Roughing The Kicker
Pat McAfee, ESPN and a look inside the hard nosed world of TV Sports Media by Albert Lanier
In the 1976 film NETWORK, Howard Beale who is the anchor of the UBS Network's Newscast finds out he is slated to be replaced and subsequently has an on air outburst. After a “stay of execution” keeps him at the network, later in the film, the aging newsman gives an angry, impassioned diatribe at the then fractious and uncertain reality of the times namely mid 1970s America and tells viewers to go to their windows and scream “I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.”
NETWORK- written by outstanding screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky and directed by acclaimed filmmaker Sidney Lumet- was a fictional satirical drama that examined the backstage world of network TV and TV news. Even if the film contained characters created by a screenwriter, the movie was was an all too truthful look at the very real TV business and what happens when personalities deviate from the prepared scripted norms of that industry.
Such a deviation from TV norms appeared to have taken place when in early January 2024, former NFL Punter Pat McAfee called out and cited the name of a broadcast TV executive on his sports program The Pat McAfee Show which airs on the cable sports channel ESPN.
In fact, the senior executive named was Norby Williamson ESPN Executive Editor and Head of Event and Studio Production.
Williamson who has spent his career almost from inception at ESPN was described by sports show host Dan Lebatard in January 2024 as the sports network’s “shadow President”.
Lebatard, a former ESPN host himself, noted on his show that Williamson often had issues with some on air talent noting “This is how you keep people controlled when you dont want your talent misbehaving and the talent can be disposable and you want the letters to matter.”
The closest comparable event in the past is what actress Lee Grant did in 1975 on the Johnny Carson hosted Tonight Show when she called out an NBC executive for cancelling her show Fay.
According to an October 3, 1975 New York Times article headlined “Cancelling of Fay is called Proper” written by Les Brown, then NBC Program Chief Marvin Antonowsky was called “the mad programmer” when Grant '“discussed on The Tonight Show the swift cancellation of her comedy series Fay after only three televised episodes.”
McAfee noted in an early January 2024 episode of his program: “I'm thankful for the ESPN folks for being very hospitable.”
“Now there are some people actively trying to sabotage us from within ESPN” stated McAfee “more specifically I believe Norby Williamson is the guy who is attempting to sabotage our program”
McAfee stated further that “somebody tried to get ahead of our actual ratings release with wrong numbers 12 hours beforehand.”
“That's a sabotage attempt.”
McAfee was likely making reference to a critical New York Post article on January 4, 2024 by Andrew Marchand.
McAfee clearly believes Williamson leaked data to the Post in an effort to go after and sabotage his show.
McAfee may be on to something.
To begin with, there is a hostile tone from the article's headline: “Pat McAfee needs to produce better ratings to be be worth $85 million and headaches for ESPN.” No objectivity here.
Then Marchand writes that the admittedly casually dressed McAfee has “ the appeal of a WWE style talk show”. This is clearly not intended as a compliment.
Finally there is the citing of the show's ratings numbers.
In Marchand's piece, the writer claimed that with ESPN'S well known First Take as a lead in, The Pat McAfee show has suffered a 48% drop in ratings with 302,000 viewers compared with 583,000 viewers for First Take.
The piece also argues that Colin Cowherd’s Show on rival network Fox Sports One beats the McAfee show “on some days” and reportedly on average has 156,000 viewers.
What curious is that TV is traditionally gauged in both raw ratings numbers and audience share.
So why were supposedly actual audience numbers cited in the New York Post’s piece and not audience share? Clearly this is an intentional choice made to make the McAfee show look like a ratings loser.
After all, McAfee's show started as an online program in 2019 and garnered a large following on You Tube. In September of 2023, The Pat McAfee Show came to ESPN as the result of a five year , $85 million deal which included the ex NFL Pro Bowl Kicker serve as a commentator on ESPN’s College Gameday show.
Interestingly, according to a January 5, 2024 Hollywood Reporter article by Alex Weprin, the McAfee Show is not produced by ESPN but solely licensed to them for broadcast “in an unusual arrangement.”
Thus McAfee may have felr freer to do what is normally never done: Call out the higher ups in Television.
In fact, former on air ESPN host Jemele Hill noted recently on The Dan Lebatard Show that an “unwritten cardinal rule” in TV and TV Sports Media is not “letting what is happening in the building spill out into public arenas”.
In a part of the TV industry where the mechanics and decision-making processes are kept scrupulously away from the eyes of the public and often news, one broadcaster has for now upset the apple cart and allowed a brief view inside.
More to Come? We will see.
Albert Lanier is a writer and retired journalist. He can be found at @imperiousreader on Tik Tok.