Fired ESPN analyst Ryan Clark has announced that ultra-woke ex-Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has joined Clark’s new production company as a partner and investor.
The former NFL player launched his Pivot25 production company along with producer Alicia Zubikowski in 2025 amid several waves of layoffs at the cable sports network. Clark was finally laid off from ESPN less than a year later as the network continued to cut costs.
Now, on September 22, Clark’s nascent production company is expanding with the addition of Schultz and his money, according to Today.
“New days and continued blessings. Building a relationship with Howard Schultz has taught me so much about business already. I’m excited to continue to learn & grow with him as a partner. As the saying goes,” Clark wrote in a post on X on Tuesday.
That wasn’t the only announcement that Clark had to reveal for his company. He also announced that he has reached a deal with NFL Films.
Of note, only a day before Clark was seen celebrating his partnership with a branch of the NFL, he was accusing the league of acting like “slave masters” and treating NFL players and young prospects for the Draft like “slaves.”
Clark had appeared in a video on Monday with anti-American protester Colin Kaepernick where the two pontificated about how the NFL is somehow “just like the slave trade.”
Kaepernick went on to insist that the NFL “process” is the same as slavery, and claimed that the “intention behind the process” is indistinguishable from chattel slavery.
Since Clark was fired from ESPN, his YouTube show, The Pivot Sports with Ryan Clark, has gained 1.5 million followers and is produced in partnership with NFL Films. Clark co-hosts the show with former Jacksonville Jaguars star running back Fred Taylor and former Miami Dolphins linebacker Channing Crowder.
Clark claims that after ESPN fired him, Howard Schultz began texting him and encouraged him to think bigger than a single YouTube show. The texts eventually led to Schultz signing on as an investor and partner in Clark’s Pivot25 company.
Schultz is often accused of running Starbucks down by pushing all sorts of ultra-woke policies onto the company. He stepped down as Starbucks’ CEO in 2018, weeks after raising eyebrows for forcing 8,000 locations to shut down for a day so that employees could be forced to take “racial bias” training.
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