Last week, former NFL player Ryan Clark posted on his X account about his contract status with ESPN. Then, over the weekend, another post made it clear his contract has now expired with ESPN, where he has worked for the last decade.
“I’m so grateful for the decade of work they allowed me to do on the world’s greatest sports platform,” Clark said in his second post.
Where Clark ends up remains to be seen, however, what appears to be clear from his social posts is he is expecting to get paid more than his last contract with ESPN and he would like to put in less work.
“This started three years ago,” Clark says in the video. “[Clark’s deal with ESPN] wasn’t what [he] wanted. I realized I had to do more. Honestly, I felt played. I felt like I deserved something that they didn’t feel like I deserved. And I said, ‘In three years, I’ll be the best in the world doing this, that there will be no stone left unturned, I’ll leave no doubt that there was nobody in the world that was like me.’ I went on every show they put me on and made sure I crushed. So now here we are again, the season’s over, Inside the NFL is finished, and someone’s gotta pay the piper.”
On Boomer & Gio this morning, Gregg Giannotti was joined by Jerry Recco as Boomer Esiason takes some time off. The two discussed the social posts and videos as ‘Gio’ said Clark had, “Put out this hype video about his broadcasting free agency, which is something I have never seen before.”
Giannotti noted he has a bit of a history with Ryan Clark, who was a weekly guest of his when both were in Pittsburgh. According to Giannotti, Clark once called in and said he was sick and could not do the weekly visit and then showed up on a national radio show. Despite that, Giannotti and Recco both said they believe Clark is excellent at what he does and might deserve more money, however, this video did him no favors.
“Not only is this hype video and him feeling himself too much a turn off, but he just bascially said he did all of his work already,” said Giannotti. “And now he wants to get paid for the work that he did, but he wants to work less and make more money.”
Recco replied, “If I was an executive, why would I ever hire him? He’s been fantastic, but if I was the one writing the checks…why am I going to pay him for what he did and not what he’s going to do now?”
Giannotti added, “I had never in my life seen something like that, from a player, much less a broadcaster…I understand that he has done a really nice job and he is going to be a hot commodity and a lot of guys are getting paid in this business and he’ll probably get paid, but if I was someone that was going to hire him I would be like…’I like everything about you but this thing’…I don’t like this video at all…I have never seen anything like it.”
