Pat McAfee Officially Signs With ESPN For Reported $10 Million A Year, Leaves $120M FanDuel Deal

Pat McAfee and The Pat McAfee Show are heading full-time to ESPN.

The former Colts punter-turned-sports media star confirmed the rumored announcement Tuesday that will see ESPN paying him a reported $10 million a year. He leaves behind a $120 million deal with FanDuel.

"THE SHOW WILL STILL BE OUR SHOW WITH A BIT MORE REACH"

McAfee began his announcement answering many criticisms from his fans that the show would be different if he suddenly went to the Disney-owned ESPN.

"We aint changing a thing," McAfee proudly boasted before mentioning that it is important for the show to remain the same because that was what helped build it in the first place.

The show will air on ESPN, ESPN+ and ESPN's YouTube page simultaneously and will air Monday-Friday beginning at noon eastern.

McAfee added that the only thing they agreed to was to say the word "F***" a lot less, but not cut it out of the show personalities vocabulary entirely.

"We will still have full creative control," McAfee added. "Why would ESPN want to license our show and then change it... that would make no sense."

Well to be fair Pat, many executives say whatever they can in order to acquire talent, businesses and brands only to eventually put their name on them and change them (and many times ruin the acquisition completely.)

WILL FANS SWITCH OVER?

As I wrote last week, it is definitely an interesting move that McAfee decided to go to ESPN.

As someone who has followed him since his early Indianapolis comedy days and going to Barstool, SiriusXM and most recently FanDuel, the show's premise doesn't line up with the ESPN culture.

What is some of that culture?

Getting offended when an ESPN personality called Lizzo fat. If ESPN and viewers were upset about that, they are going to have a lot more to worry about with the new show. McAfee doesn't say anything really ever hateful, but the show's identity is based around that kind of "guys at the bar" humor.

For ESPN, the move makes complete sense. The network is desperate for generating some sort of ratings and McAfee can easily bring that in as well as the highly coveted 18-35 market. The timing is a bit strange however, as ESPN is currently in a previously announced layoff period.

Ultimately it all comes down to if ESPN actually follows through with everything they promised him and allow him to still in fact be... Pat McAfee.