Plenty has already been written about the Shannon Sharpe situation, but it’s time to take a step back and take a look back at what was one of the strangest weeks in ESPN history.
It all started on Monday when news first broke about a sexual assault lawsuit being filed against the First Take star to the tune of $50 million. Sharpe appeared on the program Monday and then began a public war of words with his accuser while ESPN chose not to take preemptive action.
While appearing on First Take on Tuesday, the controversy exploded. Throughout the next couple of days, we heard multiple audio recordings of Sharpe threatening to choke the alleged victim, Sharpe responding that it was part of a larger sex tape and controversially choosing to name his accuser, and the admission from Sharpe’s lawyer that he offered $10 million to settle the case before a lawsuit was even filed.
The saga finally reached a point of no return on Thursday when Sharpe announced that he was voluntarily stepping away from ESPN to address the matter. He noted that he planned to return to ESPN at the beginning of the NFL preseason in the summer, which would mean an extended absence from First Take.
ESPN offered its first public comment on the controversy after Sharpe released his statement, “This is a serious situation, and we agree with Shannon’s decision to step away.”
With Sharpe seemingly deciding for himself, ESPN’s role in all of this is coming into focus.
Up until Sharpe decided to step away, ESPN had remained conspicuously silent. After years of being accustomed to seeing the network take a proactive stance in responding to any controversy within Bristol’s friendly confines and trying to present a front-facing image that Disney could be proud of, it was puzzling, to say the least.
However, from the ESPN perspective, there was one moment that stood out, symbolic of where the network currently finds itself in 2025, which is still hard to wrap your mind around.
Stephen A. Smith addressed the Shannon Sharpe situation, not on an ESPN platform, but on his personal podcast. And on that podcast, he shared a statement from ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro. Smith relayed Pitaro’s message that he “made it very, very clear we are taking this matter very seriously, and we are looking into this very, very closely. And once we gather as many facts as we possibly can, we will go from there.”
Take a moment to put the pieces together and consider how bizarre this sounds.
Will the real president of ESPN please stand up?
One of ESPN’s most famous personalities is caught in the middle of a sexual assault lawsuit that turns very public and very ugly. We’ve seen ESPN suspend personalities or remove them from the air for things like billboard trolling, awkward turns of phrase, and criticizing the NFL commissioner, among numerous other things, over the years. And the only thing ESPN says before that personality takes himself off the air is a statement from the network president laundered through Stephen A. Smith’s podcast?
It’s like Roger Goodell having Patrick Mahomes forward a message defending NFL officiating during last season when fans thought the league was bending over backward to help the Chiefs. Not only would something like that be laughed off by everyone in the sports world, but Goodell would be heavily criticized for his total lack of leadership and for passing off his responsibility to one of the league’s players.
Who is really in charge here? Is Stephen A. Smith now representing and speaking for the company? Was this really all Shannon Sharpe’s decision to walk away while the network took a backseat?
This is the president of ESPN we are talking about here. And he’s speaking through Stephen A. Smith’s non-network personal podcast about network business? All of these steps make it seem like Pitaro was not just trying to distance himself and ESPN from this; he was trying to put it in an alternate universe.
What really happened behind the scenes at ESPN?
Sure, ESPN could have very directly told Sharpe what to say and made it clear to him that he could step away or the network would make him do so. A Deadline report just minutes before Sharpe’s social media post seems to indicate the network was finally ready to act in benching the Pro Football Hall of Famer. The fact that he hosted his NFL Draft Nightcap show while claiming he needed to take time away from ESPN to handle this matter privately does not make logical sense.
But if that’s the case and ESPN privately pushed Sharpe out the door while giving him cover to say that it was his decision, the only real question that remains is… why? Why wouldn’t ESPN want to take the lead on making its own decisions for what is best for its network?
Currently, the messaging is that it’s the talent truly in charge at ESPN – namely, it’s a network that belongs to the likes of Stephen A. Smith, Pat McAfee, Shannon Sharpe, and others who have enough zeros in their paychecks. And they will do what they want, when they want.
If McAfee wants to dedicate hours of programming to the WWE and have Paul Heyman go berserk in character, then that’s fair game. If Smith wants to have every right-wing firebrand on his personal podcast, publicly feud with LeBron James and flirt with the idea of running for POTUS, go for it if Shannon Sharpe intends to name his 21-year-old accuser and dare her to release the whole sex tape, then game on. And if he decides to walk away, then it’ll happen on his timeline, too.
ESPN could have easily issued a statement from Pitaro or anyone else on official network letterhead throughout this saga. It would have gone some way toward satisfying the critics and skeptics wondering why the network didn’t take a more active role.
However, ESPN chose to fade into the background. And that seems like a space that the network is fully content to occupy.
Is ESPN’s silence the new normal?
Viewing this Sharpe situation in light of other recent events reveals that ESPN has taken a hands-off approach and is now content to look the other way when faced with any controversy that is either too complicated or too messy to deal with themselves, especially when it involves their most prominent names. Perhaps they are taking their inspiration from the NCAA.
To this day, ESPN has still not responded to the Pat McAfee controversy surrounding Ole Miss student Mary Kate Cornett. While we saw Barstool Sports and Dave Portnoy apologize profusely for their roles in advancing false, damaging rumors about Cornett, ESPN and McAfee have again stood silent. It’s easier for ESPN to look the other way with McAfee. It has kept responsibility for him and his show at arm’s length because it is “licensed.” That may work semantically, but it doesn’t change the fact that the Cornett comments took place on its airwaves.
If Barstool Sports is publicly promising to be better when Disney and ESPN can’t or won’t, what does it say about ESPN? What does it say that Dave Portnoy is taking more responsibility for the company that he leads than Jimmy Pitaro?
Something isn’t adding up.
But maybe it’s not supposed to. Maybe ESPN is betting that in today’s culture, nothing truly matters anymore. Everything eventually blows over and is forgotten, and a new scandal or controversy emerges every single day. In the irony of ironies, conservative commentator Mark Steyn appeared on Fox Business, asking if we had scandal fatigue seven years ago. Just imagine how fatigued everyone is now in 2025. And if things get bad enough, the talent will have to deal with it themselves.
And maybe what ESPN realizes most of all is that these stars are bigger than the network itself. ESPN needs Pat McAfee and his podcast empire more than he needs ESPN. ESPN needs Stephen A. Smith and is willing to overlook his political commentary because that is what has kept him on board. Shannon Sharpe had a nine-figure offer for his podcast waiting for him before all this broke, so does it really matter if he’s on First Take next week or not? He was doing the same podcast that same night, the night he supposedly had to sacrifice his ESPN duties due to the weight of this situation.
None of these people honestly answer to anyone at ESPN or Disney. And ESPN publicly deferring to Sharpe while acting like a supporting player instead of the Worldwide Leader in Sports adds more credence to that theory.
So what is fair and foul at today’s ESPN? Who knows! Apparently, we will have to listen to Stephen A. Smith’s podcast to find out.