Pat McAfee accuses top ESPN exec Norby Williamson of trying to ‘sabotage’ show
If Pat McAfee is going to go down, he’s going down swinging.
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.”
Jemele Hill, a former ESPN staffer and current journalist for The Atlantic, wrote “I can relate” on X while re-sharing a video of McAfee’s comments.
Hill, who left the network in 2018, was notably suspended by ESPN the year prior after making remarks about Cowboys owner Jerry Jones’ national anthem stance.
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.
Norby Williamson is a longstanding high-ranking executive for ESPN. The Washington Post via Getty ImagesHe 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.
On his show, McAfee spoke about having had a poor experience with him prior to joining ESPN.
“We’ve heard them anonymously quoted in the Washington Post, New York Post, New York Times, LA Times, Wall Street Journal. They’re never like, ‘Love the show.’ It’s always little things to tear us down. So even with the enemy within our own camp, I don’t like that guy,” McAfee said.
Pat McAfee accused ESPN executive Norby Williamson of attempting to ‘sabotage’ his show. Pat McAfee Show“That guy left me in his office for 45 minutes no-showed me in 2018. So this guy has had zero respect for me, and in return same thing back to him for a long time, so even with that taking place … we’re still growing somehow. We’re very thankful. I think we’re doing it right. We’re trying to do it as right as possible. We have good intentions every single time we come in here. We don’t always get it right but motherfkers ave been getting it wrong for a long time in this specific field.”
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