Shannon Sharpe officially confirmed that he will be joining Stephen A. Smith on ESPN's First Take, per a tweet from his Twitter account. This comes one day after Sharpe announced that he was moving his “Club Shay Shay” podcast to Colin Cowherd's “The Volume” network and one week since news originally broke from the New York Post's Andrew Marchand that he'd be joining the show.

Shortly after the report last Thursday, Stephen A. Smith went on his “Stephen A. Smith Show” podcast to say that while there were talks between Sharpe and ESPN, no deal had happened yet.

“Sorry, Andrew Marchand of the New York Post. It's a bit premature. Shannon Sharpe has yet to sign on the dotted line to be a member of First Take. It has not happened yet. I'm still confident that it will happen.”

Clearly, there was a lot of movement between Sharpe and ESPN in the past week and he is now a member of First Take.

The pairing of the two sports media stars is significant. Stephen A. Smith is an alumnus of Winston-Salem State University and an avid supporter of his alma mater and HBCUs around the nation. He played under legendary head basketball coach Clarence “Big House” Gaines and wrote for the student newspaper on campus. He was inducted into the CIAA Hall of Fame in 2017.

Shannon Sharpe is an alumnus of Savannah State University where he played football in the SIAC for the Tigers. He led Savannah State to huge success, as they posted an 8-1 record in 1989 during his senior season. Sharpe is #1 in school history for achieving single-season records receiving records for yardage, touchdowns, and yards per catch. His #2 jersey was retired in 2009 and he was inducted into the SIAC Hall of Fame in 2014.

Sharpe will reportedly appear on the show on Mondays and Tuesdays of the NFL season, with his premiere episode likely coinciding with the Thursday Night Football matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Detroit Lions on the week of September 7th.