Sports activities speak present host Pat McAfee fired off insults at a prime ESPN govt on his Friday present.
McAfee has been on the middle of an issue this week after present contributor and NFL legend Aaron Rodgers made a controversial remark about late-night host Jimmy Kimmel and intercourse trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, which caused a risk from Kimmel to sue.
However on Friday, he despatched zingers within the route of Norby Williamson, who the New York Post identified as “ESPN’s Executive Editor and Head of Event and Studio Production and a member of company president Jimmy Pitaro’s inner circle.”
“We’re very appreciative, and we understand that more people are watching this show than ever before. We’re very thankful for the ESPN folks for being very hospitable. Now, there are some people actively trying to sabotage us from within ESPN — more specifically, I believe, Norby Williamson is the guy who is attempting to sabotage our program,” McAfee mentioned.
*BOMBSHELL*
Pat McAfee accuses ESPN executives of purposely sabotaging his present and leaking false info to the media.
McAfee particularly names ESPN chief Norby Williamson because the particular person main the sabotage efforts.
Horrible search for ESPN. pic.twitter.com/rGcOSNcHRW
— David Hookstead (@dhookstead) January 5, 2024
“I’m not 100 percent sure. That is just seemingly the only human that has information, and then somehow that information gets leaked, and it’s wrong, and then it sets a narrative of what our show is,” he mentioned.
McAfee mentioned there had been a culture clash when his free-wheeling present entered the Disney universe. ESPN is owned by Disney.
“And then are we just gonna combat that from a rat every single time? I don’t know. But, like, somebody tried to get ahead of our actual ratings release with wrong numbers 12 hours beforehand. That’s a sabotage attempt,” he mentioned.
“It’s been happening basically this entire season from some people who didn’t necessarily love the old edition of ‘The Pat McAfee Show’ to the ESPN family. There’s a lot of those,” he mentioned.
McAfee mentioned his critics by no means use their names.
“We’ve heard them anonymously quoted within the Washington Publish, New York Publish, and the New York Instances, and the LA Instances, and the Wall Avenue Journal. And so they’re by no means like, ‘Yeah, love the show.’ It’s all the time, like, little issues to attempt to tear us down.
“I don’t like that guy,” McAfee elaborated, explaining among the background.
“That guy left me in his office for 45 minutes — no-showed me in 2018. So this guy has had zero respect for me, and in return same thing back to him for a long time, so even with that taking place … we’re still growing somehow. We’re very thankful. I think we’re doing it right. We’re trying to do it as right as possible. We have good intentions every single time we come in here,” he mentioned, earlier than trailing off into profanity.
An ESPN consultant didn’t provide a remark when the New York Post requested about McAfee’s remarks about Williamson, who has been with ESPN since 1985.
McAfee’s feedback adopted an Op-Ed within the New York Post by Andrew Marchand questioning whether or not including McAfee — to the tune of $85 million over 5 years — had paid off for ESPN.
“Upon hiring McAfee in the fall, ESPN knew he would be a headache. They even agreed to it, allowing him to swear on its air, wear a tank top and keep ownership of his show. ESPN executives correctly believed that if you are hiring McAfee, you can’t neuter him,” Marchand wrote.
In speaking about numbers, Marchand wrote, “Stephen A. Smith and ‘First Take’ are handing McAfee a 583,000 viewer lead-in, and McAfee is maintaining just 302,000, which is a 48 percent drop. As compared to the same window last year, which featured ‘SportsCenter,’ McAfee is down 12 percent.”
On the plus aspect, Marchand famous that about 403,000 individuals watch McAfee’s show through YouTube.
On Friday, Mike Foss, ESPN’s senior vp of studio and digital manufacturing, sought to place out the hearth over the jab at Kimmel, however had nothing to say in regards to the one at Williamson, in line with The Washington Post.
“Aaron made a deeply dumb and factually inaccurate joke about Jimmy Kimmel. It should never have happened, and we all agree on that point,” Foss mentioned.
“Pat has created a multi-hundred billion dollar company, I don’t think he needs my advice on anything,” Foss mentioned. “We’ve certainly spoken about the shows this week and the shows beyond. Ultimately, Pat makes his own choices and I trust him to continue to make the right moves.”
This text appeared initially on The Western Journal.
