This week, ESPN’s Around The Horn goes dark, after more than 22 years. The move has been coming for months, and ESPN will be filling the time slot with, well, something.
Andrew Marchand of TheAthletic.com reports that, before Shannon Sharpe took a hiatus after being sued for sexual assault and other claims, Sharpe was considered for “a potential Stephen A. Smith project” in the 5:00 p.m. ET window.
There are no further details regarding what Sharpe’s role would have been, or whether others (including Smith) would have been part of the on-air cast.
Sharpe, despite exiting ESPN’s First Take and planning to “devot[e] this time to my family, and responding and dealing with these false and disruptive allegations set against me,” has continued to produce podcasts on a regular basis.
ESPN has still not announced its plan for the show that leads into Pardon The Interruption.
The $50 million lawsuit against Sharpe was filed on April 20. Sharpe has denied the allegations. His lawyer, Lanny Davis, admitted two days after the filing of the lawsuit that Sharpe had offered “at least” $10 million to settle the case before it was filed.
