7.27.2026

Jemele Hill and Roland Martin Explain Why Starting an All Black Sports Network to Rival ESPN is A Dumb Idea

Urban Radio Nation July 27, 2026 Cam Newton, ESPN, jemele hill, roland martin, Ryan Clark

Since the firing of Ryan Clark and Cam Newton by ESPN, “some” people have been wondering why BET, of all places, hasn't started an All Black Sports network, as if to suggest that BET is a black cable owned network. Sorry for the blunt title of this story, but some people are simply clueless.

As hard as it may be to explain to the average person that doesn't have a clue about how media works; Roland Martin and Jemele Hill attempt to explain what it would take to start an all sports network with Black hosts. First here's Jemele Hill's commentary via YouTube. Then she provides a great comment on Roland Martin's Instagram post that directly addresses the subject matter. They both nailed it!

“People may not like to hear what you said, but it’s the truth. There have been many Black projects that have come and gone because we didn’t support it. To Roland’s point, Cam Newton and Ashley Moss had a sports show on BET. It didn’t last because it wasn’t supported. Many folks also do not understand how expensive it is to get into sports. Sports networks thrive on live sporting events. If you can’t buy the rights to these games, you will fail. ESPN paid $13B for Monday Night Football. That’s one game a week. Netflix paid $75M per NFL game. Fox paid almost $500M for the World Cup. If you don’t have access to these games, you can’t build shoulder programming around it that will maintain the audience you have built from the live rights. It is the live rights that draw the advertisers. Without ad support, you’re dead in the water. Let me also mention: Ryan, Cam and myself all have our own digital shows on YouTube. Are you supporting us now?”

It's a matter of infrastructure and having the advertising dollars to support such an effort. As Jemele Hill stated: Are you supporting them on YouTube? The future of media, sports media and otherwise, is going to be subscription based, if not, then linear TV networks will need continued support through ad dollars.

Here is Roland Martin's late night post on starting a sports media network. Here he is admittedly tired. On a subsequent post the next day, we'll call it his master class on media, he addresses other concerns when it comes to media. Check out that post on Our Behind the Mic page.