Pat McAfee Angers Longtime ESPN Reporter By Taking Shots At Sports Journalists On His Show

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Pat McAfee appears to be ruffling some feathers at ESPN.

On Wednesday, McAfee met with reporters at ESPN’s Media Day in Bristol, Connecticut.

During one of the sessions, McAfee pushed back when the panel asked about journalistic standards in sports media.

Via Awful Announcing

“Sports media has never been wrong before? Did we have doctors on set during all of COVID on ESPN? How did that all go? So whenever you talk about these journalistic standards, was that at journalism school…we break news I think every other day on our show that would be nowhere else. Is that journalism, getting people to open up and chit-chat and talk and expand about who they are, is that journalism, interviewing people that never talked anywhere? Is that journalism?”

McAfee also blamed journalists for attacking his show in recent months.

“And just felt like there was kind of a calculated attack seemingly taking place on me and my show because of how different we are, because of the journalistic standards that we don’t adhere to. We have no journalism school people on staff. I did not do anything with an agent. I negotiated the deal myself. So those are two powerful groups that potentially were cut out of my operation completely….A lot of legitimate people I had a lot of respect for before this whole thing started kind of just made me look like a complete a–hole.”

On his show on Thursday, McAfee and his crew laughed at the idea of “journalist standards” in sports media.

Longtime ESPN reporter Ed Werder was not pleased with McAfee mocking sports journalists.