ESPN releases new statement on Pat McAfee, Norby Williamson accusations
ESPN released a new statement in the wake of the Pat McAfee, Norby Williamson accusations from the host.
McAfee claimed Williamson, a top ESPN executive, was trying to sabotage his show. ESPN signed McAfee and crew to a mega deal to broadcast the first two hours of the program on ESPN while simulcasted on YouTube. McAfee still has full creative control of his show.
After the company apologized for Aaron Rodgers’ comments regarding Jimmy Kimmel on The Pat McAfee Show, they now responded to McAfee’s claims.
“No one is more committed to and invested in ESPN’s success than Norby Williamson … We are thrilled with the multi-platform success … from the Pat McAfee Show across ESPN. We will handle this matter internally and have no further comment,” the statement read.
Initially, the firestorm began when Rodgers claimed some sort of intel regarding Kimmel appearing on a list tied to the Jeffery Epstein case. Kimmel fired back and threatened to sue Rodgers.
Ironically, it was company on company crime, so to speak, since Disney owns both ABC (where Kimmel hosts) and ESPN (where McAfee hosts and has Rodgers on weekly).
After that, the boisterous host went on a rant about certain executives trying to sabotage his show. He named Williamson live on the air.
It was in response to a New York Post report from Andrew Marchand regarding the five-year, $85 million deal signed by the host and crew, but it is not living up to the price due to television ratings, although discounting the large YouTube audience.
According to Marchand, First Take is handing McAfee a 583,000-viewer lead-in, and he is maintaining just 302,000, a 48 percent drop. In addition, McAfee is down 12% compared to the same window last year when SportsCenter aired in this timeslot, Marchand reported.
McAfee called the numbers incorrect and said that somebody leaked them as part of a sabotage attempt.
“There are folks actively trying to sabotage us from within ESPN,” McAfee said, via Awful Announcing. “More specifically I believe Norby Williamson is the guy attempting to sabotage our program. 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. And then are we just going to combat that from a rat every single time? I don’t know.”
McAfee mentioned the sabotage attempts came strictly from a narrative surrounding the ratings.
“Somebody tried to get ahead of our actual ratings release with wrong numbers 12 hours beforehand,” McAfee said. “That’s a sabotage attempt, and it’s been happening from some people who didn’t necessarily love the old addition of ‘The Pat McAfee Show’ to the ESPN family.”