Probably the wildest thing in the sports news cycle today was how Julio Jones announced that he is out of Atlanta after being on the phone with Shannon Sharpe during co-host of the live sports debate show on FS1 Skip and Shannon Undisputed. Many are calling Sharpe’s move a mistake and classless especially if Julio didn’t know he was on-air at the time during their call.
During the show, Shannon Sharpe appeared to call Julio Jones without any prior indication that he would be on the show and asked him about the current trade rumors while on speakerphone. Sharpe didn’t tell Jones that he was live on-air which lead to speculations of whether this was a stage or they actually called Julio just out of the blue. If this wasn’t a staged or arranged call for TV, Fox Sports may have violated California’s law on two-party consent.
Maybe he knew he was on tv, but it didn't seem like it.
Which, uh … https://t.co/Wa7L7ZgoZr pic.twitter.com/6xyI5JixBo
— Kyle Bonagura (@BonaguraESPN) May 24, 2021
According to the California law, “conversations in which one of the parties has an objectively reasonable expectation that no one is listening in or overhearing the conversation” cannot be recorded without the consent of both the parties on the phone.
If Jones thought he was talking to Sharpe privately that’s where the problem lies from a legal standpoint and it overall is just a bad look for Shannon.
Now, if Jones was in on all of this to force the Falcons’ hand, then there’s no problem as both Fox and Jones got what they wanted: People talking about the call no matter how ridiculous that may sound.
Sharpe has yet to comment on the subject on whether the call was arranged with Jones for TV or not.
In the end considering how heavily it has been promoted on the social media spaces, I doubt Jones had an issue with it.
Turn the page to watch the whole conversation between Jones and Sharpe and you decide for yourself whether this is just a scripted segment for attention.