Pat McAfee posts picture with ESPN President amid claims of 'sabotage'
Pat McAfee added an interesting wrinkle to the beef with ESPN by posting a picture from the Indianapolis Colts game.
McAfee shared a photo of him and his crew with ESPN President of Content Burke Magnus. Yes, you guessed it. That’s the boss of Norby Williamson, whom McAfee called a rat.
You can see the photo below.
The host claimed ESPN executives were trying to sabotage his show and then called out Williamson by name.
ESPN released a new statement regarding the beef, which centered around the ratings on television. Not to mention the latest controversy with Aaron Rodgers and ABC host Jimmy Kimmel.
“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.”