PAT MCAFEE BECOMES THE DEMISE OF COMPELLING AMERICAN SPORTS TALK

After allowing Aaron Rodgers to abuse Jimmy Kimmel on the air, McAfee blamed an ESPN big boss, Norby Williamson, for telling media about his dwindling ratings and suggesting the ultimate: his firing

     In the years since I yapped wise, on ESPN television and national radio, sports talk is ready to die in this country. Again, 335.8 million people live in America. Any program averaging 300,000 isn’t worth the production, left to wonder why 335.5 million don’t know or don’t care. Such is the scam of the programmers, who must offer complimentary visits to strip clubs for advertisers.

     The difference between Pat McAfee’s show and all the rest is that the ESPN chairman, James Pitaro, made him the hallmark of the entire network. By paying $85 million for five years to a former punter new to the daily grind, the brand told everybody else on the payroll — including Stephen A. Smith, who makes millions less — that they are peripheral. Pitaro made him The King of Talk in a nation that knows much better, having enjoyed compelling hosts through time and now must consider we’re done with that rocking scene.

     In a killer shot at Norby Williamson, one of the administrators who run ESPN, McAfee decided the longtime Bristol boss is ratting out his show by leaking news to the New York Post about his weak ratings. Specifically, someone told the site’s Andrew Marchand that Smith has been providing a 583,000 viewership lead after his “First Take” show — and that McAfee only has watched the numbers implode, losing 48 percent with 302,000. He is watched on the blowtorch channel, Monday through Friday, and has done what we didn’t do on a later dispatch called “Around The Horn.” Our job was to solidify numbers for the show following ours, “Pardon The Interruption,” and we did precisely that when I performed for eight years.

     Now, “Around The Horn” is dead and so is everything else that is supposed to inspire discussions about sports. Once McAfee went bad, shows soured that come after his, including football and basketball fare that promote the leagues in which Pitaro is in business bed. A show that doesn’t sell in the middle of daytime makes us contemplate why we watch before him and after him. As Marchand reported, ESPN realizes McAfee is “a headache,” allowing him “to swear on (the) air, wear a tank top and keep ownership of the show.” It also grasps “numbers decide if the headaches are worth it.”

     They aren’t, not even close. Should Pitaro rewind his comments about hiring McAfee? He said, “I have a son and a daughter, both of whom not just know who Pat is but they like him, and I have a father who also happens to really like Pat. That’ll tell you a lot about his appeal. We’ve been in business with Pat for some time by now.” Should he not be listening to his family and foresee the thunderous loss of viewers?

     The problem with McAfee is that he talks to a lowbrow crowd. He promotes gambling and invites his favorites on the air, but the guest that truly raked him is the one who impressed Pitaro for the long run. Aaron Rodgers appeared Tuesday on the Disney show and hoped, so wrongfully, that Disney late-night host Jimmy Kimmel would appear on a list kept by the convicted pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein. This was bonkers when it was said, and, of course, Kimmel is a no-show on the creep watch. It brought attention to why McAfee even exists on the air, letting Rodgers take apart a longtime comedian on a new host’s channel.

     Finally, after days of mind-warped debates, ESPN apologized. “Aaron made a dumb and factually inaccurate joke about Jimmy Kimmel,” said Mike Foss, the senior vice president, in a Friday afternoon statement. “It should never have happened. We all realized that in the moment.”

     The producers didn’t stop the remark, though a show of questionable humanity always should have a dump button of several seconds. That quickly, Kimmel was upset at the network that has paid him 21 years as host of his show. He won’t be suing the host of another Disney show, though he could, and McAfee should have moved on to Bill Belichick, Michigan-Washington and other topics. Instead, he fired back at Williamson, the executive editor and head of event and studio production.

     “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 said.

     Then he said he wasn’t absolutely certain, which further ruins his credibility. “Now, I’m not 100 percent sure. That is just seemingly the only human that has information, and then that information gets leaked, and it’s wrong, and it sets a narrative of what our show is,” McAfee said. “And then are we just gonna combat that from a rat every single time? Somebody tried to get ahead of our actual ratings release with wrong numbers 12 hours beforehand. That’s a sabotage attempt. It’s been happening this entire season from some people who didn’t necessarily love the old addition of ‘The Pat McAfee Show’ to the ESPN family. There’s a lot of those.”

     Going back through time, Williamson doesn’t like offbeat shows that disrupt the network’s “SportsCenter” and old-school motif. He wasn’t going to like McAfee. “We’ve heard them anonymously quoted in the Washington Post, New York Post, New York Times, LA Times, Wall Street Journal. They’re never like, ‘Love the show.’ It’s always little things to tear us down. So even with the enemy within our own camp, I don’t like that guy,” McAfee said.

     “That guy left me in his office for 45 minutes — no-showed me in 2018. So this guy has 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. We don’t always get it right, but motherf—kers have been getting it wrong for a long time in this specific field.”

     Pitaro did not comment. At some point, he’d better, or he’ll look like a buffoon in McAfee Camp. For now, Foss said Rodgers will appear Tuesday and should through the remainder of the football season. “The show will continue to evolve. It wouldn’t surprise me if Aaron’s role evolves with it,” said Foss, who also might be looking for work. Also Friday, ESPN tried to show ratings that make McAfee look a wee bit better, but when you spend $17 million a year on a host, he can’t be losing numbers that “NBA Today” and “NFL Live” require. Never mind “Around The Horn,” which doesn’t make money for its contributors. But how is McAfee hurting “Pardon The Interruption,” “SportsCenter” and the on-air old boys protected by Williamson?

     Soon enough, Disney CEO Bob Iger will make the call in Hollywood when he already has enough to do in life. Would he rather keep McAfee or take back much of his $85 million? The answer is clear: Somewhere in Indianapolis, another show will hire the punter and place him where he belongs, perhaps on a police-stalled swim in the canal after buying 100 tequila shots at the bar.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.