Ryan Clark’s layoff drama with ESPN took another nasty turn. The former analyst recently claimed someone within ESPN leaked the story to OutKick, which has been in a back-and-forth with Clark since he was fired. OutKick’s Bobby Burack set the record straight.

“We published our story, only to learn that The Athletic had reported a bare-bones version at approximately the same time,” he wrote for OutKick. “We later learned that ESPN informed Clark of his firing during the commercial break, right around 4:48 p.m. — before sending us its response.

“The timeline makes clear that ESPN did not work with OutKick. No one high up at the company leaked the information to us or intended, as Clark put it, to ‘humiliate’ him.

The explanation came after Ryan Clark accused ESPN of leaking the news of his firing to OutKick during an appearance on ‘The Breakfast Club.’

“Everybody that got laid off got told on Tuesday,” Clark said. “Only one person got told on Monday on set. Me. That’s the distinction,” Clark told the hosts Tuesday. “It was also purposeful. It was also meant, in my opinion, to humiliate. In leaking it to OutKick, you now know if anybody is going to curry favor for you in this decision, it’s going to be them because it’s me.”

During Super Bowl week in February, questions about Ryan Clark’s future at ESPN were already circulating in sports-media circles, according to OutKick’s Bobby Burack. He wrote that sources believed Clark’s standing had weakened ahead of ESPN’s first Super Bowl broadcast in 2027, creating uncertainty over his role on Monday Night Countdown and his future with the network.

That context later supported Burack’s argument that OutKick did not receive an intentional ESPN leak aimed at embarrassing Clark. Instead, Burack maintained that people in the industry had been discussing Clark’s uncertain standing months before ESPN’s July layoffs became public.

The speculation continued through the spring and summer, Burack wrote, particularly after ESPN left Clark out of its public plans for its upcoming Super Bowl coverage during the network’s May upfront presentation. OutKick had also reported before July that Clark’s future at ESPN was uncertain.

That backdrop supports Burack’s position that OutKick’s July report did not stem from a single intentional leak from ESPN. Rather, he maintained that questions about Clark’s place at the network had been circulating publicly and privately for months.

Burack said that a “media ally” had informed him in July that Clark would be let go by ESPN. This conversation was off the record, and Burack did not report the story at that time. It was only after his colleague, Dan Zaksheske, also got wind of the development that the two began working on the story. Burack added that OutKick informed ESPN’s public relations about running the story, who replied they had “no comment.”

Soon after, the news of Clark’s dismissal broke.

The news was pretty shocking, particularly because the former ESPN host was informed of the decision while he was on set for NFL Live. The news of Clark’s dismissal was accompanied by those of ESPN veteran Karl Ravech, insider Tom Pelissero, Cam Newton, and Bart Scott.

Clark had spent 11 years with the network, but it was not without bumps. He once sparred with Robert Griffin III for marrying a white woman and had a serious behind-the-scenes fight with Peter Schrager. Burack implied that Clark had become an unpopular figure in the network and had “plenty of detractors” within ESPN.

Ryan Clark has been vocal about his dynamic with ESPN since he was fired. He implied on X that he was “forced” to go off air when he was informed of the news.

“I wasn’t laid off, I was fired,” he said in his tell-all episode on The Pivot podcast. “They’re using layoffs as a cover and a camouflage for what they already intended on doing, but there was no cause for it, right? So, because there was no cause for it, you couldn’t just fire me. So, you had to wait for the layoff so you could camouflage it and veil it, right?”

ESPN’s NFL Network acquisition had been in motion for months before the July layoffs. The company announced the deal in August 2025, received government approval in January 2026, and formally brought NFL Network employees under ESPN beginning April 1.

The transition created the broader business context for the cuts. In its internal memo, ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro said the company had been evaluating its teams, resources, and structure as it integrated the NFL assets, adding that most of the affected jobs were tied to the acquisition.

ESPN said in an internal memo that the tough decisions were made following its acquisition of NFL Network earlier this year. The move most likely duplicated some roles within the company, which might have forced ESPN to make the cuts.

Despite losing his ESPN job, Ryan Clark is already moving forward with his own football content. He launched “The Pivot Sports with Ryan Clark” this September, a weekly show made with NFL Films. Clark will feature alongside former NFL stars Fred Taylor and Channing Crowder, giving him a new platform to discuss and break down football.

Clark is also growing The Pivot beyond its existing platforms. Netflix added the podcast to its lineup on September 8, giving the show access to an even bigger audience.

However, it is clear that he is still unhappy about his dismissal from ESPN.