Two months ago, Ryan Clark was on the wrong end of an ESPN layoff sheet. Today he is a Netflix guy. The Pivot, the interview podcast Clark hosts with fellow former NFL players Channing Crowder and Fred Taylor, has signed a multi-year deal with Netflix, and the timing could not be sweeter.
Boardroom broke the news Monday. Video episodes of The Pivot arrive on Netflix starting September 8, with new episodes streaming exclusively on the platform every Tuesday and Friday. The back catalog stays up on YouTube and gets added to Netflix too, so nothing the show built over four years disappears behind a wall.
Clark did not sound like a man who got knocked down. “I’ve gained a new perspective: passion over platform, and people over perception,” he said in a statement, calling this the beginning of a beautiful new chapter and adding that the story is far from finished.
That is the whole arc right there. ESPN cut Clark in July after 11 years as part of network-wide layoffs. He was among the highest-paid NFL analysts on the roster, a guy who had publicly fought for his number and won it. The Netflix agreement is his first major deal since the exit, and it is bigger than the one he lost.
Look at what he actually got. Netflix holds first rights to negotiate on new projects from Pivot25 Productions, the company Clark co-founded with Alicia Zubikowski. Pivot25 will also produce bonus episodes made exclusively for Netflix. That is not a podcast licensing deal. That is a production company getting a seat at the table with the biggest streamer on earth.
The Pivot earned this the hard way. Clark, Crowder and Taylor launched the show in January 2022 with no institutional backing and turned it into must-watch television for anyone who wanted athletes talking to athletes without a network filter. They landed Stephen A. Smith and Charles Barkley early. They landed Nick Saban later. They built past 150 million cumulative YouTube views and are closing in on a million subscribers.
They also survived the part nobody celebrates. The Pivot signed what Clark called a multiyear exclusive partnership with Fanatics in May 2024, then split from it by the end of that year. Since January 2025, the show has run independent, funding itself, booking itself, proving itself. That independence is exactly why Netflix wanted it and exactly why Clark could negotiate for production rights instead of just a distribution check.
Smith, Clark’s former ESPN colleague, posted his congratulations on X in all caps, saying he was proud of the guys and telling Clark he already knew. When the loudest voice in sports media celebrates a man his old network let go, that says something about who won the breakup.
The Pivot joins a Netflix podcast slate that has grown fast. The streamer struck deals with Spotify Studios and The Ringer last October for shows including The Bill Simmons Podcast and The Zach Lowe Show, then added Barstool Sports in December in an eight-figure annual arrangement covering Pardon My Take, Spittin’ Chiclets and The Ryen Russillo Show, plus a separate deal with iHeartMedia.
Netflix is still figuring the format out. Puck’s Matthew Belloni reported in June that no video podcast has cracked Nielsen’s weekly top 10 and that internal engagement numbers for the category are low. Big Cat of Pardon My Take put it plainly back in April, saying his show was the tip of the spear and admitting that was a little scary.
Here is the bet, and it is a good one. Netflix does not need The Pivot to win week one. It needs shows people already choose to watch, and The Pivot is one of maybe five sports podcasts with a genuine cultural footprint. Three Black former players built a platform on candor and relationships, kept ownership of it through a corporate split, and now have Netflix money and Netflix reach without giving up the thing that made it work.
- REAVES // @fisher.reaves