Marcellus Wiley is immensely impressed with the empire that Pat McAfee has been able to build.
In an appearance on the Athletes & Assets podcast, Wiley said it’s not a slight when he says that McAfee couldn’t get the opportunities on ESPN and FOX like he could originally. Now, McAfee has worked his butt off to become 10,000 times bigger than Wiley is.
“He was a great surfer who caught the biggest wave. The dude’s a talent beyond,” Wiley said particularly about how Pat was able to master utilizing social media to distribute content. “He should’ve been on ESPN but he wasn’t.”
Part of the McAfee story is that Pat did have some chances to commentate on college football games and appear on College GameDay on ESPN. But it just never blossomed into anything bigger at that time. Wiley said credit to McAfee for going and having the initiative to work on it on his own and eventually become a talent ESPN couldn’t turn down.
“Now they’re licensing and buying back the same guy they said no to,” Wiley said. “Now they got to pay a king’s ransom just to get him in the door.”
