Pat McAfee Offered To Cover Costs For The ‘College GameDay’ Crew When ESPN Tried To Make Budget Cuts

Taking care of his people.

Pat McAfee is a polarizing figure in the sports world. The old heads aren’t necessarily a fan of the College GameDay host’s loud, boisterous (and fun) way of covering sports, while younger fans realize that he brings a new energy to ESPN that was sorely needed.

Personally I think he’s one of the best things that’s happened to GameDay in a long time. I had kinda stopped watching as much there for a while, but now that McAfee has joined the panel alongside Kirk Herbstreit, Rece Davis, Desmond Howard, Nick Saban, and the soon-to-retire Lee Corso, it’s once again become must-watch television on Saturdays in the fall.

And I’m sure the crew on GameDay appreciates him too.

McAfee’s co-host Kirk Herbstreit recently joined comedian John Crist on an episode of his Net Positive podcast, where he gave a behind-the-scenes look at how McAfee is when the cameras aren’t rolling. And it made me respect him even more.

According to Herbstreit, ESPN was planning on cutting the budget for GameDay. Except the cuts they wanted to make were going to affect the hardworking crew behind the scenes – and McAfee wasn’t going to let that happen.

As Herbstreit recalls:

“I probably shouldn’t say this, but they were going to – you know, budget is always a big thing in our industry, and trying to cut back on certain things. And they made an announcement that they were going to cut back on this, and cut back on that. We were on a Zoom, and Pat was listening to that, and even I was listening to that like, ‘Why are they cutting back on that? That doesn’t make any sense.'”

And Pat decided to say, ‘Ok, if you’re going to cut back on that, I’ll cover that, I’ll cover that, because the crew, the people who run the show, they need to have that.’

So he’s like, ‘You guys are going to do your budget thing, I’m taking care of the crew.'”

Well apparently once Pat”s offer made its way up the chain of command, management at ESPN realized that it was a bad look to have their host footing the bill for things the network should be paying for anyway:

“Upper management heard that and they said, ‘Whoa whoa whoa, we don’t need Pat to cover that, we’ll take care of that.'”

Herbstreit had high praise for McAfee, who he says changed the dynamic of the show with management:

“I started in 1996, and talent, everybody was replaceable. It was like, always let the talent feel and know they’re replaceable. They don’t like it? See ya. There’s another guy in line that’s gonna take your job. And that’s kind of how I was raised in the company. I was just like, whatever they ask of me to do, I’m gonna do.

And then Pat comes in and it’s just a very, very… The way all these middle management guys have learned, all of a sudden Pat comes in and he…doesn’t play that game.”

Honestly I can’t say that any of this surprises me, but it’s encouraging that ESPN recognizes how important having dynamic on-air talent like McAfee is for the fans.

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