Former pro-football player Pat McAfee might have been butting heads with the higher-ups at ESPN, but no amount of office politics justified what ESPN did when airing McAfee’s interview with WNBA star and guard for the Indiana Fever, Caitlin Clark, on Wednesday.
As shared on the social media platform X by Awful Announcing, while on the YouTube version of “The Pat McAfee Show,” Clark was given plenty of time and space to answer questions, on ESPN’s broadcast, it was quite a different story.
ESPN just went to a commercial in the middle of one of Caitlin Clark’s answers on ‘The Pat McAfee Show.’ pic.twitter.com/IiGvkEuhGw
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) April 17, 2024
In the clip shared to X, Clark was responding to a question from McAfee and his co-hosts.
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She said, “Yeah, there will definitely be some be some learning curves and some challenges, but also … I think my passing translates, and like, people always want to talk about the logo of threes, the scoring and whatever …”
While on YouTube, viewers were able to hear her finish her thought, on ESPN’s broadcast of the show, she was cut off mid-sentence with a commercial for Dot’s Pretzels.
And fans, of the show — and ESPN in general — were not thrilled.
Do you watch Pat McAfee?
One user on X vented his frustration, saying, “They do this every single show because Pat let’s it go full on YouTube and doesn’t really care as much about linear television rules that are outdated and too predicated on people thinking it’s 1980 need to tune it at this exact second to see it.”
They do this every single show because Pat let’s it go full on YouTube and doesn’t really care as much about linear television rules that are outdated and too predicated on people thinking it’s 1980 need to tune it at this exact second to see it
— NBA Slime (@TerryFranconia) April 17, 2024
Another joked that “This is why the real ones watch the YouTube stream,” while another concurred, saying, “That’s why we watch on YouTube.”
This is why the real ones watch the YouTube stream lol
— Cubsfan004🌽🌽 (@Cubsfan004) April 17, 2024
That’s why we watch on YouTube
— Sean McKillip 🧅⚾️ (@SeanMcKillip) April 17, 2024
And it was indeed perplexing.
How did ESPN let this happen? Was it just some poor underpaid producer doing what he was told, or was it a motivated sabotage?
After all, as reported by The Athletic back in January, McAfee had accused an ESPN executive of doing just that while live on the air, though that time it was for reporting false viewership information.
Sports news site The Spun likewise expressed similar astonishment as the good folks of X.
They noted that, considering Clark’s current star power as perhaps one of the most visible members of the WNBA ever, they should’ve been trying to maximize viewership of the interview.
Standard TV might be different from YouTube, but could they not avoid putting the ad right in the middle of one of Clark’s responses?
It has been difficult to say whether McAfee’s show has been specifically targeted by ESPN, and, if so, how much, but incidents like these have not helped that perception.
McAfee has drawn in a huge viewership for ESPN, regardless of whether or not the executives like him, and for that reason, his show deserved to be respected.
The need for ad revenue has always been more or less understandable, but putting an ad in the middle of a prominent guest speaking?
They’ve only pushed more people to watch the show on YouTube.
If ESPN were trying to bring viewers back to their more traditional channels, they sure have a strange way of going about it.
