For critics of Pat McAfee, the news of a sizable round of layoffs across ESPN and Disney this week was a perfect opportunity to hammer the star host.<\/p>\n
After all, the cuts came just weeks after news surfaced that McAfee was in talks with the Worldwide Leader<\/a> on a new contract worth as much as $60 million annually. The contract would include licensing rights for\u00a0The Pat McAfee Show as well as McAfee\u2019s role as talent on\u00a0College GameDay.<\/p>\n Addressing the layoffs \u2014 which included fellow football commentators like Ryan Clark<\/a>, Cam Newton<\/a>, Tom Pelissero<\/a>, and Charles Davis<\/a> among others \u2014 on-air Tuesday<\/a>, McAfee sidestepped the blame he said he often receives when ESPN makes staffing cuts.<\/p>\n \u201cWe hate any time this happens. Obviously this is terrible. We don\u2019t like that,\u201d McAfee said. \u201cBut we are very honored that we are still partnered with ESPN and Disney for the good of sport and the future.\u201d<\/p>\n Later, McAfee more directly argued against the idea that his and his show\u2019s licensing fee comes at the expense of others.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first time we licensed the show through ESPN, one of these happened, we got blamed,\u201d McAfee said.<\/p>\n \u201cOK, OK. Thank you. I feel like you don\u2019t fully understand budgets and where things are coming from, but I do appreciate that. This time, we\u2019re getting blamed as well. Which I guess I can understand, but I mean, there\u2019s billions and billions of dollars in these companies, and hard decisions have to get made. And we don\u2019t like any of them, and we hope we\u2019re an asset to the company going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n At a time when ESPN\u2019s overall subscriber base and audience, particularly for daytime programming, is dwindling, Stephen A. Smith (who makes $20 million per year from the company) and McAfee help ESPN limit the bleeding. To keep their paychecks, ESPN must outbid the market. The theory that a smaller ESPN, in 2026, could continue to draw equivalent viewership and engagement by spreading its talent budget across many more less-popular hosts is unproven. The bigger issue is that many of ESPN\u2019s competitors in traditional sports media have died off, leaving a barren market and few options for laid-off talent.<\/p>\n More likely, critics of McAfee see this as a fresh opportunity to hit him. It\u2019s true that McAfee has different editorial standards than his contemporaries and has different ideas about professionalism than the rest of corporate media. However, the effect of an ESPN minus McAfee is likely less about putting more money in others\u2019 pockets and more about an ESPN that is downsizing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For critics of Pat McAfee, the news of a sizable round of layoffs across ESPN and Disney this…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":950485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[39],"tags":[1232,12944,62,68434,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-950484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-pat-mcafee","tag-sports","tag-the-pat-mcafee-show","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116960184865738863","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/950485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}