ESPN has no shortage of recognizable personalities, but one sports media agent reportedly believes the network’s next era will be built around four names, and Stephen A. Smith is not among them.
Josh Pate, Pat McAfee Named Among ESPN’s ‘Future Faces’
OutKick’s Bobby Burack said a top sports media agent recently told him ESPN’s future core consists of Josh Pate, Pat McAfee, Laura Rutledge, and Peter Schrager. Burack shared the list while interviewing Pate, who is expanding his relationship with ESPN this college football season.
Burack, in a post on X, said, “Josh Pate is the biggest CFB host on the internet. He has a new TV show with ESPN. An agent told me he will be one of 4 future faces of ESPN. He wants to start a weather podcast. God is ‘omnipresent’ in his life.”
In another post, he added, “Josh Pate, Pat McAfee, Laura Rutledge, and Peter Schrager are the future faces of ESPN, per a top sports agent.”
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Pate did not fully embrace the idea that he already belonged with that group.
“Wow. That’s company that I don’t think I belong in,” Pate told Burack, before expressing admiration for Rutledge, Schrager, and McAfee. “I’ve got pretty big reverence professionally for everyone you just mentioned. I don’t know Peter as well. Laura Rutledge is a living, breathing angel.”
Pate reserved especially strong praise for McAfee. He compared McAfee’s impact on sports media to Steve Austin’s influence on professional wrestling, arguing that transcendent stars create opportunities and success for people around them rather than only for themselves.
The comparison comes as Pate takes on a larger television role. According to OutKick, he will co- host a new Friday college football program with Will Compton and Taylor Lewan, the hosts of “Bussin’ With the Boys.” The trio is expected to broadcast from a different college campus each Friday.
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Pate will also retain ownership of his media company and “Josh Pate’s College Football Show,” allowing him to maintain the independent operation that helped build his audience while adding a larger ESPN platform.
That model has obvious similarities to McAfee, whose independently produced “The Pat McAfee Show” airs across ESPN platforms while remaining its own media property.
Stephen A. Smith Left Off Agent’s ESPN Core
Perhaps the most noticeable omission from the agent’s four-person list is Stephen A. Smith, one of ESPN’s most recognizable personalities and the longtime centerpiece of “First Take.”
That does not mean ESPN has decided to move away from Smith. The list represents one unnamed sports media agent’s assessment, not an official network announcement. Still, it offers an intriguing look at how one industry insider views ESPN’s next generation of talent.
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PFN has previously covered the shifting balance of influence at ESPN, including former host Dan Le Batard’s belief that Smith has learned from McAfee’s approach to building an independent brand outside the network.
The four names also represent different areas of ESPN’s operation. McAfee brings a major daily digital presence, Rutledge is prominent across NFL coverage, Schrager has taken on NFL studio roles, and Pate arrives with an established college football audience built largely outside traditional television.
Pate’s addition may be the most revealing part of the list. ESPN is not simply developing another in-house personality; it is bringing a successful independent creator deeper into its programming without requiring him to surrender the brand he already built.
If that strategy continues, the network’s future may look increasingly different from the era in which one or two traditional studio stars dominated its identity.
