Pat McAfee, one of ESPN’s toughest talkers, is, as things turn out, surprisingly tender-hearted.
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The one-time Indianapolis Colts team member, who has also taken to the ring to fight in the WWE, surprised many a grizzled sports-media journalist Wednesday in Bristol, Conn., by alternatively lashing out at his critics (some of them in the room) and asking the audience to cut his freewheeling program, “The Pat McAfee Show” a little slack.
“I understand that you may have a lot of reasons to potentially hate me,” McAfee said while holding forth Wednesday at the headquarters of the Disney-backed sports-media giant. “I think they’re misguided. I would appreciate if you would give me and my guys a chance. I think we’re helping out sports media as a whole in the future. I think we’re going to get some things wrong and we apologize for that.” Sitting alongside ESPN luminaries such as Stephen A. Smith, Elle Duncan, Scott Van Pelt and Mike Greenberg, McAfee added: “We want to be good for sports in sports media. We want to build sports. And we’d appreciate if you just gave us a fair shot.”
McAfee’s remarks came just minutes after he threw a few verbal zingers at reporters from CNBC and The Athletic who asked him about some decidedly non-traditional elements of his program. The discussion became so encompassing that an assemblage of what was estimated to be 50 reporters at an event ESPN held to promote its service and programs to the media forgot to ask Stephen A. Smith about the state of his contract negotiations with the sports giant (His current deal is expected to expire in July of 2025).
Understanding why McAfee made his plea requires a little time travel. The host, who moved his three-hour “Pat McAfee Show” to various ESPN platforms in the fall of 2023, faced an array of critics this past January . He had allowed frequent guest Aaron Rodgers to spread misinformation about vaccinations on camera and called out Norby Williamson, at the time an influential senior ESPN executive who managed many studio shows, on ESPN’s own air.
In years past, these sorts of actions have been viewed as taboo — and not only at ESPN.
In 2024, however, traditional TV has been loosening up. An array of top MSNBC personalities lashed out at parent company NBCUniversal and NBC News in March after a decision to hire former Republican National Committee chief Ronna McDaniel. In July, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” triumvirate of Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist scolded their corporate backers for taking the show off the air after the assassination attempt earlier this summer on former President Donald Trump, fearing opinion-based programming might spur offense.
Such stuff is being tolerated, no doubt in part younger journalism aficionados are signing up for less-formal information sources. Chatty newsletters, wordy Substacks and quirky Tik Tok videos and Instagram stories rely more heavily on personality and emotion than do their TV and old-school print counterparts. TV is left trying to emulate the brasher tones.
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That doesn’t mean McAfee has gotten a pass. He indicated Wednesday that he would likely bring Rodgers back to the show, despite his previous behavior — a decision that is likely to open ESPN to new criticism. “I’ve heard some people say ‘Why’s he letting this guy on? He doesn’t push back,’” McAfee said Wednesday. Even so, the caliber of Rodgers’ talent makes him an automatic newsmaker, and his comments, no matter how 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 guys’ eyes, but I think it’s certainly provided something useful for sports fans.”
McAfee’s colleagues didn’t say so outright, but they seemed to nod to a new era at ESPN, one in which they are allowed — perhaps even encouraged — to speak their mind. Greenberg, who has been with ESPN since 1996, talked of a time when he was afraid his decision to wear a green tie on camera might get him fired, because it could reflect his love for the New York Jets. Now, says the veteran host, his job is to “reflect” what fans are talking about. When it comes to sports, that might be the results of a football or basketball game, but it could also be a player’s behavior or coach’s off-the-field utterances.
ESPN has not-so-quietly tapped many of its top opinionators to take part in studio shows that have typically been viewed as being of the “stick-to-sports” variety. Greenberg, for example, is taking over as host of ESPN’s “Sunday NFL Countdown.” Smith has taken part in “NBA Countdown” and McAfee has an active role in “College GameDay.”
McAfee seems to be figuring out how to navigate a program that has a rabid fan base that grew around the series’ existence on YouTube and now must fit into the ESPN template. “When ESPN takes heat for something that’s said on our show, that’s not good business at all,” he told Wednesday’s crowd.
And yet, even ESPN’s top personnel may see themselves as something more than just someone hired to report sports basics. “I consider myself to be more of an entertainer than a journalist,” said Elle Duncan, the “Sports Center” anchor who also appears on some of the network’s hot-talk shows . After all, entertainers have more license to speak their minds than journalists do.
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