Pat McAfee Says He Was Firing a “Warning Shot” at Norby Williamson
Last month, the uneasy marriage between Pat McAfee and ESPN seemed to be on the rocks when the popular sports media figure blasted ESPN executive Norby Williamson.
McAfee accused Williamson of “attempting to sabotage our program” by leaking incorrect ratings figures to the press.
In a recent interview on the All the Smoke podcast with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, McAfree reflected on the public row, explaining that he was firing a warning shot at the longtime ESPN executive editor and head of event and studio production.
“I thought that was a warning shot to that guy,” McAfee said. “…And I guess a lot of people have a lot of fear of him. I do not. That guy left me sitting in his office for 45 minutes, no-showed me when I was supposed to have a meeting with him. … He also banned all my friends from coming on my show. There was a ban of ESPN talent on my show on YouTube that came directly from him.”
Attacks From Within
McAfee believes that much of the turmoil surrounding his show came from former SportsCenter employees and longtime ESPN stalwarts. It was the internal nature of the battle that surprised the former Colts punter.
“There became like a war almost from behind the scenes from ‘SportsCenter’ people and people that had been at ESPN a long time against us coming in and taking their jobs and all this other (expletive),” he said.
“I didn’t see it like that. We were like pumped we made it to the big leagues. Hey, I’m pumped we’re on the worldwide leader. That’s how I viewed it. … Immediately, it’s like, ‘This guy sucks. This guy’s ruining ESPN.’ It’s not coming from people outside ESPN; it’s coming from people within ESPN, and I did not expect that at all. So I’m immediately like, okay, we’re at war. If that’s what we’re doing, we’re at war.”
McAfee Says Williamson Is Not His Boss
One thing in particular that McAfee took umbrage with was that the media claimed Williamson was his “boss.” According to the ESPN host, he only has two people to answer to: ESPN head Jimmy Pitaro and Disney CEO Bob Iger.
“I’m the executive producer of my show,” McAfee said. “I report directly to Jimmy and Bob. I’m not really viewing anybody, like I saw everybody, ‘Pat calls out his boss.’ I don’t got a (expletive) boss. We talking Jimmy Pataro or Bob Iger, is that who we’re talking about? ‘Cause those are people that could technically be described as my boss.”
In the end, while McAfee doesn’t regret putting Williamson on blast, he did feel bat for the position that he put both Pitaro and ESPN head of content Burke Magnus in.
“I did not expect the backlash afterwards,” he said. “People were attacking Burke because it made him look sloppy ’cause it’s inside the building. People were attacking Jimmy because it looks sloppy. And that was something that I did not think about. I was very apologetic about. I didn’t mean to take down my allies, to make allies look bad in the whole thing.”
No Regrets
Looking back, McAfee isn’t apologizing, however, and he isn’t backing down. In fact, he thought he was showing restraint.
“But I genuinely did not expect it to get as big as it did because I didn’t think I said anything that was that crazy. I’m a pretty good talker, I’m a pretty good promo cutter. Like if I really wanted to saw (expletive) down, I thought I could have done it in a much bigger way and I did not. So I was actually pretty proud of myself. I was like, look at me. I’m an adult. And then it got loud.”
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