Pat McAfee Claims ESPN Suit Is Trying To Sabotage His Show

Pat McAfee called out ESPN executive Norby Williamson by name in an explosive segment on Friday after The Post’s Andrew Marchand wrote a column opining that McAfee needs to get better TV ratings if his show is going to be a headache for ESPN in the wake of the Aaron Rodgers-Jimmy Kimmel dustup.

\On his show on Friday, McAfee spoke to co-host A.J. Hawk about how the show rates on various platforms and proceeded to go off on Williamson, ESPN’s Executive Editor and Head of Event and Studio Production and a member of company president Jimmy Pitaro’s inner circle.

“We’re very appreciative, and we understand that more people are watching this show than ever before. We’re very thankful for the ESPN folks for being very hospitable. Now, there are some people actively trying to sabotage us from within ESPN — more specifically, I believe, Norby Williamson is the guy who is attempting to sabotage our program,” McAfee said.

“Now, I’m not 100 percent sure. That is just seemingly the only human that has information, and then that information gets leaked, and it’s wrong, and it sets a narrative of what our show is.

“And then are we just gonna combat that from a rat every single time? Somebody tried to get ahead of our actual ratings release with wrong numbers 12 hours beforehand. That’s a sabotage attempt. It’s been happening this entire season from some people who didn’t necessarily love the old addition of ‘The Pat McAfee Show’ to the ESPN family. There’s a lot of those.”

Pat McAfee just called one of his ESPN bosses, Norby Williamson, a rat on air and said he was actively sabotaging the show. Get your popcorn! No doubt this is true, btw. Definitely some in ESPN attacking PM from inside: pic.twitter.com/TmztKuX4A5

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) January 5, 2024

Asked by The Post, an ESPN spokesperson did not have immediate comment to McAfee’s remarks.

Williamson is one of ESPN’s longest tenured employees, having joined the company in 1985. He is known for being a proponent of meat-and-potatoes sports talk, and has alternately butted heads with talents over the years who veer from that vision — Dan Le Batard’s executive producer Mike Ryan tweeted “Pat” with three clapping emojis after the segment on Friday afternoon — and had great relationships with ones who stick to it.