Much has been made of the Pat McAfee–Norby Williamson controversy at ESPN, but what does it say about the future of the network?
Simply by appearing as scheduled on his show Monday, Pat McAfee made a statement about the new state of affairs at ESPN. For as much talent has run through Bristol, Connecticut, over the past 45 years, ESPN has never shied away from putting even the biggest names in their proverbial place. From Keith Olbermann to Bill Simmons to Jemele Hill to Dan Le Batard, ESPN has jettisoned more rebellious talent than most networks will ever hire. It has suspended, it has demoted, it has leaked and leaked and leaked.
Of all the talent that has run afoul of the executives in Bristol over the years, none has done what Pat McAfee did on Friday afternoon, using the final hour of his radio program to publicly and brazenly lambaste Norby Williamson — a powerful executive with a lengthy and apparently growing list of enemies. As has been noted, criticizing a fellow ESPN employee (much less an executive) has been a cardinal sin in Bristol. Typically, such an act would be met with a suspension and then the ESPN playbook: a steady reduction in on-air presence until a parting of the ways becomes inevitable.
McAfee appears to be the exception, and inasmuch as that is true, he poses an existential threat to the rule of ESPN’s old guard. Not only was he on the air as normal Monday (i.e., no suspension) he stood firmly by his Friday comments: “There are certainly people we do not like — certainly — and they don’t like us, and that’s how it’s going to be. And I don’t take back anything that I said about said person.” He even contrasted Williamson (whom he did not name) with executives he likes, namely Burke Magnus, ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro and Disney CEO Bob Iger. His reward was hosting Stephen A. Smith for an extensive interview to open his show, which short of an actual executive appearing on-air beside him is as close as ESPN will get to a vote of confidence. When College Gameday began a few hours later, leading into what is annually ESPN’s most-watched game of the year, it was McAfee — not Kirk Herbstreit — who was given first crack at contextualizing the game.
ESPN has never hesitated to make clear that the talent is expendable, an arrogance that comes with the territory when business is booming. For the longest time, the company’s business model was borderline foolproof, benefiting from a cable bundle that allowed it to profit handsomely of people who never watched a second of live sports. That bubble has not completely burst, but the air has been steadily let out over the past decade. While ESPN is not going to go out of business anytime soon — to dash the hopes of its many detractors — the company is without question in a more vulnerable position than it is used to.
Whether or not McAfee’s daily show is yet bringing the kind of viewership that ESPN expected, he carries with him at least the potential of a new, younger audience (to say nothing of his impact on arguably the most important ESPN studio show, “College Gameday”). Perhaps eventually ESPN will realize that there are no gains to be had and cut ties, but three months into his tenure seems a bit soon.
Assuming that Williamson really did leak the ratings to Andrew Marchand of the New York Post — a suggestion that would explain more than a few ESPN-related New York Post scoops in the past few years — he showed his cards too early. Instead of sowing doubt about McAfee’s ESPN future, he was subjected to a barrage of on-air insults from an employee whose job security remains secure. It is as thorough a humbling as any sports TV executive has ever suffered.
It is also humbling for ESPN, a company that in the past tamed some of the biggest egos in sports broadcasting and — at least for the moment — has no recourse to rein in an employee who knows they need him more than he needs them. That may well change, but at least for now, McAfee knows he has more leverage in Bristol than any personality that came before him. One might suggest Stephen A. has a good deal of leverage, but for all of his on-air bombast he has never sought to test that theory on his bosses.
ESPN knew that SportsCenter could survive without “Dan and Keith,” that Simmons’ Grantland was a ‘nice to have’ and not a ‘need to have,’ that Hill, Le Batard and Michelle Beadle were liabilities at a time when the network’s detractors were portraying it as Berkeley circa 1968. It did not have to tolerate any rebelliousness then. Williamson in particular took down his fair share of recalcitrant ESPN personalities, sometimes appearing to relish the opportunity (“one down, one to go“).
On his show Monday, McAfee made an observation that aptly summarized the shifting state of play. Speaking of his relationship with ESPN, which he characterized as largely positive, he noted: “There is quite a transition era here between the old and the new. ‘And the old don’t like what the new be doing.’ … We all understand what the future looks like, there are just some old hags that potentially don’t.” Nobody at ESPN embodies the old guard more than Williamson.
McAfee may or may not be part of the future, but after the past three days it is eminently clear that Williamson will not be, at least not in the way he prefers. He may remain an executive in Bristol, he may even outlast McAfee, but the days of him undermining talent with impunity are over. (For one thing, nobody will ever read an ESPN scoop in the New York Post again without suspecting he was behind it.) ESPN’s future is talent that is bigger than the brand, unrepentant in their disregard for the old norms, and unafraid of the consequences. The future is most certainly not executives leaking to print reporters about how low the linear TV ratings are. Frankly, in a world where Skip Bayless is still being paid handsomely by Fox Sports to bring in five-figure audiences every morning, it is surprising that Williamson thought that would have any impact.
For an executive that has spent much of the past decade steering ESPN away from anything new and back toward the tried, trite and true, it is perhaps not a surprise that the strategy here was to leak Nielsen ratings data to a newspaper. That would have been an effective play in 1984, 1994 and 2004 (maybe even 2014). Times have changed, and even ESPN executives are no longer immune.
