With the announcement of the Pat McAfee show heading to ESPN, reports are now coming out that the Worldwide Leader in Sports will have to make room on the broadcast schedule and could be parting ways with Max Kellerman’s show “This Just In”. 

Pat McAfee IN, Max Kellerman OUT?

Kellerman, a proud member of the “Hot Take Era” of sports television premiered on the flagship ESPN channel with “This Just In” in September 2021, airing from 2-3 PM EST following his departure from the “First Take” morning show.

McAfee did say last week that his show would follow Mike Greenberg’s “Get Up” (8-10 AM EST) and Stephen A. Smith’s “First Take” (10-12 PM EST). 

The Pat McAfee Show would air live simultaneously on ESPN, ESPN’s YouTube Channel, the ESPN App, and ESPN+ streaming platform.

ESPN’s Projected New Weekday Block 

• Get Up
• First Take 
• SportsCenter
• McAfee 
• NBA Today
• NFL Live

Obviously, here at The Liberty Line we have been long supporters in ridding national television of “Hot Take” shows like Kellerman’s and any other program that simply just says outrageous shit to create stupid video clips to boost engagement on social media. 

ESPN should continue this massive overhaul with “New Age” media like McAfee and anyone else ushering in a new generation of sports coverage. 

The announcement of McAfee coming to ESPN happened while The Walt Disney Company announced they would be slashing 7,000 jobs worldwide and $5.5 billion in costs. 

Front Office Sports:

“ESPN is about to execute a second round of layoffs to comply with Disney chief executive officer Bob Iger’s demand to slash 7,000 jobs worldwide and $5.5 billion in costs. Among the early names emerging from this second round of cuts is Barry Blyn, vice president of sports research.”

“…Howie Schwab, the famed sports researcher who hosted “Stump the Schwab” on ESPN, hears from old colleagues that they are closely watching the growing salary gap between on-air stars like McAfee, Troy Ailkman (paid $18 million a year), Joe Buck ($15 million a year) and Stephen A. Smith ($15 million a year) and the rest of the company.”

“They’re are some people who are upset. The timing of it is curious. They’re paying Aikman, Buck, Stephen A. Smith, and McAfee. And then you’re going to lay people off? Kind of weird,” Schwab said. “Nothing against Pat McAfee. Obviously, he brings Aaron Rodgers to the table. He’s already there because he does ‘College GameDay.’ They’re looking to hit another home run. Meanwhile, their singles hitters are going to be fired.”

Yeah. While I can certainly understand while people are upset because of the timing, it’s really hard to put any type of anger or frustration on the shoulders of Pat McAfee and the rest of his crew. 

McAfee, a WVU alum like myself and someone who once dropped me on my head while doing a keg stand on Grant Street in Morgantown, WV has turned into a media powerhouse.

I also had the opportunity to intern with him during his stint at Barstool Sports when he first opened the Barstool Heartland/Indy office in Indianapolis. 

I didn’t move forward with that because I couldn’t move to Indy without any money in my pockets and now, McAfee is walking away from $150 MILLION with FanDuel to join ESPN which will almost certainly be an ungodly amount of money. 

As for me, I’m sitting here in North Philly slinging t-shirts (printing For The Brand shirts for McAfee btw) and bringing you articles of the upmost importance about freeing animals from the Philadelphia Zoo and data analytics on the squirrel-to-rat ratio in New York City. 

One of us made the right move here and if we’re being honest with each other, it wasn’t the guy named Drew Smith…yet. 

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