Pat McAfee Expertly Trolls NFL After League Hits His Show With Bizarre Ban

'Pat McAfee Show' Trolls NFL After Bizarre Logo Ban

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Plenty of NFL players have made the leap to broadcasting after hanging up their cleats, but it’s hard to think of a single person who’s navigated their retirement in a more masterful manner than Pat McAfee.

The former Indianapolis Colts punter has been hosting The Pat McAfee Show inside the studio at the veritable fantasy factory he constructed in Indy since 2018. Since then, he’s become an incredibly refreshing and candid alternative to the talking heads traditionally employed by ESPN and other outlets—many of whom routinely pop up on his program to let their hair down a bit (along with Aaron Rodgers, who has become its most noteworthy regular guest).

It didn’t take very long for The Pat McAfee Show to cement itself as one of the most entertaining options the sports media world has to offer, and it took a major step to cement its legitimacy over the summer when it inked a licensing deal with NFL Films to get the rights to use game highlights and other videos on the program.

However, things took a very interesting twist on Monday when McAfee teased certain changes were in the works after alluding to some sort of problem that would force them to resort to a “new style of covering” the NFL.

It didn’t take long to get some more insight into the issue—just like it didn’t take long for McAfee and the rest of his crew to spill some tea while doing some fantastic trolling in the process.

The NFL banned The Pat McAfee Show from using league logos and they had the perfect response

Shortly after Monday’s installment of The Pat McAfee Show kicked off, the eponymous host clarified what he was alluding to in the previous tweet by revealing, “We have been informed this morning that we are no longer allowed to use any [NFL] logos on any of our graphics”—which apparently includes the league’s logo, team logos, and the official branding for Monday Night Football and other weekday-related games.

It’s unclear what sparked the adjustment to a deal McAfee says cost the show over $4 million (he said the show is allowed to keep using highlights—but it’s not allowed to pause them at any point). With that said, it’s very clear they wasted no time coming up with an alternative solution by unveiling a logo for an organization they spent Monday referring to as the “Professional American Football League”

We were also treated to an entertaining segment where McAfee and his co-hosts jokingly scrambled to remove any items with an NFL-affiliated logo from the view of cameras in the studio along with a fantastic graphic promoting the showdown between a couple of football teams from the state of Ohio on this week’s installment of “Monday Evening Football.”

Well played.

Connor Toole avatar and headshot for BroBible
Connor Toole is the Deputy Editor at BroBible. He is a New England native who went to Boston College and currently resides in Brooklyn, NY. Frequently described as "freakishly tall," he once used his 6'10" frame to sneak in the NBA Draft and convince people he was a member of the Utah Jazz.