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ESPN’s Pat McAfee takes aim at sports media, claiming his show has been the victim of ‘misrepresentation’
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ESPN’s Pat McAfee takes aim at sports media, claiming his show has been the victim of ‘misrepresentation’

Former NFL player and current host of “The Pat McAfee Show” didn’t hold back when expressing his displeasure to some members of the sports media world.

The ESPN personality directly addressed several media outlets and members of the media he had a beef with, accusing them of grossly mischaracterizing his daily sports talk show. McAfee made the accusations during the annual media day for “The Worldwide Leaders in Sports.”

McAfee was on a panel with other prominent ESPN hosts when a question came up that took him aback.

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McAfee in 2022

Pat McAfee on the field prior to the game between the Ohio State Buckeyes and Georgia Bulldogs in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on December 31, 2022 in Atlanta. (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

A reporter asked if the commentator had spoken to his colleagues about “journalistic standards” since making the switch from YouTube to ESPN. McAfee initially pressed the reporter to clarify his meaning of “journalistic standards” before he went on to upend the sports media landscape.

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“Sports media has never gotten it wrong? Were there doctors on set during the entire COVID period on ESPN? How did that all play out?” McAfee asked. “So when you start talking about these journalistic standards, that was in journalism school… we’re, I think, bringing news to our show every day that wouldn’t be anywhere else. Is that journalism, getting people to open up and chat and talk and stretch who they are, is that journalism, interviewing people who’ve never talked about anything? Is that journalism?”

Pat McAfee at the NBA All-Star Game

Pat McAfee attends the Ruffles NBA All-Star Celebrity Game as part of NBA All-Star Weekend on February 16, 2024 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. (Catalina Fragoso/NBAE via Getty Images)

Andrew Marchand, a columnist for The Athletic, later asked the former Indianapolis Colts player to share more details about what he called the most serious character flaws he had personally faced.

“Because you made my life a living hell in large part with the things that you reported, how you reported, what you said, and your source was purposefully left out of the conversation at the time because of everything that you were going to do,” the “College GameDay” analyst said in an apparent reference to the reporting during his dispute with former ESPN executive Norby Williamson.

“I think there’s been a perception of me that’s been created by a lot of different misrepresentations and misrepresentations of what our show is. … And sometimes we’re maybe the worst people on TV, and we’re going to try not to be that in the future.”

Pat McAfee at National Championship

Pat McAfee (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images/File)

In October 2023, McAfee called Marchand a “traitor” for his reporting on the compensation Aaron Rodgers received for his appearances on “The Pat McAfee Show.”

“I appreciate the people who think they’re going to kill me for this reason. But if this is what I’m known for, then I’m fine with it,” McAfee said at the time. “That being said, Andrew Marchand is a rat, okay? That’s what he is. He tried to paint this in a way that makes me look like a bad person. And it’s like, you’re the bad person.”

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“The Pat McAfee Show” airs from the campus of the University of West Virginia on Friday, a day before the Mountaineers’ season opener against the eighth-ranked Penn State Nittany Lions.

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