I am and have been a fan of Shannon Sharpe and what he has accomplished and become.
As a seventh-round pick out of Savanah State, a small, HBCU program, Sharpe didn’t start producing in the NFL until his third year in the league with Denver in 1992, when he was selected to his first Pro Bowl team.
After that, his career soared.
Sharpe became a 7x Pro Bowl, 4x first-team All-Pro and Hall of Fame player who won three Super Bowls in total with the Denver Broncos (2) and the Baltimore Ravens (1).
After retiring in 2003, he began his sports media career with CBS Sports’ The NFL Today and later became a star on FS1’s Undisputed and, more recently, ESPN’s First Take.
Even more impressively, the self-anointed “conversationalist” has two highly successful podcasts, Club Shay-Shay and Nightcap Show that boast almost 4 million combined followers on YouTube.
There’s no denying Sharpe’s success, and I am especially glad to see that he’s grown in popularity and presence as an independent media entity.
In other words, Sharpe has become a powerful force in media, one that we’ve never witnessed before.
Because of that, we don’t know how to classify what it is he does.
Is he a media analyst or an entertainer? Is he a sports media personality or is he a TV personality?
I think the best way to describe it is that he is a little of everything, which allows him to travel successfully through different circles.
Sharpe has learned how to attract both die-hard and casual sports fans during the day, and then dim the lights to reach nonsports fans in the evening.
He is well known for his sports takes, especially his defense of LeBron James as the GOAT. When the lights go on, he’s both well-prepared and well-versed in the subjects he discusses and he provides audiences with rants, takes, and viral, meme-creating moments that keep viewers returning.
Then he leaves the studio to create smash-hit interviews with Black comedians like Steve Harvey, Katt Williams and Mo’nique. A few hours later, he and Ocho Cinco hold NC-17 conversations that have taken his career to a trajectory that I don’t think even Sharpe himself anticipated.
I mean, who had Shannon Sharpe becoming the home for Black comedians to vent and announce upcoming tours?
It’s an amazing career transformation, but is it one that Sharpe should be pursuing? Does he run the risk of alienating one loyal audience for another?
We saw the public sideline altercation he got into with the Memphis Grizzlies at a Lakers game in January 2023. Earlier this month, he and comedian Mike Epps had a short-lived beef that was fortunately squashed during NBA All-Star weekend.
While those incidents were great for clicks, memes and viral popularity, it’s not a good look for a media star, especially one employed by Fox Sports or ESPN.
Amazingly though, neither hurt his career or standing in any way. He publically apologized and was back on air as usual, which is a rarity, especially in today’s very unforgiving environment.
But that ability to evade punishment or serious blowback is an attribute Sharpe has that others don’t, and that’s another reason for his success.
Even his hot takes get light, temporary pushback, like his ridiculous question on the relationship status of NBA players while discussing the face of the league.
Sharpe is truly a unicorn in a rapidly changing media space, but what he’s doing is working as his social following continues to grow and ESPN recently decided to extend his contract with the network.
But can he find the right balance between being a credible sports analyst and entertainer? Or maybe the better question is does he need to?
Sometimes I wonder if Sharpe is morphing into something that maybe he shouldn’t be or that he can’t maintain. Only time will tell if he can successfully continue to live this media duality.
But no matter what, I, along with millions of others, have enjoyed the unique journey that “Unc” has taken us on and we look forward to seeing what he does in the future.
