Pat McAfee, Facing Severe Backlash Over $85,000,000 ESPN Deal, Addresses Rumors of His Show Going “Woke & Political”

Pat McAfee is one of the most beloved sports media personalities, but his recent move to ESPN has fans conflicted. Many are calling him a sellout for signing an $85 Million five year deal with the media giant and believe that he’ll be making his show “woke and political” like ESPN has been allegedly doing with their new shows recently.

McAfee was surprised at the amount of backlash he received for this move, noting that while it came from his fan’s passion, he was still taken aback. Pat was currently on a 4-year, $120 million deal with FanDuel where he was hosting his show, but he’s recently making the shift to join ESPN.

The move takes his earnings down, but the hope is that with a bigger platform, McAfee can grow his show further. The deal includes his classic daily show “The Pat McAfee show”, and it will air on ESPN’s cable channel, ESPN’s YouTube channel, and ESPN+. McAfee recently sat down with Sports Illustrated’s Jimmy Traina to discuss the backlash, and address the concerns about how his show will be going “woke”.

Pat McAfee reiterates that his show won’t be changing despite joining ESPN

Fans think that McAfee’s move to ESPN is essentially a sellout. They love McAfee’s content as it is currently, and fans fear that with ESPN, McAfee may start changing his content to adjust to ESPN’s standard.

Most notably, fans were worried that the show may become politicized as a lot of content is with ESPN. However, with Traina, McAfee shot down these claims. McAfee’s full interview can be found here, and the part where they talk about ESPN being “woke and political” begins at around 9:25.

Traina brought up valid points about how ESPN isn’t necessarily as politicized as people are making it out to be. After all, the company’s primary focus is still sports. McAfee doubled down on this claim by explaining his side of things.

McAfee wanted to make sure that his fans knew that nothing would be changing about the show. “we’ve been through this a couple of different times where it’s like, ‘Hey, the show is gonna remain the show, though, and I would like a little bit more faith in the fact that we understand who we are, we understand what we are and we wouldn’t want to change it for anybody.”

He also made it clear that he wouldn’t be limiting his show to only ESPN personalities, and that that was never in the discussion, to begin with.

“I’ve never been told I can only have ESPN people on my show,” he stated. “That was never even broached by them or by us.”

McAfee explains the move to ESPN

With his show doing so well on FanDuel, and his salary reportedly being higher, why did McAfee decide to leave for ESPN? Well, the biggest reason has to do with something quite personal to him.

McAfee and his wife Samantha had a daughter earlier this month, and so McAfee claimed that he wanted fewer “headaches” from running his own business as ESPN would take over that part. The deal is very similar to ESPN’s deal with Peyton Manning and Omaha Productions.