Nine years after ESPN laid him off, Mark May is back covering football again.
The two-time Super Bowl champion and College Football Hall of Famer has joined the Indoor Football League’s 2026 broadcast team as an analyst, part of a roster the league initially announced in February.
May spent 16 years at ESPN — from 2001-17 — as one of the network’s signature college football voices, logging years alongside Lou Holtz on College Football Final and College Football Scoreboard and becoming, depending on your rooting interest, either one of the most incisive analysts on television or the single most insufferable man in sports media. Ohio State fans largely landed in the second camp.
Mark May leaned into the villain role with visible enthusiasm over the years, making increasingly bold Buckeye takes until ESPN cut him during the network’s 2017 layoffs, which gutted some notable names from its talent roster. Since then, he’s done local work at KNXV in Phoenix, serving as the network’s college football analyst.
May isn’t the only former ESPN voice on IFL’s talent roster. On the play-by-play side, Jason Fitz and Chris Sylvester will call games, with Fitz handling the marquee Yahoo Sports Network windows. The analyst group includes May, Nate Tice, J.J. Jansen, and Pablo Iglesias. Sideline reporting duties are covered by Caroline Fenton, Kelsie Kasper, Ryan Bass, Jahleel Addae — who doubles as an analyst — Aileen Hnatiuk, Ashley Stroehlein, Haley Jordan, Austyn Iven, and Buck Reising on the MAXX side, with Avarie Howard, Nicole Sedivy, Smacker Miles, Camryn Johnson, Kendra Sheehan, Genna Rose, and Chierstin Roth, all repped by Paradigm.
The IFL Broadcast Team features top talent from across the industry. 🎙️🏈
We are thrilled to work with @MAXX and their clients throughout the 2026 season.@jasonfitz @Nate_Tice @carolinefenton1 @44DoubleJ @PabTalksSports @ChrisSylvester_ @kelsie_kasperTV @Ry_Bass @Do_OrAddae37… pic.twitter.com/kPvASGnzny
— Indoor Football League (@IndoorFL) March 30, 2026
Part of the amazing talent bringing the IFL to life this season. 🎙️🏈
Featuring top broadcasters from Paradigm Talent Agency across our 2026 coverage on @YahooSports and @OvernghtMedia.
Excited to work with @paradigmagency all season long!@mark_may @avariehoward31… pic.twitter.com/GvjzMjqypp
— Indoor Football League (@IndoorFL) March 31, 2026
The 2026 season is the league’s 18th and is operating under media arrangements that dwarf anything in the sport’s history. Yahoo Sports Network is carrying 64 live games, including the Eastern Conference Championship, on its free, ad-supported streaming channel, available on Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Plex, and Fubo. Overnght, which announced a multi-year, multi-million dollar partnership with the IFL in March, will carry at least 55 games annually through 2028, including exclusive rights to the National Championship in 2027 and 2028.
For a league that spent much of its 18-year existence streaming games for free on YouTube, that is a meaningful step forward. And for Mark May, it’s the most consistent national platform he has had since ESPN showed him the door in 2017.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.