Pat McAfee is a hard man to miss if you are an ardent NFL fan. He may not have been the most recognizable player during his playing days as a punter for Indianapolis Colts, but he has gained unprecedented fame as a sports broadcaster after his retirement. However, he recently attracted criticism for inking a monstrous $85,000,000 contract with ESPN.
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While the deal did fetch him a lot of backlash, the star analyst, over the years, has also earned a lot of praise for his charitable deeds. In 2021, around two years before McAfee decided to end his FanDuel deal worth $120,000,000 to sign a lucrative five-year contract with ESPN, he had pledged a whopping $1,000,000 to WVU Children’s Hospital.
Pat McAfee Once Pledged a Million Dollars to a Children’s Hospital
Pat has been generous over the years, giving back to the communities which made him what he is today. Many stars, after signing a lucrative deal, go on a spending spree, immediately buying mansions, watches, cars, yachts, etc. However, Pat instead decided to help out his community first, opening his cheque book for someone other than himself.
Speaking about his donation to WVU Children’s Hospital, Pat, during an episode of the ‘Pat McAfee Show’ had stated, “After Plum I went to Morgantown West Virginia and there was this place in Morgan Town West Virginia ,where I leaned what it felt like to serve the community.”
“Bill Stewart was the man who was one of my coaches. He always said, ‘give back to the community.’ So there is a Children’s Hospital directly across the street from Milan Pushkar stadium where players would get to go over there and interact with kids much tougher than all of us. First place where I truly served the community, so we gotta give them a million dollars,” Pat had added.
That’s not all. As it turns out, once, Pat had also generously donated over $2,000,000 to his old stomping grounds in Plum -with money going to soccer, basketball, youth lacrosse, wrestling, baseball, football and high school athletics. Now, he is all set to debut on ESPN on September 7th and we can expect him to shower more love on his favorite charities. However, lately, McAfee’s decision to move to ESPN has met with a lot of backlash.
Pat McAfee Faces Backlash for Signing Deal With ESPN
McAfee’s new 5-year contract worth $85,000,000 with ESPN seems like a lucrative one. But considering Fan Duel were paying him $120,000,000 over the period of 4 years, and he could pretty much swear as much as he liked during the show, fans have been asking – Why ESPN?
Moreover, even though Pat has assured the fans that he and his team will be retaining the creative control over the content, fans are worried that going into business with giants like ESPN will make him change the unfiltered and unadulterated nature of the show, something that made his episodes pure and fun to begin with.
In Pat’s defense, reaching out to a larger audience is one of the things that motivated him to switch to ESPN. Moreover, speaking with the New York Post about the same, the former Punter had recently stated that with ESPN, he wouldn’t have to worry about a lot of the backend work which will save his time and energy.
Despite all the explanations given by McAfee, fans haven’t shied away from calling him a sell out. Only time will tell how his ESPN move eventually turns out.
