deteriorated further during a debate over Tom Brady. Bayless accused Sharpe of being jealous of the then-Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback and told him Brady was “way better than you were.” After leaving the show, Sharpe told Stephen A. Smith he felt Bayless had lost respect for him.
“I think in any relationship where there’s host, co-host … once one partner has no respect for the other, the other partner then in turn loses respect for said partner,” Sharpe said. “Then, I think it’s only a matter of time. Because in that moment, I had felt he had lost all respect for me.”
Bayless has remained a daily presence through “The Skip Bayless Show” and now co-hosts “Gridiron” with former NFL defensive back Aqib Talib. Season 2 of “Gridiron” is scheduled to premiere Friday on a new YouTube channel. In May, Bayless returned to ESPN for a one-time “First Take” reunion with Smith, his original debate partner. That booking generated a ratings spike and fresh talk about whether the old debate-TV model still works in a podcast-first market.
