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Shannon Sharpe under DENIED stamp
Getting current NFL players onto a sports podcast hosted by two former NFL stars seems like it should be one of the easier booking jobs on the internet. Shannon Sharpe says Nightcap has a much stranger problem: some agents are allegedly telling their clients they are not allowed to appear on the show at all.
Sharpe made the claim during Sunday’s episode while talking with Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson, saying the freeze-out dates back to an unspecified discussion the pair had last year. According to Awful Announcing, Sharpe said an agent directly contacted the show afterward and told them, “We’re not going to allow them to come on [your] platform.”
Shannon Sharpe Says The Invitations Are Going Out
This is apparently not a situation where Nightcap simply decided interviewing current athletes was too much work.
Sharpe says the show has actively reached out and been rejected because representatives do not want certain clients appearing.
“I don’t want to put nobody’s agency on blast,” Sharpe said. “But y’all know who you are. Y’all know we’ve reached out, and you made it abundantly clear you’re not gonna let your clients come on the show.”
That is a pretty unusual problem for a program with more than two million YouTube subscribers and two hosts who combined for 19 NFL seasons.
Sharpe said Nightcap has had no trouble landing guests from sports including swimming and track and field. The roadblock, he claims, comes from an agency representing athletes in both the NFL and NBA.
He did not identify the agency, nor did he identify specific players who were prevented from appearing (no agent has publicly confirmed Sharpe’s account).
So for now, this remains Sharpe describing what he says is happening behind the scenes rather than evidence of some league-wide NFL directive against Nightcap.
Whatever Happened Last Year Apparently Still Matters
The most interesting part is how vague Sharpe remained about the original offense.
“We said some things last year, Ocho and I,” he explained. “We had a discussion.”
That discussion was apparently enough for an agent to contact the show and shut down future appearances by clients, but Sharpe stopped short of spelling out exactly which segment created the issue.
Johnson even seemed surprised by the explanation.
Sharpe argued that the alleged restriction is particularly frustrating because Nightcap interviews with athletes generally stick to their careers and sports rather than trying to bait guests into political controversies.
That leaves the show in a bizarre position.
NFL players are exactly the kind of guests its audience would presumably want. Sharpe and Ochocinco spent years inside the league. The show routinely reacts to NFL games hours after they end.
Yet Sharpe says some of the people responsible for managing those players’ careers have essentially hung a “Do Not Enter” sign on the podcast.