ESPN Is SABOTAGING Pat McAfee’s Show?! | Clay Travis | OutKick Hot Mic

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Aliss Klay Travis joins us right now clay uh Pat McAfee just went on his show Pat McAfee live and called one of the top bosses at ESPN a rat how about this uh it’s a great uh entertainment um I would be not happy if I’m at ESPN and

He put him in a really tough spot right um I can’t even think of a precedent like this where somebody goes on ESPN or any television network right and just calls their boss a rat and says somebody’s trying to sabotage the show live on on the show um I and so I think

ESPN’s in a really tough spot they’re gonna have to do something and right now McAfee is scheduled to be on I think the part of the festivity surrounding the Washington and Michigan game on Monday I don’t know how that goes um but this is

Uh this is a this is a tough spot for ESPN and I I think uh coming on the heels look first of all the Aaron Rogers thing to me nobody should be responsible for what a guest no host should be responsible for what a guest says on his

Or her show just like a guest shouldn’t be responsible for what someone says on uh uh the host says right everybody is responsible for their own comments and so the idea that ESPN is apologizing or what a guest said on a show yeah I just don’t think that I think that precedent

Is wrong like Aaron Rogers is responsible for everything he says Pat McAfee isn’t ESPN isn’t I don’t buy into the whole idea of oh you don’t have the right to platform this person like no you people should be able to say whatever they want if you don’t like

What they say you can react to it and disagree with it or you can agree with it and so I I think that whole story is uh is to a large extent of ESPN’s own creation um and obviously with Jimmy kemell being in house there’s a an

Element I get of uh allowing a guest to fire in house I can see why Jimmy Kimmel would not be happy with that like I don’t think back in the day David Letterman would have been happy if somebody had taken a shot at him uh on the CBS you know broadcast network uh

When he was airing on there but to me this is a much bigger story like Pat McAfee calling out by name one of his bosses and calling him a rat is I think really entertaining uh because I can only picture the ESPN PR team just running

Around while like the the whole place is on fire right now and they thought they had just put the fire out because they think they’re so smart and PR they put that statement out about Aaron Rogers on Friday afternoon done it guys we’ve done

It work is done yeah this puts it to bed let’s pour ourselves a drink kick our feet up no PR fir here now and then the McAfee thing is like to me talking about his boss in House on Air um you know like 10 times the story if not a hundred

Times the story uh of the joke that Aaron Rogers made well clay consider this just thinking about this so what Pat McAfee is claiming I mean think about what has gone on behind the scenes that only mca’s had the balls to stand up and say the way he did today I mean

That’s the other thing if if they’re going to sabotage McAfee who they brought on for exactly this and because of ratings and they’re going to do that behind the scenes to get him out it reminds me a bit of bar St but it’s way bigger than that for that one show or

One day but I mean mcafe is doing this and he’s he’s calling your bluff he’s like hey uh you’re going to take Rogers off if you’re going to remove me or you’re going to sabotage I’ll take the live stream back to YouTube where it right is it streams live every day screw

You the interesting the interesting dynamic now is going to be how this plays out because to your point ESPN could go to Pat McAfee and say this guy can no longer be on your show um and uh meaning Aaron Rodgers and if I’m Pat

McAfee I say no um I say you don’t have the ability to dictate who I can have as a guest on my shows and I I would I I would say that on my own shows right I’ve never I’ve had lots of shows that say we can’t put you on anymore right um

I have never in my life gone to a guest and said oh my bosses won’t let me put you on as a guest anymore so I’m going to have to stop allowing you to be a guest I wouldn’t do it um and uh and and I would imagine McAfee would say hey I

Control what goes on this show you guys can’t dictate to me who guests are and I could see that blowing up in a big way uh remember ESPN has invested a lot of money in him um you know they believe that he is one of the future faces of

The network and they’re paying him as such and so this creates a huge mess for them in terms of how they handle it because it’s again to my knowledge without precedent I can’t remember in the World of Sports or media period can you guys remember I mean you can MSNBC

Fox News CNN CBS NBC ABC I can’t remember Fox you know FS1 ESPN I can’t remember somebody going on and by name calling one of their bosses a rat now sometimes in radio maybe Howard Stern did it back in the day um I you know I’m not an expert on that yeah

His boss he called him yeah but sometimes there’s almost a wink and a nod associated with that where the the people acknowledge that they’re now part of the character um but in general that is not um that is not well received so I can I I just whatever

Stuff like this happens I love thinking about what the reaction is behind the scenes and just picturing everybody running down the hallways uh as soon as this started to go viral and by the way you can watch the clip it’s up at outkick I don’t know if you guys have

Play we played it yeah we played it um so youve heard it on this show it’s up on outkick you can go read about it if you want to um and with the fact that the biggest show of the year for ESPN is Monday uh literally the most

Watched broadcast they have every week is uh is the nation championship game on ESPN um I would imagine that there is uh there’s a lot of panic given MCA association with that show so um you know get your popcorn as I said when I tweeted out the video clip uh this is a

Big deal Kay the story is so crazy that when we were discussing it and I’m trying to process it I I even had to ask the question out loud are we in the middle of a work given Pat McAfee’s history with professional wrestling are we all being played on this because it

Sounds like an Andy Kaufman B B that’s taking place right now with him I don’t think we are I think he’s being honest and I think Norby Williamson is probably really pissed right now about what is happening here’s my question for you clay because you’re the perfect person

To ask because you’ve lived uh in different lives as a media personality as someone who’s worked for big corporations someone who sold their company to a big Corporation someone who independently made their own brand also like like a Pat McAfee how is this viewed in the long

Run we love this right now I hear this and I just applaud Pat McKie think man the balls on this guy this is incredible but 10 years from now is Pat McAfee going to be remembered as Brazen hero of the little guy or is Pat McAfee even

Three to five years from now going to be remembered as oh he’s the guy who went on a network and publicly scorched and went after his own boss and every big media company is not going to employ him now because he made that move how is this viewed well

So I I I would imagine there’s a lot of apprehension in some big media companies I mean my thought is like he’d be great at outkick right that’s my reaction um so uh you know and now outkick is a part of fox so I don’t make that call right

Fox would look at it and they’d be like okay does this make sense does not make sense like they do with all Talent um and there’s people out there who work in media that would say oh we can you know get the best out of P McAfee without

Creating the worst I don’t think it’s bad for him um so that’s the big media perspective right uh looking at it um and there are some Executives that would say oh my God if he’d say that about Norby Williamson what would he say about me and there are people who would not

Want to take that risk so I think it does take some Brands off the table um but I also think from his perspective uh it’s probably good right because brand is all that matters and his brand is I’m going to tell you exactly what I think

It’s not dissimilar to what I would say my brand is I’m gonna tell you exactly what I think um and uh and so in terms of monetization I don’t know that it hurts him because we live in a new environment where you know he can get distributed on

YouTube or he could get distributed on rumble or somebody at Satellite Radio could look at that and say boy we really need a younger voice on satellite radio and there’s another job for him um I think it’s different now given a variety of platforms than it would have been 10

Or 15 years ago when okay if ESPN takes him off air basically his career is over right like and I think it goes to Talon itself as well um you know a lot of people who are not on ESPN they kind of vanish um and that’s long been the idea

I don’t think because Pat McAfee wasn’t created inside of ESPN I don’t think you know when I started outkick for instance um I people said oh my God why would you ever not be writing at CBS or not be writing at you know dead spin who had

Created a platform and all those things and I was like I think my audience gonna follow me they did I tend to think audiences follow Talent now more than they follow networks so I think it’s probably not a super negative to Pat McAfee now will somebody else pay him

$18 million I don’t know about that I don’t know what his contract says if ESPN decided we’re firing you for cause you can’t do what you did um I think that would turn into potentially a mess um so that’s the big picture analysis I think ultimately all that matters is the

Work if you can consistently put out entertaining work uh and entertaining content uh as a media member you’ll always be employed I think that’s more true than ever given the variety of platforms but I think certainly there are some brands that would say to Disney

Hey this is what what did you expect to happen when you hired somebody like McAfee similar you know Bill Simmons had a bad exit from ES PN when they had the one day bar stool story I don’t think I would fit at ESPN because I don’t think

I would be dictated to uh but uh but so I think he’ll be okay but I think this is probably a five alarm fire inside of ESPN right now let me pick up there briefly clay so the we had AJ Perez on from front office Sports who said hey

Maybe they pull Aaron roders from the show or they’ll they’ll go to Alternative programming for that segment and he he was giving the the theory yesterday that McAfee would just continue to air it live on YouTube also pair this looking ahead Stephen A Smith wants to

Be the highest paid person to ESPN right you talked to him about this yep yeah he told me that Stephen Smith’s also doing his show he’s got his podcast and his video platform that’s separate it’s not like they’re going to shut him up either

And if they try to what’s he going to do he’s not going to shut up he’s got a he’s got the he’s got ESPN by the balls just like McAfee does yeah well ESPN Stephen A Smith is probably the most uh integral talent to ESPN right now

Because I think if you take Stephen A Smith off first take I think that show would fall apart very quickly without him as the head right no doubt um and so I think ESPN’s gonna have to pay him whatever he wants uh because I don’t think it’s easily replaceable I mean

That’s to me the the the wins over replacement is can be applied to all talent in all Fields right uh how many more cars does the best car salesman sell than the worst or the average um I think Stephen A Smith produces way more eyeballs than uh than than uh than than

Anybody else who could replace him would uh in the short term for sure maybe in the long term as well and the big issue to me with Macy that’s interesting and hasn’t been talked about a lot is it’s a default acknowledgement that ESPN can’t build its own Stars anymore McAfee did

Not become famous because of ESPN at all ESPN went and got him from the Digital Universe where he had created his own star uh it felt desperate to me to need to do that for ESPN in the first place because it said hey we don’t have a lot

Of Talent on our bench and so we’re gonna have to go outside and I I think this is uh an indictment of ESPN uh that they had to do this in the first place and I think it shows that McAfee is in h a decent position where he’ll walk if he

Needs to I can’t wait to see how this all uh spins from here and then just naming Norby Williamson right as part of this uh specifically name I mean going after bosses in general would have been aggressive to call some of them rats but to specifically name I think he’s the

Third highest ranked person in all of ESPN and say he’s a rat trying to sabotage the show uh I don’t know how you know how you come back from this well and if I mean I know if it becomes a unless hey maybe he is a rat trying to

Sabotage the show the ultimate power move would be if they fired him and that M yeah that’s that’s what I was about to ask who’s more important to ESPN Pat McAfee or Norby Williamson if the the higher ups at Disney have to make a decision you’re asking a talent who’s

More important Talent or management my answer is always gonna be Talent right yeah I agree with you and every member of management is going to come out and say oh we’re more important right everybody thinks that whatever their job is like Bill bellich thinks more important than Tom Brady I think I don’t

Think there’s any doubt and then I think Robert Craft thinks he’s the owner of the Patriots thinks he’s more important than Bill belich and Tom Brady because he’s the owner right whatever position you’re in you’re gonna think that you’re more important but if if I had to choose

Um I I would say McAfee the problem is then you set the precedent of any talent that wants to go on air and attack a manager gets the manager fired and you side with Talent well if I’m Stephen A Smith and somebody starts to Bow up to

Me why don’t I just go on first take and say this Show’s great but it’d be way better if x got fired from ESPN he’s a rat and I hate him you know like when the president set you do it then you do it I mean clay you know what you know

About disy not what what you do what you know about Disney other than you know drafting an or casting an Asian woman as Pat mcae in the Disney movie about his life what decision what decision you think they’ll make who will they side with Norby Williamson who everyone in the building

Has known for years and has some clout there or this new Renegade that just came on to ESPN that clearly has a name and some Talent it’s a good question and also it’s not about what you do just in this scenario it’s set the precedent that you’re setting going forward which

Is why I said if you set the precedent of if you call somebody a rat in management they get fired I don’t think you can set that precedent because this is not the way even if Pat McAfee and Norby William will and hate each other

You don’t want this to be the way that this gets resolved right in a public nasty dispute uh that forces the company’s hand um I think this is going to get tied in with Aaron roggers because I think this is probably where this tension is really coming from to a

Certain extent and so I would expect that there will be some sort of I think they’ll suspend Pat McAfee for like two weeks I don’t think they’ll have him on Monday show I think they’ll say what he said about manag unacceptable it’s not true I think they’ll suspend him for

Like two weeks that takes Aaron roders off the show for two weeks as well right because Pat mca’s not there nobody else’s gonna talk to him but I think the lingering issue that’s going to come forward is I think that Management’s gonna probably try to take more control

Of McAfee show um and to me what McAfee did that overplayed his hand is they didn’t try to take Aaron Rogers off yet at least not publicly because I think if they did and McAfee went public on his show and said hey we got major issues I’m gonna be honest with you guys

They’re telling me I can’t have Aaron Rogers on the show because of what he says on the show uh I disagree with that they told me they would never do this when I came they need to cut me a check I’m done here if I can’t do the show

That I want to do I’m Gonna Leave um and that really puts ESPN in a tough spot because then they’re directly infringing on his ability to do the show that that he signed up to do right Aaron Rogers guest on a show ESPN knew what they were

Buying um but here where you come out and do it this way now I could see ESPN feeling like they have a way to get out of this deal because I’m sure it violates his contract the the morals clause in some way to go out and rip and

Say that his boss is a rat um and by name sabotage would also be do that though you know if you sabotage I think he’d rather be fired for a cause than be told what to say on his show I I really do oh I I think it again it comes back

To it benefits him and then by the way I don’t even know if ESPN suspends him for two weeks the real interesting question is why couldn’t he do his show on YouTube well I’m reading through this yeah I mean that he still has his show on YouTube still do the YouTube show up

When they announced that that that he had signed withn yeah that’s the benefit of having you know the ability to do multiple shows right and that’s why Stephen A is building out his own Studio at home and that’s why all these guys want to have and I get it I’m talent I

To have the ability to flip a switch and be able to go live whenever I want I’ve been doing it for a long time at outkick uh and the reason I found it outkick was so nobody could ever tell me what I could or couldn’t say um and so I I

Think that is um I I think that’s got to be a big part of mca’s thinking but my question is just you guys do live radio sometimes live radio is very thought out and you’re like hey next segment we’re GNA talk about this and then stories

Happen and you change and you evolve uh which is different than uh than than other medium sometimes my question is was this a plan segment for Mcafee did he know hey I’m going to call Norby Williamson a rat or was just just an off-the-cuff kind of rant that he got

Into uh that played out differently than he thought in other words how calculated was this Choice by McAfee and how much of it was live radio I don’t have a filter I’m going to say exactly what I want to say um you know I’ve done live

Radio for 15 years now or whatever it is sometimes you’re like hey I’m going to sit down here and talk about this segment and then you go in different directions I just wonder how calculated this was because it’s so specific and so direct it feels to me like it was

Planned more than it was just an off-the-cuff them like the Aaron roders joke about Jimmy Kimmel I don’t think Aaron Rogers planned that I just think he’s kind of a witty guy and he’s good on radio in terms of being entertaining and I think he just threw that out based

On the Direction this conversation was going whereas this to me feels like much more of a planned element and I don’t know I mean I would think at some point Pat mcafe is gonna have to say something on Twitter and apologizing would be very anti-brand because it do like when you

Call someone a rat to later come back and be like hey and I called him a rat I actually meant that I really enjoy working with him and he’s a fabulous guy like that’s a tough transition right like you can’t claim that you misspoke when you call him a rat

I think he’s getting fired for cause before he apologizes I I I really do I don’t I don’t think that’s who he is and he just got done the day before explaining the Aaron Rogers deal as we don’t come in here with a rundown we don’t really have a plan of action we’re

Just dudes talking about sports and we like to mix it up and that’s what Aaron Rogers was doing so I think this just happened on the show and he just said exactly what he felt I I crazy crazy story clay no no doubt about it by the way Michael McCarthy reporting that uh

ESPN he reached out for comment and ESPN got back and said they are not commenting at this moment going back to your point clay about that PR team at ESPN really having their work cut out for him this afternoon no it’s five alarm fire uh and honestly this is

Something that I would expect would go all the way up to Bob Iger um the CEO of Disney like that’s why they’re not commenting I don’t know where Bob Iger is he may be on a you know vacation trip to Australia like I was you know during

The holidays for all for all know but yeah but I guarantee you that this whatever choice they make on the McAfee thing will run through Jimmy pataro who runs Disney uh sorry ESPN all the way up to Bob Iger who runs Disney like I don’t think this is going to be uh something

That they don’t weigh in on he’s got uh Jimmy pataro and Jimmy Kimmel uh pissed off calling him right now all the jimy Jimmy F next what do we do Jimmy F better look out clay it’s great to great to have you back man good to hear from

You and uh glad everything looked great in Australia I can’t wait to catch up on that good good to have you back in the States yeah for sure you guys have fun with this story on Friday I’ll talk to you yeah man there’s Klay Travis uh the

The other thing Chad consider that if they have him or they ask him to apologize right they can’t make it they’ll just double down the next day just like he did I mean he’s probably going to say well prove to me where I’m wrong this does not end about this he knows about

Being frozen out for 45 minutes in 2018 he I’m sure he knows a lot of things that are going on he knows what’s happening and he said it he’s not the most shocking conclusion to this to me would be Pat McAfee returning to ESPN Monday apologizing to Norby Williamson

And moving on and allowing ESPN to control his content in some way he would just as likely go back to YouTube do his own thing again get sponsors have all the street cred in the world that he would have at that point and not mess with with the ESPN anymore so I really

Think this is going to come down to a decision between Disney deciding if they want to continue with Pat McAfee as is him doing his show using his talent or Norby Williamson being employed at ESPN I I think the line is the S is what was

Going on and what is McAfee what did he not say of how he has figured this out right I mean he goes into detail But first you you got to figure out if the guy’s right because Norby Williamson well he’s what third on the hierarchy

There I mean if you go through and read the we read the quote from Jimmy pataro when they hired him uh this is what jimy pataro said Pat is a proven Talent he and his team have built the Pat McAfee show into one of the most engaging

Programs in sports and all of media this is from ESPN chairman Jimmy barar it is a destination for athlete interviews and breaking news and the centerpiece of a growing community of sports fans we’re honored to bring Pat and the show to espan through a mult multifaceted multiplatform

Approach um they brought him in to do the opposite of what they’ve been doing to be to be Pat M why they’re not they’re not cultivating their own Talent at least they acknowledged that and went and got Pat mcky because what they were doing was failing and I don’t know how you respond

To this if you’re ESPN without failing you’re either losing McAfee which is something that you’re doing an about face with to then back Norby Williamson who allegedly is tanking the show that you brought in to turn things around for you um or you keep him there and he’s going to

Continue to do this and give think about with the the the stage it could give for others on the platform if McAfee’s doing it Stephen A Smith certainly would but again it it it leads to something else where you know you’re you’re going to keep McAfee on he’s just oh you’re going

To take Rogers off so you’re going to go to something else for 15 20 minutes and then come back to it but he’s Live on YouTube I mean there’s a reason why anytime we play a clip from Stephen A Smith it’s from his YouTube show it’s not from First Take because with his

Contract up he’s building his own platform there too he’s promoting that which is brilliant but everything you play is from his show on YouTube his Clips it’s not from not ESPN uh part of it or Norby Williamson by the way nearly four decades at ESPN I’m on his bio

Right now on the site he is executive editor and head of event and studio production current role is executive editor and head of event uh he oversees all of ESPN’s football content including NFL college football XFL now UFL and SEC network and he continues oversight of production of sports including baseball

NHL UFC boxing tennis and golf um Sports Center he overseas we’ll get into this Hutton but what is Norby Williamson’s problem with Pat McAfee other than he doesn’t have control of Pat McAfee that has to be it that McAfee has his own production team that he brought

Over he does his own thing out of his studio in Indianapolis he does it all on his own and does that just piss off Norby Williamson to the point that he wants to sabotage the guy and get him out which I just don’t I don’t understand any concept of self over

Brand or self over team because what’s good for ESPN is Pat McAfee succeeding Pat McAfee gives a company that was known for a lot of bad things for a while some street cred with a fresh-faced fresh brained scorched earth type dude in there it only helps ESPN if Pat McAfee

Succeeds I I don’t get it’s just got to be again we don’t know what he’s done we we just know McAfee’s allegation about him but if he doesn’t like McAfee and doesn’t want him there what other reason could that be other than he doesn’t control McAfee and he hates that it’s a

Again it doesn’t make sense but after he does the apology not apology whatever but he says Rogers is going to come on next week and say this he’s speaking for Aaron Rogers without doing that he’s Rogers will do it next week mcafe he’s doing it now right after he does that

Chad the New York Post article comes out where it says this since the Inception of mcafe show on ESPN in the fall Stephen A Smith and First Take are handing McAfee a 583 th000 viewer lead in mcafe is maintaining just 302,000 which is a 48% drop as compared to the

Same window last year which featured Sports Center McAfee’s down 12% on FS1 Colin coward show has nearly beaten McAfee on Sundays and saw 19% growth from last year to average 156,000 viewers now ESPN counters these numbers by noting mca’s direct to consumer in Social following but it’s a point to be

Taken in our new media world so that this is what he’s referencing these numbers more reaction to this uh streaming live outkick.com go to outkick.com watch bookmark that we’re live each day reacting this news Happens Live and yeah hitting the top sports story this a great example of reacting

To live news on this show today but also Chad this is a great example of just standing up for what you stand for yeah I I don’t hate it I do not hate it from Pat McAfee and all signs point to him maybe being right about Norby Williamson

If in fact he’s the one person with the info that continues to get leaked over and over again or coming on hot M with h and with r