The Pat McAfee Show is set to debut next week on the sat-caster’s Mad Dog Sports Radio. The show will expand by an hour and be heard from 10 AM until 1 PM on the East Coast. It adds more star power to the channel, but according to Outkick.com, everyone at the company isn’t exactly on board.
Outkick’s Bobby Burack writes that “there was pushback by at least one person employed by the channel that McAfee’s style didn’t fit with the lineup’s all sports content.” Certainly McAfee’s content is more off the wall and irreverent than Adam Schein or Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo’s, but it could be a strong follow up to The Morning Men.
There are costs to consider when adding a talent like McAfee. Putting his show in the weekday lineup means that Mad Dog Sports Radio will lose Steve Torre and Danny Kanell from its weekday lineup. Burack reports it could mean the same for Nick Wright.
Wright, who is seen in the mornings on FS1’s First Things First, hosts a two-hour show beginning at 6 pm on the East Coast for the channel. Burack reports that Wright has made it known that he wanted to move up in the lineup. There is no mention of when Wright’s contract with SiriusXM comes to an end or what alternative plans for him might be.
Several staffers at the channel objected to the lack of communication over the course of negotiations with McAfee. Whether or not hosts and producers should know the ins and outs of bringing in a new talent is debatable, but Burack’s report didn’t specify who was complaining about being left in the dark. If it were executives or programmers on the sports side of the operation, that would be more significant.
McAfee won’t be a SiriusXM employee. As he said on his show last month, SiriusXM is licensing the show, while he retains ownership. Burack reports that has lead to “a belief around the industry SiriusXM’s marriage with McAfee won’t last.”
The show has bounced around quite a bit in recent years. The radio version was initially distributed by Westwood One before being merged into the CBS Sports Radio lineup. DAZN carried a video simulcast of the show before it moved exclusively to YouTube.
In his announcement, McAfee noted that he had some trouble staying comfortable with FCC rules and regulations. Perhaps the freedom offered by SiriusXM is what he and his staff need to build stability and create a long term home for the show.
