ESPN knew Pat McAfee would bend the rules. Then he blew them up.

By Ben Strauss, Washington Post Before they hired Pat McAfee, ESPN executives made a decision: They couldn’t change the YouTube star. The tank-top-wearing former punter would by definition need to be handled differently than anyone who had ever worked for the sports media giant. It was crucial, executives all the way up to Chairman Jimmy Pitaro thought, that McAfee help ESPN reestablish its cachet with younger sports fans.

So ESPN made concessions. They licensed McAfee’s show, which gave them less oversight of content; they allowed profanity; they blessed McAfee’s tank tops. Executives also discussed how they would deal with the fallout when McAfee inevitably said something that drew public scrutiny, including insulting a business partner like the NBA or NFL.

Some inside ESPN hoped to duplicate the sort of diplomatic immunity seemingly enjoyed by Charles Barkley, the face of TNT’s NBA coverage. McAfee, they thought, could eventually be like Barkley: loud and opinionated, but also granted a get-out-of-jail-free card to say things others couldn’t. The network knew there would be some growing pains – a few news cycles that would test those limits.

The past two weeks, though, went beyond anything the network troubleshooted. One of his paid guests, star quarterback Aaron Rodgers, made inferences about Jimmy Kimmel’s connection to the serial abuser Jeffrey Epstein. Rodgers returned to the show and – before launching into a 20-minute rant about vaccine efficacy.

McAfee, meanwhile, . In between, there were cryptic tweets from McAfee and a – whose late-night ABC show, like ESPN, is part of the Disney family – in which he called Rodgers “too arrogant to know how ignorant he is. ” ESPN’s and Disney’s top executives were silent through it all, but on Wednesday, McAfee announced Rodgers would not return to his show this season, and McAfee later issued a .

(Rodgers then made a brief football-focused appearance Thursday. ) “I certainly don’t love that I’ve found myself in political wars and public beefs because of something that a guest has said on our show or something that my dumb a– has said,” McAfee wrote. “I think what I’ve come to realize is that it’s gonna come with the territory of this venture.

We are much more aware of that now. ” The week-long episode was among the most fractious in the network’s history and has left plenty inside ESPN’s Bristol, Conn. , campus thinking both about McAfee’s future, the network’s, and whether his ascension – and defiance – signals a new era for the TV behemoth.

This story is based on interviews with nearly a dozen people in and around ESPN, including current and former employees and executives, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity, fearing professional repercussions. ESPN declined to comment. McAfee sits at the intersection of two fundamental questions for ESPN.

The first is as old as the network: whether its power lies in its platform or the talent. The second is whether it is possible for ESPN to be both a TV network and a cutting-edge digital and streaming platform. In one of his segments last week, McAfee lambasted an old guard at ESPN that he said is out to get his show, calling them “old hags.

” He named a particular executive, Norby Williamson, publicly accusing him of “sabotaging” the show by playing a role in about his flagging linear TV ratings. ESPN has a history of suspending talent who have spoken out against colleagues or the company, from Tony Kornheiser to Keith Olbermann to Bill Simmons. Williamson, a polarizing figure at ESPN, has never been shy about his belief that talent is subservient to the ESPN brand, and he famously clashed with stars Stuart Scott and Jemele Hill.

Last week, former ESPN host Dan Le Batard . Several years ago, Williamson : “The perception became that you could just roll a talent out there and it doesn’t matter what he or she is saying – that the content didn’t matter. I just never believed that.

” The current media landscape is more fractured, but the biggest stars at ESPN – most notably Stephen A. Smith – have been given higher and higher salaries, more latitude to pursue outside projects and to talk about whatever they want. Smith earns $12 million a year; McAfee is at $15 million with four and a half years left on the deal that began in the fall.

McAfee has gotten away with testing the limits, at least for now, because Pitaro and ESPN made an enormous bet on him. An ESPN executive with a digital background, Mike Foss, that the future of ESPN will be driven by people like McAfee. “As you turn to direct-to-consumer…it’s a personality-driven industry way more than a brand-driven industry,” he said.

Indeed, with cord-cutting eating into the company’s cable subscribers – and ending the decades-long gravy train that came with them – ESPN has spent the past several years orchestrating a pivot to its direct-to-consumer streaming platform, . TV is still where profits are, while a leaner digital future awaits. McAfee, whose greatest success has been as a YouTuber, is a piece of that strategy.

He, like ESPN, is trying to succeed on the internet and TV, where audiences and successful content don’t look the same and it’s difficult to master both mediums. Consider Williamson and Foss. “Let’s not overthink ‘SportsCenter.

’ The goal is to get more people to watch today than watched yesterday,” Williamson once told his staff, as quoted in that Post story from 2018. Foss, meanwhile, told The Post last week that the whole conception of success for a studio show is going to change because of streaming: “Mitigating churn is going to be the key,” he said. “People coming to ESPN-Plus for a live event and then keeping that subscription because of the other things available to them, like Stephen A.

[Smith], [Mike] Greenberg and McAfee. ” McAfee will likely offer some glimpse into ESPN’s evolution, whether he remains at the network or not, and his colleagues will be watching closely. Some staffers this week wondered if the company’s muted response stemmed from a fear of the culture wars – not wanting to get called “too woke” by Florida Gov.

Ron DeSantis (R). Others wondered how ESPN might ever discipline a talent again like it once did Simmons and Olbermann. Others wondered why McAfee couldn’t just appear on YouTube and ESPN-Plus.

Still others, more sympathetic to McAfee, thought Rodgers had taken advantage of the segments. (One executive said they would have tried for an opt-out in McAfee’s contract, given his history and the length. ESPN declined to comment on whether there is any such clause in McAfee’s deal.

) Olbermann, the former “SportsCenter” anchor who now hosts the “Countdown” podcast, wondered if McAfee cared at all about ESPN. “I do not begrudge Pat McAfee his success, and I don’t dare to criticize his style that got him here,” Olbermann said. “But I don’t think he gives a damn about ESPN as an institution or what it has to maintain to be as successful as it is now, much less stave off the deterioration of cable.

If that wasn’t obvious beforehand, it was obvious this week. ” But plenty of people around the industry also agreed that if it’s an ignominious moment for ESPN, it’s also dangerous for McAfee. He has worked for a number of media outlets in his brief career, some with their own contentious exits, and even if ESPN is less than it once was there is still no other platform that offers the same visibility and money.

“The network always outlasts the talent,” Olbermann said. Be civil. Be kind.

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