ESPN host Pat McAfee is still making headlines.
Just days after he apologized when Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers made an unfounded claim about ABC late night host Jimmy Kimmel, McAfee himself took aim at a top ESPN executive who he believes is “attempting to sabotage” his show.
McAfee on Friday called out Norby Williamson, a four-decade veteran of ESPN who is its executive editor and head of event and studio production, alleging that the executive leaked negative ratings information. It is not clear what specifically McAfee was referring to, but The New York Post published a story about McAfee’s ratings Thursday.
“More people are watching the show than ever before. We’re very thankful for the ESPN folks being very hospitable,” McAfee said. “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.
“Somebody tried to get ahead of our actual ratings release with wrong numbers 12 hours beforehand. That’s a sabotage attempt,” he added. “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.”
McAfee joined ESPN in a lucrative multiyear deal in 2023. While his show does run on ESPN from noon to 2 p.m. ET (and on ESPN+ from 2 to 3 p.m.), it also streams live on YouTube and is available on other social and video platforms. ESPN does not produce McAfee’s daily show (it licenses the show from him, in an unusual arrangement), though he does appear as on-air talent on College GameDay.
In his commentary, McAfee said that Williamson had previously iced him out in a prior meeting, referring to him as “the enemy within our own camp.”
“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.”
ESPN, as it happens, released ratings data on McAfee’s show Friday afternoon, saying that the show had “298 million total views” in December, and that it averaged 886,000 viewers across ESPN platforms, YouTube and TikTok.
ESPN declined to comment on McAfee’s remarks.
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