Inside the thinking on the potential ESPN-Pat McAfee blockbuster

As we reported last week, ESPN has emerged as the favorite to land Pat McAfee’s show as McAfee contemplates walking away from his four-year, $120 million-plus deal with FanDuel.

The potential move is a high-risk, high-reward one for ESPN that could be fascinating to watch play out.

Let’s take a look at what is at hand.

1️⃣ ESPN, under chairman Jimmy Pitaro, has wanted to appeal to a younger audience. McAfee does that. Between being a former Pro Bowl punter, his WWE appearances, his work on “College GameDay” and his YouTube show, he is someone the younger demographic is drawn to.

2️⃣ The big question is whether McAfee can work under the Disney umbrella. After my story broke, he said on his show that he is too dumb to change. We didn’t need him to say this to know: McAfee does what McAfee wants. He’s emphasized that he is not going to be different, which means ESPN might need to do things differently.

3️⃣ ESPN is going to try edgy again. We have stated many times over the years that it is difficult to be edgy when the checks have Mickey Mouse’s signature, but it is also fair to point out that ESPN has never really tried it with someone such as McAfee, who is truly successful and arrives — that’s the key word — with a dedicated audience. In recent years, they have mostly tried edgy with B-listers.

Plus, McAfee is not snarky. He just swears a lot, which if his program just remains on YouTube may not be an issue. If he is on ESPN — and there are a lot of indications there will be a linear component to a deal — cable TV doesn’t police language, but I doubt a Disney-owned property would have that as a daily part of a program. McAfee already has said he won’t be saying “freakin’” instead of the expletive alternative. Over its history, ESPN has had many big-opinion, successful, “I do it my way” types, from Bill Simmons to Keith Olbermann to Dan Le Batard. Each had success. None of their runs ended smoothly.

4️⃣ McAfee rules. He’s going to have his own ones. This is not new under Pitaro. Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, signings that were another part of Pitaro going Steinbrenner and remodeling ESPN, have different rules. They don’t appear on every show. They basically just do the games. The Mannings are the same way. I don’t see McAfee doing a million other things besides his program and College GameDay. McAfee has proven, at the age of 36 after retiring from the NFL at just 29, he trusts himself and his guys, first and foremost, so I don’t think he is looking to be managed.

5️⃣ ESPN likes to favor ESPN talent as guests. Will that apply to McAfee? McAfee regularly has Adam Schefter and Adrian Wojnarowski’s rivals, Ian Rapoport and Shams Charania, on as guests. Rapoport, of the NFL Network, guest-hosted McAfee’s show last week. How will that go over with the highly paid insiders?

6️⃣ This could be an attempt at Barstool Van Talk 2.0, but on a larger scale. In 2017, ESPN signed Barstool Sports personalities Dan (Big Cat) Katz and PFT Commenter aka Eric Sollenberger to do a once-a-week 1:30 a.m. show. It became a one-and-done show. John Skipper, then the head of ESPN, pulled the plug on it after one episode in one of the strangest processes in the network’s history. Skipper faced backlash because of Barstool’s sometimes controversial ways, including very personal criticisms of Sam Ponder such as telling her “to go f–k herself” and Barstool founder Dave Portnoy allegedly calling her a “slut” on a live show. Skipper was soon gone after another odd episode in which, according to him, he was extorted over his cocaine use.

Two of the executives behind the Van Talk idea were Connor Schell and Burke Magnus. Schell is no longer at ESPN. Magnus is the relatively new president of content.

McAfee swears a lot, but is more in the having-fun-with-sports mode also favored by Big Cat and PFT Commenter than the Portnoy attacking style, which was at the root of the issues with Van Talk — though Portnoy wasn’t on the program, the Bartstool name was.

7️⃣ Could ESPN try to create a McAfee company inside ESPN? McAfee’s cohorts on the show are not only his friends, they have a feel for media. That is something to potentially watch.

8️⃣ McAfee is on the precipice of walking away from his FanDuel deal, which is worth $30M+ per year. We don’t know for certain how that contract reads. FanDuel apparently is amenable to letting McAfee out of the mega-deal. Though McAfee has converted bettors, FanDuel may feel it has gotten a lot out of the partnership and now can save the money, especially with big states such as California and Texas having failed to pass legalized sports gambling.

It is believed McAfee pays his folks and handles all of the expenses out of his end of the FanDuel deal. That is one of the reasons he has said he wanted to move on.

But whatever McAfee will be paid by ESPN, it is a lot. With layoffs continuing soon at Disney, including at ESPN, it is really difficult optics to sign McAfee. When the McAfee Sweepstakes opened, I was told ESPN would only do a deal if it penciled out, meaning the network could make money on it. That is why a linear component seems very likely to be part of it. So maybe there are two different accounting columns – one for a big-time signing and another that covers the layoffs. Still, it does feel odd.

9️⃣ As far as McAfee fitting in at ESPN, he has worked there before — and currently does — but this feels different. McAfee has worked a lot of places in his seven years since retiring and going into media. Just off the top of my head: Barstool, Fox, DAZN, Westwood, SiriusXM, ESPN and WWE. For ESPN, McAfee has been on College GameDay and Thursday Night Football.

But this could be different. I’ve often made the comparison between ESPN and the Yankees. It works even better because Pitaro still lives and dies by Yankees games and even had a dog named Pags for former third baseman Mike Pagliarulo.

This feels like a potentially huge free-agent signing with Bristol standing in for The Bronx. McAfee is the center of the media universe. ESPN may be in its mid-40s, but it is still at the top of sports media.

If you are into sports media, the whole thing could be fascinating.

Brady Meter

Just because the Brady Meter™ caused a hubbub when we first mentioned it on the podcast doesn’t mean we will retire it. With the ESPN report that Brady may become a part-owner of the Raiders, the meter has dropped from 49-51 to 47-53 that Brady doesn’t join Fox Sports for his 10-year, $375 million deal.

Others have been owners while calling games, but it is not ideal. If Brady goes through with becoming a part-owner, I don’t think it eliminates his Fox agreement, but it complicates it. I am pretty certain that Fox would let him do both. However, the Raiders situation shows Brady is seeing what else is out there for him, knowing he has Fox in his back pocket if he wants.

(Reminder: This is my Brady Meter™, not Tom’s. Lastly, and this is very important: The meter fluctuates. Just a couple of weeks ago, the arrow pointed at 51 percent he does it, 49 percent he doesn’t, the thought being it is too much money to not at least try it for a year. That may still win the day.)

Any which way, Brady wouldn’t start on Fox until 2024 as he already announced he will take the season off after his second retirement. Fox has the Super Bowl that season, which would be Brady’s rookie season as a TV analyst, if the Brady Meter™ reaches 100 that he does it.

The truth about the NFL schedule

Every network executive loved the slate of games the NFL bequeathed them. That is a story as old as primetime.

But here is a little truth about the NFL schedule: There are not enough great games. There are a lot, but — as teams turn out to be better or worse than expected and injuries take hold — it’s unpredictable. Plus, there are too many broadcast windows to fill.

There are 16 games each week when there are no byes. There are four major windows: Thursday, Sunday late afternoon, Sunday night and Monday. When you add in byes, that brings the games down to 14. In theory, half the teams are not good. This one of the reasons Thursday Night Football has had so many homes (everyone has taken a whirl at it except Disney).

The game that prompted Al Michaels to really harangue about Amazon’s schedule was Broncos vs. Colts. If you looked at that game before the season, it was Russell Wilson against Matt Ryan. A lot of people thought Ryan’s Colts were going to be really good, and Wilson’s trade was one of the biggest offseason stories. The game was awful, and Michaels wasn’t shy. However, before the season, it looked like a good matchup.

So we can debate whether this game is good and that one is bad, but no one truly can predict, not even the computers or AI (that’s artificial intelligence, not Michaels) one day. It is also one of the reasons the NFL is pushing to have flex scheduling on TNF because it doesn’t want late-season exclusive primetime dog games to drag down ratings.

News watch

Media analyst MoffetNathanson hosts its Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in Manhattan beginning Tuesday. Could there be some news out of the event with a couple of “Marchand and Ourand” podcast guests, WWE CEO Nick Kahn and Michael Nathanson, having a forum? Others scheduled to appear include Fox/News Corp.’s Lachlan Murdoch, WBD’s David Zaslav and Comcast’s Brian Roberts.