Is Pat McAfee really going to make $85 million from ESPN? He won’t say. What he did say on his show on Wednesday is that was the one question Andrew Marchand asked him that he declined to answer.
“He asked me he’s ‘hearing that that’s the number. Can you confirm?’” McAfee told his audience. “And I said, ‘Interesting number. I’ll never talk about the actual numbers. Not my thing. But I do appreciate your interest in our show.’ And then I went on to answer all of his other things. Then the headline is ‘Confirmed!’.”
Marchand reported that McAfee will be getting $85 million from the network in a five year deal. There has been plenty of hand-wringing about ESPN hiring McAfee while the network is in the midst of layoffs as part of the Walt Disney Company’s effort to reduce costs by slashing 7000 positions across the company.
“This is interesting, though that this has become a focal point of the conversation around our business,” Pat McAfee said. “But it is also a focal point around my negotiation abilities and my business sense and my business smarts. So like when 10 million was talked about, I was like, ‘Alright, little disrespectful. Little disrespectful here.’”
He understands the morbid curiosity. That doesn’t mean he is going to make it easy for anyone trying to get answers.
“It’s not my job to tell people what we’re making. No, it’s our job to earn more than what we are getting paid, so we can be good business partners. And when you’re good business partners with people, guess what happens with the next one? It’s bigger.”
