Pat McAfee says ESPN will not limit his choice of guests

There has been some backlash and a lot of questions since Pat McAfee made the decision to take his show to ESPN. One of the questions that has been asked is if McAfee will still be able to have his same guests on.

NFL insider Ian Rapoport appears regularly on McAfee’s show, but ESPN also has its own insider and a competitor of Rapoport’s in Adam Schefter.

According to McAfee, Rapoport will continue to appear on the show, and ESPN will not limit who appears on his show as a guest.

“Never been told that I can only have ESPN people on my show,” McAfee said on the SI Media with Jimmy Traina podcast. “That was never even broached by them or by us. Ian is a part of our crew. Like Ian Rapaport has been a part of our crew for a long time.”

While Rapaport will continue to appear on the Pat McAfee show, he expects Adam Schefter and others from ESPN to come on the show, too. But again, McAfee will continue to have his regular guests on as well.

“I do believe that we will certainly develop a relationship with [Adam] Schefter as well. And why wouldn’t we? Especially as a show that covers the NFL as we have,” McAfee said. “But our people will remain our people. That’s kind of how the entire thing is set up. But we are very open to meeting and mingling and hopefully putting over ESPN talent that they have on the roster.”

McAfee added that having help booking guests and having ESPN talent to turn to factored into his decision. At FanDuel, it was on McAfee to book all of his guests. That won’t be the case with ESPN.

“That was a big part of why we were going, as well, because I got sick of booking the show. I mean I’m booking the show, text messaging people every single morning,” McAfee said.

“I don’t like doing that. I hate doing that. I feel like I’m impeding on people’s time. … So us going to their network, and all of the incredibly talented people they have on staff and on payroll that are ready to come on the program — massive part of going to ESPN. So we are very excited to build relationships with people in the basketball world from ESPN, in the baseball world, in the college lacrosse world if we start talking about that. Like they have experts from all fields that we’re excited to have. But our people will remain our people, as well. We’re just trying to make the best possible show as we can.”