Nearly a year has passed since Shannon Sharpe left Undisputed after the 2023 NBA Finals. He recently discussed his feelings about the departure in a live interview on the Black Money Trees Podcast with host Jerome D. Love live from the Texas Black Expo. In the podcast clip, Love asked Sharpe about the time leading up to the NBA Finals a year ago when news broke about Shannon's departure. Love asked how his experience has compared to his initial expectations.

“I'd be lying if I told you I thought I would be where I am right now at this point in time. That I think it was possible, yes, but I thought it was going to take me a lot longer than what it actually took me. It's tough.”

Sharpe then addressed his emotions during his final day on the show, particularly when he told Bayless he gave him, “everything he had.”

“See, people like, well, Shannon, why'd you get so emotional? Because if you knew what I put into that job, you would understand it. Yeah, you see, the greater the expectation, the greater the hurt when it doesn't work out. And I poured so much into that. I gave up everything. I lost relationships because I couldn't go out to dinner. I couldn't go on vacations. I couldn't do it because I had to watch all the sporting events. I had to be able to talk about them on television and talk about them expertly, so it cost me a lot.”

How things played out with Sharpe's exit from Undisputed seemingly made him more determined to embrace media ownership, as he explained to Love.

“And so now I look at that says now I'm no longer talent You can't fire me from Shay Shay Media because I own it. You can't fire me from Nightcap. You can't fire me from Club Shay-Shay. I own it. And so that's the way I look at my business now. You're going to be my partner. You're no longer just going to cut me a check to do something. We're in partnership.”

Sharpe has since gone on to see immense success for his Club Shay-Shay and Nightcap ventures. His interview with Katt Williams now sits as the most watched interview on YouTube and. per Sharpe on the Nightcap podcast March, has made him more money than any year that he played in the NFL. He's also found his place at ESPN, appearing as a guest host on First Take alongside Stephen A. Smith weekly on Monday's and Tuesday's during the NBA and NFL season.

Smith has previously discussed Shapre's exit from FS1, stating that he was forced out. He addressed this during his appearance on The Joe Budden Podcast in September.

“I didn't look at it that way. I would've looked at it that way if Shannon left of his own volition. I'm telling you he was pushed out,” Smith said in the interview.

Budden replied, “That's the first time I've ever heard that.”

Smith responded, “Well, I'm telling you. And it's fact. Now, they can deny it. He wouldn't. I can promise you that. He was pushed out. He didn't want to leave. He was notified that, ‘your services were no longer be needed.'But, then again, that's his story to tell. But, I'm telling you what I know and I'm giving you facts. And so, when I saw that…it wasn't just that I know the brother's talented. It wasn't just that I know that he's a three-time Super Bowl champion and an NFL Hall of Famer. It wasn't just that I knew he was in television the last six years. I saw me from the standpoint of I was let go in 2009 and left for dead.”

Smith then expounded more in an interview on Cam Newton's 4th & 1 podcast.

“Shannon didn't even know he was unavailable before I did. If you remember him and Skip got into it about the whole Brady thing and Shannon hard sort of lost it. … Then you fast forward and the whole thing with Damar Hamlin came down and he was off the air that day. And then he came back on the air that [week] and he was trying to say something and Skip wouldn't let him finish his monologue. When I saw that, I called him: ‘It's over.' He's like, ‘What?' I said, ‘You won't be back.' … I know [Skip]. There is no way on earth that that happened and you'll be back. And I said, ‘I want you to know when it happens, not if… I got you.'”

Sharpe is certainly in a better place than he was last year and his hard work surely paid off.