“I feel like that was a shot,” Pat McAfee said on last Tuesday’s The Pat McAfee Show when weekly guest Aaron Rodgers didn’t like the apparently formal line of questioning directed at him regarding the Green Bay Packers’ 28-19 win over the Chicago Bears in Week 13.
“You’re really becoming a media personality there, Pat,” said Rodgers. “All that work on GameDay is paying off for you.”
Snarky comment aside, McAfee did blitz Rodgers with several questions at once. But he also acknowledged making up for lost time since the quarterback didn’t appear last week because Green Bay was on a bye. But mostly, McAfee alluded to the quarterback having 24 wins versus the Bears (with the Packers earning 104 victories in that rivalry).
Also, Rodgers made a comment which implied that he might not be playing much longer. Perhaps that’s the line of questioning he bristled at because he’s under contract for two more seasons and is 39 years old. So no, Rodgers probably doesn’t have many more match-ups against the Bears in his career.
McAfee’s questions were the sort he would probably expect from a reporter or columnist covering the Packers and NFL during a press conference or locker-room interview. Rodgers presumably considers The Pat McAfee Show a safe space where he can go to talk about things other than football, like “seeing the other side” while tripping on Ayahuasca. He feels profound in a relaxed setting.
Suddenly, the interview felt transactional, like the sort of business Rodgers would conduct with… the media. Rodgers was at work, not hanging out with buddies. So for a brief moment, he nudged McAfee (with a sharp elbow) under the wide umbrella that he and many others use to define the press. And based on his reaction, McAfee appeared to dislike being categorized with that narrow definition. Maybe he doesn’t think of himself as media.
That poses an intriguing question. Pat McAfee is certainly a part of sports media. The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch just named him the Sports Media Person of the Year. Andrew Marchand of the New York Post ranked McAfee No. 9 on his list of the 25 most powerful people in sports media.
Yet is McAfee “media” as Rodgers meant it, an oppositional presence that needs to be dealt with as part of being a professional football player? Rodgers was quick to move McAfee to the other side of the line once he began asking football questions, about coming off a bye week and Green Bay’s chances of making the playoffs with a 6-8 record and three games remaining. Hey, what happened to the questions about fearing death, man… ?
Or is McAfee more of an entertainer than what many of us would consider an analyst or commentator? Rodgers himself called McAfee a “media personality,” which is closer to the truth than perhaps he intended. McAfee is unquestionably a personality. Deitsch said as much in his introduction to that Sports Media Person of the Year column.
“He backflipped into the Tennessee River in Knoxville. He grappled with Vince McMahon and Steve Austin at WrestleMania 38 in Dallas,” wrote Deitsch. “He hosted his eponymous daily YouTube show from Indianapolis. If it seemed that Pat McAfee was everywhere in 2022, it’s because he pretty much was. The rising star is The Athletic’s Sports Media Person of the Year.”
The discussion should end with that backflip into the Tennessee River during ESPN College GameDay, right? (Maybe the line should be drawn at the orange bucket hat and checkered overalls too.) Would Rece Davis do that? Joel Klatt? What about an insider like Adrian Wojnarowski or Jeff Passan? (OK, don’t put it past Adam Schefter. Or his Monday NFL Countdown colleague, Robert Griffin III.)
Check out the gold jacket McAfee wore while broadcasting Saturday’s Las Vegas Bowl with Dave Pasch and Kirk Herbstreit. It was the perfect accompaniment to a bowl game in a glitzy locale known for Elvis impersonators, just the right dose alongside more “serious” football broadcasters. (Those three, along with Laura Rutledge, were an extremely entertaining crew, by the way. ESPN should consider using that quartet on more game broadcasts, college or pro.)
“If you’re gonna have me call a game in Vegas, I’m gonna look like an ass,” McAfee said to Rutledge right before kickoff. He did what fans expected of him. McAfee rose to the occasion. And it was wonderfully entertaining, along with the levity he brought to the broadcast.
Would diehard football fans want McAfee on a “serious” broadcast like a College Football Playoff or NFL playoff game? Most likely not. At least on the main broadcast. Though the guess here is that McAfee would know that goofy antics and boisterous commentary aren’t appropriate in a setting with something at stake. But a Dec. 17 college football game in Las Vegas between Oregon State and Florida? Let McAfee be McAfee!
That’s exactly what ESPN is doing. Football fans have a greater taste for alternate broadcasts now and McAfee will be the top other option as part of the network’s MegaCast coverage for the College Football Playoff semifinals. Field Pass with The Pat McAfee Show will feature McAfee broadcasting from the sidelines at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium while A.J. Hawk and Darius Butler host a rotating cast of ESPN analysts, former and current players, and celebrities during the broadcast.
Just in case it wasn’t clear, ESPN putting “The Pat McAfee Show” in the title of its top College Football Playoff alternate telecast (and previous college football broadcasts) confirms that McAfee is a brand. He’s become a media industry himself with his daily show on YouTube and accompanying podcasts, his analyst gig on College GameDay, and broadcasting WWE SmackDown (to which he’s expected to return once college football season ends)
Rodgers clearly meant it as a slap when he referred to McAfee as a “media personality.” But should he really have taken offense? No, McAfee isn’t “media” if the strict definition is a host like Ernie Johnson or a reporter such as Tom Rinaldi.
But “media” is a much broader category including personalities like Charles Barkley and Stephen A. Smith. (We can probably include someone like Joe Buck in there too.) And McAfee fits in comfortably. He’s not a journalist (which is presumably what Rodgers meant). But no one wants or expects him to be, even when he asks fair questions that his audience is also probably wondering. There’s room for plenty under that media umbrella.
Ian Casselberry is a sports media columnist for BSM. He has previously written and edited for Awful Announcing, The Comeback, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, MLive, Bleacher Report, and SB Nation. You can find him on Twitter @iancass or reach him by email at iancass@gmail.com.
