Cam Newton, recently dismissed from his ESPN position, has issued a compelling caution to former athletes: establish your media presence or risk fading into obscurity. Following his termination on Tuesday, Newton’s remarks have struck a chord.
As part of a significant wave of layoffs at ESPN, Newton found himself among other former sports icons such as Ryan Clark and Bart Scott who also faced cuts.
In August 2025, Newton had secured a multi-year contract extension with ESPN, designed to elevate his contributions to the show “First Take.” However, this agreement fell short of reaching its first anniversary.
“Without owning your media platform, you risk being overshadowed, ignored, and ultimately vanishing like dinosaurs in history,” Newton shared passionately on Tuesday via his YouTube channel.
Illustrating his point, Newton pointed to Emmanuel Acho’s trajectory. After being let go from Fox Sports, Acho found renewed success with his own venture, “Speakeasy,” showcasing the power of individual media outlets.
Newton, an 11-year NFL veteran, owns multiple podcasts including “4th&1,” a weekly sports show, and “Funky Fridays,” a lifestyle talk and relationships show, which he says he plans to keep doing.
The former Panther said he’s more passionate about his own shows then he was with ESPN because when you work for a big company you are “trying to execute it how they want you to exist,” instead of being yourself.
Newton explained, though, that he enjoyed his time with ESPN and that it was almost like an internship because of how much he learned.
“You cannot, you will not, make me hate my experience with ESPN,” Newton said.
“I did not have that education. I am a former athlete that did not study journalism when I had the opportunity to study it. … So now when you see certain things and you analyze and you start to say like this is how production works, you’d be a fool not to take your notes.”
Newton added that ESPN made networking with some of the industry’s best incredibly easy.
He said he will keep in touch with a lot of his former coworkers, whether they were on-air talents like him or behind the camera.
The college football national champion with Auburn in 2010 admitted that he was not expecting to be fired, but knows “it’s the business.”
“The day that Matt Patricia and Bill Belichick released me from the New England Patriots was the day that nothing else could surprise me in business,” Newton said.