I am not really sure why anyone was surprised that The Pat McAfee Show is paying major guests to appear. You may be surprised at the amount of money being paid but the fact money is being paid is nothing new at all.
Shows have been paying guests to appear for years. If you don’t like that trend in sports talk, I’m afraid I have some very bad news for you. The train has left the station, the ship has sailed; whatever saying you want to use, guests are getting paid and that toothpaste isn’t getting back in the tube.
College sports is the new frontier for the “pay for appearance” movement. The legalization by the NCAA for players to capitalize on their name, image, and likeness has created a brand new avenue of income generation for players; weekly interview appearances.
In full disclosure; my show, The Next Round, has done more than a dozen of these deals in our 26 months of existence. The deals have been a big success for us. That said, I am not sure how easy they would be to execute in the world of large corporate media. We make our own decisions and that has given us the flexibility to work the deals without corporate suits signing off on them.
If you like having any sort of regular interviews with prominent college players, you best embrace the “pay-for-play” model. I am not the one saying that, I am told that by multiple people who have worked decades in major athletics communications departments. To a person, they will tell you their current job construct would have been nearly unrecognizable just five years ago. Players have now tasted the sweet flavors of name, image, and likeness and are eager to make it work for them in as many areas as possible, interviews are just one of those.
Even worse news for sports shows, it has likely impacted your local big-name coach as well. I spoke recently with the head of an athletics communications department that handles the media obligations for a notoriously media-friendly coach, the type that never says no. Or, should I have said; the type of coach that never used to say no. This coach is now stretched too thin to be as media-friendly as he once was.
What has changed? Two things: name, image, and likeness and the transfer portal. Those two terms are profanities to some old-school college fans, they are also profanities to many coaches. More than profanities, they are also realities about major college athletics.
Here’s the issue for your show and the coach who is having to juggle those responsibilities: the school is leaning on him to do more and more for their media productions because it is funding his program’s NIL collective. Where his schedule once had some time carved out for the sports show that he shares a state of residence with, that window is now full with the production of a video that now goes behind the athletic department’s subscription wall. Players are now looking at interviews through the prism of “How can I make something from this?” Many coaches are now looking at their interviews through the prism of “How can I use this to raise money?”
It is unlikely a player the stature of Aaron Rodgers would have appeared regularly with any show — much less his friend Pat McAfee — for anything less than a significant sum of money and Rodgers wasn’t a product of the NIL era. What do you think the future will be like when these new professional players have lived their college lives being paid for appearances? When the word “professional” is next to their name and their team is in a top 20 media market, their head will be filled with dollar signs.
Back to that athletics media relations director for the once media-friendly coach, that coach does fewer interviews than ever. His previous interview blocks are now gobbled up by the athletic department-backed media team and his recruiting load has increased thanks to the volatility created by the transfer portal.
On top of all that, the premier players in that program now resist participation in the regularly scheduled media availability for a simple reason, they get paid to do most everything else.
It is a different world out there now. I know many of you reading this can’t imagine having to pay a college athlete just to come on your show. I know many more would have no problem with it but the major corporation you work for would never budget for that.
Either way, it is the reality facing us now. If you want to play the game, pay the man.
Ryan Brown is a columnist for Barrett Sports Media, and a co-host of the popular sports audio/video show ‘The Next Round’ formerly known as JOX Roundtable, which previously aired on WJOX in Birmingham. You can find him on Twitter @RyanBrownLive and follow his show @NextRoundLive.
