The Pat McAfee Show is Moving to ESPN
Internet sports personality and former punter of the Indianapolis Colts, Pat McAfee, has announced a major partnership with ESPN. The Pat McAfee Show will be heading to ESPN in the Fall of 2023 as part of a multi-year, eight-figure plus deal. The announcement was made as part of the Disney Upfront event on May 16, 2023 where the global organization’s top executives promote their platforms and shows to potential advertisers. Disney is clearly leaning into their sports branch, taking on The Pat McAfee Show and adjusting the way sports media will be done in the future.
This deal is the first of its kind in the sports entertainment world. Where ESPN’s current daily shows such as Get Up and First Take typically have set blocks and talking points, The Pat McAfee Show chooses to go with the flow and allows conversations to go almost anywhere with no real timeline or agenda to follow. For McAfee, his team, and his fans, this is exactly where they see sports media heading. A free flowing, positive form of entertainment.
The show will fall into ESPN’s weekday schedule, recording live from 12:00pm to 2:00pm ET on all of the company’s platforms including ESPN, ESPN+, and ESPN’s YouTube channel. Anyone who has followed McAfee and his program knows that he has always been committed to keeping the show 100% free and widely available for the world to watch and this deal keeps that promise intact. Having the show live on the ESPN YouTube channel is one of the more interesting aspects of the deal as ESPN will have to work with their advertisers to adjust the way they have done business in the past with their network shows. But at the same time, this does appear to be the way that new sports media is heading, especially with podcasts taking off in recent years. ESPN is committing to be the first, maintaining their motto of being The Worldwide Leader in Sports, to take on this challenge.
With this new deal, McAfee is leaving behind a reported $30 million/year with FanDuel after just a year and a half into a three plus one year deal. The gain for McAfee to leave this deal behind is the backend work that they will no longer have to worry about now that they are part of the ESPN family. Sales, guest bookings, setting up shows while on the road can now be done with the help of ESPN, allowing the team to now focus on putting together the best possible show each and every day. Of course it can be expected that Pat will continue to add to his show as he has consistently done in the past with recurring guests such as Aaron Rodgers, coach Chuck Pagano, Darius Butler, AQ Shipley, and Adam “Pacman” Jones.
Pat and the boys have built themselves a massive following of over 2.2 million subscribers on YouTube and over 1.5 billion views on the channel. Since walking away from Barstool Sports, they have maintained and continue to have 100% ownership of their company and 100% creative control. Both the show and stardom of Pat continue to rise each year and it starts with the success of the daily sports program.
There are still questions that remain regarding the future of the show. Will it continue to be 3 hours on the ESPN YouTube channel? There will certainly be less explicit language with being on television but McAfee also states that there will be some give and take, and that he and the boys will continue to be their authentic selves, regardless where the show is being played. As Pat has said before, they are, “too dumb to change”, which is why holding onto total ownership and creative control was vital to any deal that could take place during this up to something season.
The sports media world has already begun to change with podcasts and sports gambling gaining international attention. Sports media companies must find ways to pivot so they can stay relevant and that’s exactly what ESPN is doing. While there may always be room for network shows and personalities like Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless to debate every morning with key talking points for the A, B, C, and D block, creators like McAfee are changing the game with a positive outlook on sports and athletes, providing viewers with a mental vacation to forget about the real world for a few hours a day and just enjoy the world of sport.