Pat McAfee’s deal with ESPN is for five years and around $85 million, The Post has learned.
With the contract, beginning this fall, the next chapter of the “The Pat McAfee Show” will air on weekday sports television’s most powerful platforms. It will be on ESPN’s cable channel, on ESPN’s free YouTube channel and on its direct-to-consumer streaming service, ESPN+.
“Interesting number,” McAfee told The Post when asked about the contract over direct messages on Twitter. “I don’t talk about the business side of it all, the actual numbers and such.”
ESPN declined comment on the figures in the deal.
McAfee, 36, did detail why he and ESPN executives aligned and was asked why he walked away, not even midway through, his FanDuel sponsorship deal that was valued at a reported $120 million for four years. (He didn’t expound as much on that one.)
The around $17 million per year deal that ESPN signed with McAfee, includes his weekly spot as an analyst on the iconic “College Football GameDay” and keeping control over all aspects of his show, including if he wants to have guests like NFL Network insider, Ian Rapoport, on. (McAfee did agree to say the F-word less.)
With he and his wife just having a baby girl, McAfee wanted to lessen the headaches of running his business and will hand most of that behind-the-scenes busy work off to Bristol.
For its $17 million, ESPN will receive 230 fully produced shows a year that it can sell advertising against. It believes McAfee will rate better than SportsCenter and Max Kellerman’s “This Just In,” which currently air on ESPN in the 2-3 p.m. slot. (The network has not officially said what cable network McAfee will be on, but it is hard to imagine it won’t be the mothership, ESPN.)
Kellerman, who also co-hosts on ESPN Radio’s morning show, could be cut completely or have his salary sliced as ESPN trims from its on-air roster in the coming months and years.
Kellerman makes in the $5 million range, which ESPN could look at as just shifting that cash into McAfee. But McAfee is not just a straight-up contract for a personality to appear on TV.
The McAfee agreement is similar to Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions. Manning does his “Monday Night Football” cast with his brother, but is also the lead producer on the “Peyton’s Places,” series, among other things. Omaha Productions was just valued at $400 million during fundraising.
McAfee will be on GameDay and then “The Pat McAfee Show,” featuring McAfee, A.J. Hawk and friends, will be a McAfee production.
The athletes are now putting on the sports shows. And ESPN’s chairman, Jimmy Pitaro, is leading that charge.
McAfee has developed a strong relationship with Pitaro that combined with a visit with Disney CEO Bob Iger convinced him to join ESPN. ESPN wanted the same show McAfee has produced on YouTube and has no plans to change it.
“I will be paying my people and we will be producing the show fully,” McAfee said over DM. “[ESPN] will be handling a lot more of the backend stuff, while also providing a platform that is incomparable linear wise with a network of talent that is deep and awesome. Their production assets, league rights capabilities, and access to everything in the sports world makes us incredibly pumped about the possibilities and can’t wait to get started this fall. Jimmy and I had a lot of great convos thru this whole process.. some zooms, calls (WHADD), texts (WHADD), emails (WHADD). it was a cool couple of months negotiation phase involving a lot of different factors.
“Business obviously, creative, the future, previous situations for both of us, etc… Fun to hear his vision and listen to him. IMPRESSIVE executive. He’s always been a straight shooter with me, I’m thankful for his belief in me, and in us…”
In our DM, I responded, “I got one more (WHADD), ‘Why leave FanDuel?’
“FanDuel was our shows’ exclusive SportsBook partner,” McAfee said. “SeatGeek is our exclusive ticketing partner. 5 Hour energy is our exclusive energy shot partner.. etc… etc.. We were lucky to be a partner of theirs for a lot of GREAT times.. it was genuinely just to make our life easier behind the scenes. There’s still a chance we’ll be doing business with each other down the road. FD will always have success. A lot of GREAT folks there. I’m thankful for them.”
For its part, FanDuel won’t even address the McAfee situation. Not only did it fail to explain its view of how it dissolved, but it won’t even acknowledge that McAfee is gone.
After a spokesman for FanDuel said that no one at the sports gambling platform would be commenting, The Post asked if FanDuel still had an agreement with McAfee? The response was that, “FanDuel will not be commenting on McAfee.”
It is a sputtering end to what was initially viewed as a potentially game-changing deal in sports media and gambling.
Meanwhile, McAfee expressed genuine regret with the recent ESPN layoffs. The production deal he has inked with ESPN really doesn’t have anything to do with the 7,000 Disney jobs Iger ordered cut.
“We’re hoping that we can help ESPN be the most fantastic it has ever been in our next chapter,” McAfee said. “We’re taking A LOT of pride in being offered 10 hours a week on ESPN. I’m thinking there’s a chance we’ll have an effect on sports media as a whole. That’s cool to think about for a dude who wasn’t accepted into the NFL’s Broadcast Bootcamp on a few different occasions. Burke Magnus, the new President of Content, has been a cool guy to learn about. I like him as a human and he LOVES sports and everything that comes with them. Just like us… It’s gonna be sweet. Good luck with your column. Cheers man.”