ESPN’s polarizing analyst Pat McAfee has been one of the most talked-about personalities in sports this month. McAfee continued to be the punching bag of the sports world when Tuesday’s segment of his show interrupted a visual tribute to ESPN founder Bill Rasmussen at the end of the “First Take” show.
Pat McAfee Explains Bill Rasmussen Tribute Controversy
During Wednesday’s segment of “The Pat McAfee Show,” he explained that Rasmussen’s interrupted tribute was not his fault.
“What happened at the beginning of the show was called TV magic,” McAfee said. “Somehow one linear channel can have something live in New York City … and then somehow, this Thunderdome out in the middle of Indianapolis, Indiana can somehow just kinda go on at the same time. There’s like a little bit of a snap of a finger and it happens.
“So what happens there from a technical standpoint of on-air television is there’s a hard out. And there’s actually a countdown to the hard out. This has been happening since the beginning of time, I do believe.”
“Like, the next show, they don’t even hear the countdown at the other place. They don’t even know those people at the other place,” McAfee added. “We’ve missed some hard outs in the past, I think many people have, but it’s always on us. It is not on the next people. So you can certainly utilize it as a situation to call me a piece of (expletive) again, but I don’t think I had anything to do with it.”
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On Wednesday, ESPN announced that McAfee had been added to the cast of the popular “Monday Night Countdown” show, continuing the analyst’s takeover of the network. He is also reportedly in talks with ESPN to sign a mammoth $60 million-a-year deal.
McAfee earned two Pro Bowl nods and a first-team All-Pro selection during his NFL career before switching to analysis. The former West Virginia Mountaineers star made his college football and NFL broadcasting debut for Fox Sports in 2018.
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He joined ESPN as a color analyst on the “Thursday Night College Football” show in 2019. McAfee has gone from strength to strength at ESPN, serving as a full-time analyst on the “College GameDay” show and making regular appearances on the “Get Up” show.
Away from analysis, McAfee also released his debut album, “The Diary of a Polarizing Figure,” which received mixed reviews from fans. The former Indianapolis Colts punter has become one of the most divisive figures in the country after accompanying President Donald Trump to the Patriot Games at SPIRE Academy in Ohio last week.
