Posted in: Opinion, Sports, streaming, TV, TV, YouTube | Tagged: disney, espn, opinion, pat mcafee

Pat McAfee Accuses ESPN Executive of "Attempting to Sabotage" Show

Following the Jimmy Kimmel/Aaron Rodgers debacle, Pat McAfee called out an ESPN executive for "attempting to sabotage" his show.

Speaking of popping bottles, that's exactly what was going on last year when Pat McAfee signed a multi-year deal with "The Mouse" that brought his show to ESPN, ESPN+, and a lot of other platforms for some major media exposure – and he got to keep his ESPN College GameDay gig. A whole lot of smiles and handshakes and festive synergistic cheer. But that was last year – because times have definitely changed. Earlier this week, McAfee found himself offering an on-air mea culpa to ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over comments that NY Jets QB & "Goggle Prophet" Aaron Rodgers on McAfee's show implying that there was a link between Kimmel and Jeffrey Epstein with regard to legal documents that were about to go public. Well, McAfee definitely found a way of distracting folks from that topic – we're just not sure that accusing an ESPN executive who's been with the company for forty years of "attempting to sabotage" The Pat McAfee Show was the way to go.

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. "More people are watching the show than ever before. We're very thankful for the ESPN folks being very hospitable," McAfee shared – 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 news – referring to a moment from five years ago. "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. Here's a look at today's episode – with McAfee going after ESPN at around the 2-hour mark:

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