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ESPN Statement Responds to Pat McAfee/Norby Williamson Comments

ESPN issued a statement regarding Pat McAfee's accusations that network executive Norby Williamson was "sabotaging" his show.

ESPN has released a statement in response to comments made by Pat McAfee during the Friday edition of the Pat McAfee Show, where he accused an ESPN executive who's been with the company for forty years of "attempting to sabotage" his show. The focus of McAfee's rant? Norby Williamson, ESPN Executive Editor and Head of Event & Studio Production, who McAfee claims has been fast & loose with the ratings & leaking bad data to make the show look bad. "No one is more committed to and invested in ESPN's success than Norby Williamson. At the same time, we are thrilled with the multi-platform success that we have seen from the 'Pat McAfee Show' across ESPN. We will handle this matter internally and have no further comment," read the statement from the sports network.

Here's a look at the statement from ESPN posted on social media by The New York Post's Andrew Marchand, followed by a look back at what McAfee had to say that got all of this going:

"More people are watching the show than ever before. We're very thankful for the ESPN folks being very hospitable," McAfee shared during his show on Friday – before switching gears. "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. I'm not 100 percent sure, he's 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." The host added, "Somebody tried to get ahead of our actual ratings release with wrong numbers 12 hours beforehand. That's a sabotage attempt. And it's been happening, basically, this entire season from some people who didn't necessarily love the old addition of the' Pat McAfee Show' to the ESPN family."

But McAfee wanted to make it clear that his issues with Williamson aren't new – referring to a moment from five years ago that he feels set the tone leading to this week. "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. Yep. So we're very thankful. Yeah. I think we're doing it right. We're trying to do it as right as possible," McAfee added.

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