Fired ESPN analyst Ryan Clark told “The Breakfast Club” this week that ESPN deliberately leaked news of his firing to OutKick to humiliate him. OutKick, which broke the story, says the actual timeline contradicts that claim entirely.
Clark was informed of his dismissal during a commercial break of the July 22 edition of “NFL Live” and did not return to the broadcast. “Everybody that got laid off got told on Tuesday. Only one person got told on Monday on set. Me. That’s the distinction,” Clark said on the radio show 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.”
He went further: “There’s so many reputable sports publications. Whether it’s you know Sports Illustrated, the New York Times, The Athletic. If this is going to be as big a news as it turned out to be, why not give it to them? Because you knew who you were giving it to.”
Clark’s claim isn’t new. The day after the OutKick report, a host of “The Breakfast Club” said a source told them ESPN executive Burke Magnus leaked the information out of spite. OutKick says that source may well have been Clark himself.
What OutKick Says Actually Happened
An OutKick writer with direct knowledge of the reporting laid out a different account. On Friday, July 17, a media contact mentioned that ESPN planned layoffs the following week, with Clark expected to be among those cut. That contact was not a formal source and the tip wasn’t given for publication.
By Monday, industry chatter about the layoffs had grown, and OutKick’s Dan Zaksheske had separately heard the same information. The outlet confirmed the story with two additional sources and decided it was newsworthy given Clark’s prominence in sports and political commentary.
Around 4 p.m. ET that Monday, OutKick notified ESPN’s public relations department that it planned to publish. ESPN said it would respond and, at roughly 4:48 p.m., said it had no comment. OutKick published its story. Almost simultaneously, The Athletic ran a shorter version of the same news.
According to OutKick, ESPN told Clark about his firing during that same commercial break, right around 4:48 p.m. — before ESPN even sent its official no-comment response to OutKick. That timeline, OutKick argues, proves no leak occurred and no one at ESPN handed the story to OutKick to embarrass Clark.
Why ESPN Moved the Way It Did
ESPN reportedly told people who asked about the situation that management believed OutKick would run its story before “NFL Live” ended, and worried Clark would find out about his own firing from a news report rather than from the network. The executive who told Clark — and told him OutKick already had the story — was Seth Markman, described as one of Clark’s allies inside ESPN. OutKick’s account suggests Markman made that call believing Clark deserved to hear it from him directly, but that the move backfired and created the entire
