ESPN timed the release of a Sophie Cunningham’s interview on transgender athletes to coincide with Ryan Clark’s firing and shield the network from bad publicity, the axed football analyst has now claimed.Speaking with former NBA swingman Matt Barnes on the ‘All The Smoke’ podcast, Clark pointed out that Cunningham’s condemnation of transgender athletes in women’s sports was released the day after his July 20 firing – a story that was first broken by Fox’s conservative sports and culture website, Outkick.’They hate me, because I stand up from black people, because I stand for the community,’ Clark said of Outkick.Clark was dismissed during a recording of NFL Live on July 20, prompting him to drop his satellite feed early. The last 10 minutes of the show did not include the former Steelers safety.TMZ later reported that Clark was going to be notified about his dismissal at a later date, but the network became aware of an impending story on the firing and decided to tell him during the NFL Live broadcast. That impending story was being broken by Outkick, which Clark believes learned of his impending dismissal directly from ESPN.Clark further claimed to Barnes that ESPN’s decision to release the Cunningham interview the following day was merely cover to avoid any lingering bad publicity.ESPN fired Ryan Clark during a commercial break…He tells Matt how it really went down, including what he was told about why it happened that way. pic.twitter.com/PGGHw3ozfO— ALL THE SMOKE (@allthesmokeprod) November 5, 2026 ESPN timed the release of a Sophie Cunningham’s interview on transgender athletes to coincide with Ryan Clark’s firing, the NFL analyst (pictured) said on a recent podcast Cunningham’s rejection of trans athletes in women’s sports led to significant media attention’Sophie Cunningham says something and they [Outkick] say, ‘A great brand switch for ESPN. Ryan Clark was fired this week and now Sophie Cunningham leads the news,’ Clark told Barnes. ‘That’s what they wanted. That’s why [ESPN] leaked it to [Outkick]. And so I think everything points to it, but I should have… My antenna should have been up more and even with that, there was nothing I could change.’An ESPN spokesperson declined to comment about Clark’s claims when contacted by The Daily Mail.Clark has previously made other conspiratorial claims about the network, including the accusation that ESPN fired him mid-episode to embarrass him.’Everybody that got laid off got told on Tuesday,’ Clark told the Breakfast Club podcast in September. ‘Only one person got told on Monday on set — me.’That’s the distinction [between being fired and laid off].’Only one person was let go on air. Only one person’s firing or layoff was leaked to a far-right, conservative sports site. Me. So when all those things line up, it lets you know that everything is not on the up-and-up.’But it was also purposeful, and it was also meant in my opinion to humiliate, right?’ he asked. ‘And 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 [OutKick]. Because it’s me.’An ESPN spokesperson declined to comment about that claim by Clark back in September.