{"id":778290,"date":"2026-07-22T17:55:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T17:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/778290\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T17:55:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T17:55:12","slug":"tom-pelissero-breaks-silence-on-espn-laying-him-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/778290\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Pelissero breaks silence on ESPN laying him off"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After being <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/07\/21\/sports\/tom-pelissero-among-growing-list-of-talent-in-espn-layoffs\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">laid off during Tuesday\u2019s teardown at ESPN<\/a>, former NFL Network insider Tom Pelissero bid farewell to his former employer.<\/p>\n<p>Pelissero confirmed reports that he was let go, roughly six months after <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/02\/01\/sports\/nfl-espn-megadeal-closes-after-receiving-governmental-approval\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ESPN acquired NFL Network<\/a> in a deal that saw the NFL acquire a 10 percent equity stake in the Worldwide Leader.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThanks to all of you who watched me the past nine years on NFL Network,\u201d Pelissero posted on X with a GIF of Jason Sudeikis playing his starring role as Ted Lasso. \u201cThanks to all of my colleagues who made the job fun and pushed me on a daily basis. Thanks to my family, who constantly made sacrifices to support me in a life-consuming job. I\u2019m so grateful. See you soon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"40056642\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/tom-pelissero.jpg\" alt=\"A man in a blue suit walks on a football field.\" class=\"wp-image-40056642\"  \/>Tom Pelissero was let go by ESPN despite an NFL Network acquisition.  Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Pelissero was an insider for the NFL Network, appearing alongside Ian Rapoport and Mike Garafolo on their show \u201cThe Insiders,\u201d where they broke news and conducted interviews.<\/p>\n<p>He boasts over 885,000 followers on X, which should be attractive to any media company looking to make a splash.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/sportsrapport\/status\/2079564863156752400\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Front Office Sports\u2019 Ryan Glasspiegel<\/a> reported that Pelissero will have a significant market as he enters free agency. <\/p>\n<p>Among those that could be interested in Pelissero are CBS, The Athletic, Netflix and Amazon Prime, all of whom are missing an NFL insider from their coverage bank.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"40056646\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Tom-Pelissero-1.jpg\" alt=\"Two men in chairs holding NFL Network microphones, one listening intently while the other speaks.\" class=\"wp-image-40056646\"  \/>Tom Pelissero worked for the NFL Network for nine years.  Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>The Athletic has not had an NFL insider since <a href=\"https:\/\/pagesix.com\/2026\/04\/14\/celebrity-news\/read-the-athletic-reporter-dianna-russinis-full-resignation-letter-in-wake-of-mike-vrabel-photo-drama\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Dianna Russini resigned<\/a> amid a massive scandal involving an <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/06\/24\/sports\/dianna-russini-didnt-want-these-comments-on-mike-vrabel-scandal-revealed\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">alleged affair with Patriots coach Mike Vrabel<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Pelissero was laid off alongside NFL analyst Ryan Clark <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/07\/22\/sports\/karl-ravech-had-no-idea-espn-layoffs-2026-were-coming\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">and their baseball voice Karl Ravech<\/a>, who was employed by the company for 33 years, among others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After being laid off during Tuesday\u2019s teardown at ESPN, former NFL Network insider Tom Pelissero bid farewell to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":778291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[352,399,398,396,397,349,13319,99,1625,3015],"class_list":["post-778290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-espn","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-network","tag-sports","tag-sports-entertainment","tag-sports-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=778290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/778291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=778290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=778290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=778290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}