Pat McAfee accuses people 'inside ESPN' of trying to 'sabotage' his show, names high-profile name

ESPN's Pat McAfee has long accused a high-ranking ESN executive of sabotaging his YouTube show.

Speaking at the opening of the last hour of “The Pat McAfee Show” this Friday on YouTube, Senior Executive Vice President of Studio and Event Production Norby Williamson specifically pointed out.

Listen:

Full clip of Pat McAfee accusing ESPN head of events and studio production Norby Williamson of 'sabotage' pic.twitter.com/sMFpa0Qk7q

— Horrible Advertiser (@horribleadvertiser) January 5, 2024

“There are people actively trying to sabotage us from within ESPN,” he said. “More specifically, I think Norby Williamson is the guy trying to sabotage our program.”

“I'm not 100% sure, [but he] He's apparently the only human who has information, and then somehow that information gets leaked and it's wrong, and then it sets up a narrative of what our show is. And then we're just going to fight this with one rat at a time? added.

The statements were made a day after the New York Post published a column in which contributor Andrew Marchand argued that McAfee's allegedly poor ratings do not justify his flamboyant behavior and rhetoric.

“Since the start of McAfee's show on ESPN in the fall, Stephen A. Smith and 'First Take' are giving McAfee a lead of 583,000 viewers, with McAfee holding only 302,000, a drop of 48 percent,” Marchand wrote.

“Compared to the same window last year, which included 'SportsCenter,' McAfee is down 12 percent. On FS1, Colin Cowherd's show almost beat McAfee on some days and saw growth of 19 percent over last year to an average of 156,000 viewers,” he added.

But how did Marchand learn of McAfee's ratings, which weren't officially released until Friday, a day after the column was published?

The @PatMcAfeeShow on ESPN platforms experienced a strong December with 298 million total views across all platforms

LET'S GO GOOOOO ➡️ https://t.co/ntLypwrvCT pic.twitter.com/92VNIP6psO

— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) January 5, 2024

McAfee believes the answer lies in Williamson, who he suspects leaked his grades to Marchand to hurt him. His evidence is the fact that only top executives at CNN would know the ratings in advance.

“Someone tried to preempt the release of the actual ratings with wrong numbers 12 hours earlier,” McAfee continued Friday. “This is an attempted sabotage and it's been going on basically all season, some people who didn't necessarily like the addition of The Pat McAfee Show to the ESPN family.”

He also claimed that he and Williamson have “zero respect” for each other, partly due to a no-show Williamson committed in 2018.

“That man left me in his office for 45 minutes, he didn't introduce me to 2018,” McAfee explained. “So that guy has had no respect for me, and no respect for me in return, for a long time.”

Concluding his remarks, ESPN's talking head said that despite the drama, his show is growing.

“So we're very grateful,” he said. “I think we're doing well. We're trying to do as well as possible. We have good intentions every time we come in here. We don't always do well, but they've been wrong in that specific area for a long time. A long time. “

“We are having a good time. We're lucky to do that, obviously. Sports are amazing. They are supposed to be unified. If you look at our demo, I think we're one of the most united shows that's ever been allowed on television from political and religious backgrounds. These ratings are stupid, who knows what they really mean, but we are grateful that so many people watch our show,” he added.

According to AwfulAnnouncing, “many” had previously warned McAfee about potential saboteurs like Williamson, including Dan Le Batard, formerly of ESPN:

Huge congratulations from the bottom of my heart @PatMcAfeeShow. Don't let anyone change you, Pat. Or how you dress. Or how you curse. Or how you get it. Or how you do Or how you do your show. You did the hardest thing, in your own way. You have built a beast. Don't let anyone tame it. — https://t.co/dweJk7oOCA

— Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz (@LeBatardShow) May 16, 2023

The tweet seen above was posted a month after Le Batard said it Sports Illustrated's Jimmy Traina who had left the network because “things have slowed down” and he was too “confined”.

“There were things that were reduced there and we were confined there in ways that I was not comfortable with,” he had said. “There wasn't enough freedom there. I've never traded money, I've never traded power. I've traded freedom to do what I want, and so in the end, there wasn't enough freedom.”

“But just before that, there was something that involved the moderation of a Joe Biden [event] in Miami with Cubans from Florida that I wanted to do as a reporter, just as a moderator. There were a lot of things that were going to come up politically that would one way or another probably if it wasn't unsustainable for me, then unsustainable for them because I wouldn't stay quiet for the last two years of what's happened. It happened in America only because for some reason someone wanted me to talk about Francisco Lindor.

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V. Saxena is a BizPac Review staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University.

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