Sophie Cunningham
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Ryan Clark has had plenty to say about how his time at ESPN came to an end. The former NFL analyst was laid off in July, and he found out while he was still on the air. Now, Clark is suggesting that the way it all played out was planned.
Clark has previously made it clear that he believes ESPN wanted his firing to become a story. Now, he’s arguing that it used an interview with Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham to show it was changing direction.
Clark’s ESPN exit
Clark was pulled off the set of NFL Live in the middle of the show on July 20. ESPN had planned to tell him the next day as part of a wider round of layoffs, but word of his departure got out first.
OutKick, the conservative-leaning outlet owned by Fox that had long been critical of Clark, had the story before it was published elsewhere. OutKick’s Bobby Burack said that the outlet gave ESPN an hour’s notice so the network could tell Clark itself, according to Awful Announcing. ESPN then moved to tell Clark before he could find out on social media.
A day later, ESPN published a profile of Cunningham, in which the Indiana Fever guard said she supports keeping transgender athletes out of girls’ and women’s sports.
“I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men,” Cunningham told ESPN.
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Cunningham also said she had received “a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans,” adding, “I never once said that.” The comments made her one of the biggest stories in the WNBA, and she has since insisted her political views are “right in the middle.”
Clark has already called his firing “purposeful,” saying on The Breakfast Club earlier this fall that ESPN handled it in a way that was meant to humiliate him.
‘That’s what they wanted’
On Thursday, Clark took things a step further during an appearance on All The Smoke. He argued that ESPN wanted conservative outlets like OutKick to see his firing and the Cunningham interview as a sign that the network was changing its brand.
“Sophie Cunningham says something and they say, ‘A great brand switch for ESPN,'” Clark said. He added that the message was, “Ryan Clark was fired this week and now Sophie Cunningham leads the news.”
“That’s what they wanted. That’s why you leaked it to them,” Clark said.
Clark admitted that he should have seen it coming, saying that his “antenna should have been up more.” But he also said that “there was nothing I could change.”
He pointed to signs that he was being phased out, including ESPN’s promotional rollout for its Super Bowl coverage.
“There was a commercial first and when they did the commercial Marcus [Spears] and Laura [Rutledge] were in it,” Clark said. “I’m not involved.”
“So I say all that to say, that this was the plan,” he added.
OutKick, for its part, denied that ESPN leaked the story to the outlet, saying it had four independent sources. Burack also claimed that ESPN conducted the Cunningham interview in February and held it until July.
Either way, it’s clear Clark believes his exit was about more than just layoffs.