Pat McAfee, one of ESPN's toughest talkers, is actually a surprisingly soft-hearted person.
Former Indianapolis Colts quarterback Pat McAfee, who also went to the ring to fight in WWE, surprised several gray-haired sports journalists Wednesday in Bristol, Conn., by attacking his critics (some of whom were in the room) and asking the audience to stop his freewheeling program, “The Pat McAfee Show.”
“I understand that you have a lot of reasons to hate me. I think they’re misguided. I would appreciate it if you would give me and my guys a chance. I think we’re helping the sports media as a whole in the future. I think we’re going to make mistakes and we apologize for that,” McAfee said, speaking at the headquarters of the Disney-backed sports media giant. “We want to be good for sports in sports media. We want to build the sport. We would appreciate it if you would give us a fair chance,” McAfee said, sitting alongside ESPN celebrities Stephen A. Smith, Elle Duncan, Scott Van Pelt and Mike Greenberg.
McAfee’s comments came just minutes after he delivered some scathing words to reporters from CNBC and The Athletic who asked him about some of the most unconventional elements of his show. The discussion became so broad that a group of an estimated 50 reporters at an ESPN event promoting its service and programming to the media forgot to ask Stephen A. Smith about the status of his contract negotiations with the sports giant (his current deal is set to expire in July 2025).
Understanding why McAfee made the call requires a bit of time travel. The host, who is moving his three-hour “Pat McAfee Show” to various ESPN platforms in the fall of 2023, faced a chorus of critics in January. He allowed frequent guest Aaron Rodgers to spread misinformation about vaccinations on camera and criticized Norby Williamson, then an influential senior ESPN executive who ran several studio programs, on ESPN airwaves.
In years past, this kind of behavior would have been considered taboo — and not just on ESPN.
But in 2024, traditional cable channels began to loosen their reins. In March, a group of senior figures at MSNBC attacked parent company NBCUniversal and NBC News over the decision to hire former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel. And in July, MSNBC’s trio of Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist berated their corporate backers for pulling the show after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump earlier this summer, fearing that opinion-based programming could provoke offense.
Such things are tolerated, and younger journalism enthusiasts are no doubt partly drawn to less formal sources of information. Chatty news bulletins, wordy Substacks, quirky TikTok videos and Instagram Stories rely more on personality and emotion than their old-fashioned TV and print counterparts. Television tries to imitate more crass tones.
But that doesn’t mean McAfee has a pass. He indicated Wednesday that he would likely bring Rodgers back to the show, despite his past behavior — a decision that would likely open the door to fresh criticism of ESPN. “I’ve heard some people say, ‘Why is this guy allowed to come on? He’s irresistible,’” McAfee said Wednesday. Rodgers’ talents, though, make him an automatic newsmaker, and his comments, however spurious, “will probably be used in every Aaron Rodgers documentary 10 or 15 years from now,” McAfee said. “I don’t know if that’s journalism or not, in your eyes, but I think it certainly did something useful for sports fans.”
McAfee’s colleagues didn’t say so explicitly, but they seemed to signal a new era at ESPN, one in which they are allowed—and perhaps encouraged—to express their opinions. Greenberg, who has been with ESPN since 1996, spoke of a time when he feared his decision to wear a green tie on camera would get him fired because it might reflect his love for the New York Jets. Now, the veteran host says, his job is to “express” what fans are talking about. When it comes to sports, that might be the outcome of a football or basketball game, but it can also be a player’s behavior or a coach’s off-the-field comments.
ESPN has not only hired many of its top commentators to participate in studio programs that are traditionally sports-focused. For example, Greenberg hosts ESPN’s “Sunday NFL Countdown.” Smith has been on “NBA Countdown” and McAfee is an active part of “College GameDay.”
McAfee appears to be trying to figure out how to deal with a show that has a diehard fan base that has grown around the show’s presence on YouTube, and now has to fit into ESPN’s model. “When ESPN gets criticized for something that’s said on our show, that’s not business at all,” McAfee told the crowd on Wednesday.
Even ESPN’s top employees, though, might see themselves as more than just someone hired to cover the basics of sports. “I consider myself more of an entertainer than a journalist,” says Elle Duncan, a SportsCenter anchor who also appears on some of the network’s hottest talk shows. After all, entertainers have more leeway to express their opinions than journalists.
