The Pat McAfee Show / X
On Monday, ESPN released its list of the top 100 athletes of the 21st century, i.e. since January 1, 2000.
On Tuesday, ESPN employee Pat McAfee absolutely roasted his employer for their list of the top 100 athletes of the 21st century.
This is the world we live in now, folks.
“Accounting only for athletic accomplishments since January 1, 2000, com utilized a panel of experts and ESPN’s renowned Stats & Information Group to rank the top 100 athletes across all sports,” ESPN wrote in a press release announcing the list. “More than 75,000 votes were cast by ESPN’s reporters, analysts, producers, editors, and experts around the globe to whittle the initial list of 400 athletes to 100.”
The first group of ESPN’s 100 athletes of the 21st century, numbers 100 to 76 were released on Monday, 75 to 51 came out on Tuesday, with the rest coming out each day this week until the top 25 is revealed on Thursday, June 18.
It’s a pointless exercise that is 100 percent guaranteed to make people angry, but they did it nonetheless.
“There is a top 100 list that’s coming out from ESPN people, and I’ll tell you what, it is the epitome of everything that everybody hates about ESPN,” Pat McAfee said about the list.
“What they chose to do in ranking the top 100 athletes from the 21st century, they only gave us like 50 to 100 yesterday; what a s— show. What an absolutely terrible list. And we’ll blame Dan Orlovsky for that.”
He didn’t, but he did join Orlovsky in roasting ESPN’s top 10 quarterbacks of 2024 list.
Pat McAfee nukes ESPN's recent list of their Top 100 athletes of the 2000s… on ESPN!
"It is the epitome of everything that everybody hates about ESPN… what a shitshow." pic.twitter.com/VfYZjorEo3
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 16, 2024
Listen, Pat McAfee isn’t wrong. The list is bad. But, again, it’s a pointless exercise that only serves to get people talking about ESPN.
For example, Adrian Beltre is ranked number 52 of all time ahead of Derek Jeter (53), Alex Ovechkin (54), Mariano Rivera (59), and Shohei Ohtani (61).
Also ranked below Adrian Beltre is Allyson Felix, Jon Jones, Phil Mickelson, Manny Pacquiao, Shaun White, Venus Williams, Annika Sorenstam, Aaron Rodgers, Pedro Martinez, Rory McIlroy, and Connor McDavid.
None of that makes any sense to the average fan. But, hey, we’re talking about ESPN aren’t we?