After seven years, Kevin Clark is moving on from The Ringer. As Kyle Koster of The Big Lead wrote Friday, Clark is set to launch a new This Is Football show on ESPN’s YouTube channel and other platforms Sept. 6, with that in partnership with Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions.
NEWS: Kevin Clark Leaving The Ringer To Create Digital Show for Omaha and ESPNhttps://t.co/aIO6Uvaonw
— Kyle Koster (@KyleKoster) September 1, 2023
Here’s more from that piece:
Kevin Clark is leaving The Ringer to create a digital show and podcast for Omaha and ESPN, The Big Lead has learned. This Is Football debuts Sept. 6 and will have three weekly episodes on ESPN YouTube and all podcast platforms throughout the NFL season. It promises in-depth interviews with some of the sport’s top players, pundits and coaches and to unearth some never-before-heard stories.
…”Getting to do this show is a dream job for me,” Clark told The Big Lead. “I’ve been doing the Nick Sirianni stare-and-cry move for the past few days, just so happy to get started. The people at Omaha are brilliant and I’m thrilled to be on ESPN’s platforms, it all just seems to be a perfect fit. I think if people are familiar with my work (god help them), it won’t be too different: A video and pod where we try to teach people about football, have players tell the best stories they have and find a way to expense coffee. The Ringer is the coolest place in the world to work and I’m beyond lucky to have spent seven years there–I’ll love and talk to those guys forever. The bar for me to leave was ludicrously high but I think we’ll be able to do something really cool here.”
Clark’s certainly no stranger to the video podcast space. He’s been doing Slow News Day video podcasts on YouTube and podcast platforms for at least the past five years, as this playlist shows, and has landed a lot of top NFL guests in particular during that time. Some notable recent guests include Josh Allen, J.J. Watt, Justin Fields, Phil Simms, and Richard Sherman (as seen at top). He also has a lot of experience covering the NFL, doing so for The Wall Street Journal while working there (2010-16) before heading to The Ringer. Here’s his episode with Watt from February, before Watt signed on as a NFL on CBS studio analyst this June:
We’ll see how Clark does in this new role with Omaha and ESPN.
[Image from The Ringer on YouTube]