Keith Olbermann calls for ESPN to fire Pat McAfee over Canada, U.S. national anthem controversy

Former SportsCenter co-host Keith Olbermann was not amused by the recent comments from Pat McAfee regarding Canadians booing the United States national anthem. In fact, he believes that ESPN should take serious action against the analyst.

McAfee was working a WWE event in Toronto when he responded to the boos from the crowd while on air, calling Canada a “terrible country.” Although he seemed to be making the comments at least partially in jest, many Canadians and even some in the U.S. did not take it that way.

That includes Olbermann, who took to X, formerly Twitter to suggest that McAfee deserved to be fired.

“A lot of us tried to warn the new espn management that the day would come when this idiot would draw them into a permanent political controversy and they could either be subsumed by it, or fire him,” he wrote. “That day is today. Fire him.”

Olbermann has worked off and on at ESPN over the years and had a somewhat strained relationship with the network. He first started in 1992 on SportsCenter and was most recently on the program in 2020 before leaving that year to focus on political commentary.

After receiving some backlash for what he said, McAfee addressed his comments on Monday’s edition of The Pat McAfee Show on ESPN. He attempted to explain where he was coming from and seemed to double down on what he said in the process.

“You booed my country,” he said. “I heard from a lot of Canadians during the national anthem at the Rogers Centre. Overwhelming boo. Very loud boo. First reaction whenever the national anthem starts up there was for some of these Canadians to just start booing. My entire life, first reaction when someone boos the national anthem is, ‘f*** you.’

“…I’ve also moved out here to Indiana and got a chance to meet a lot of military members. I’ve been to bases. I know people that have been affected for fighting for our country that really see the national anthem as ‘This is our sh*t.’ So any time I’ve ever heard somebody boo our national anthem, my natural reaction is, ‘Let’s fight.’”

McAfee would later go on to explain that he understands where Canadians are coming from, and that he is aware there is a lot of unrest around the world at the moment. But he suggested that both sides should move on from the moment and try not to view everything through such a political lense.

“A lot of Canadians have told me, ‘Why don’t you do a little investigating on why we’re booing? Did you hear what your president said?’” McAfee explained. “OK, listen. I understand there’s political differences at the current moment between us and Canada. But I feel like any time I think of Canada, I don’t think of what Justin Trudeau does. I don’t think immediately of what Canada is doing in the political sphere. I think of the people of Canada.

“…So I understand now from the Canadians that they have a lot more passion for their country than I could have ever imagined. A lot of terrible things have been said about me and I understand it. You booed our country. I called your country terrible. Let’s shake hands. You said you didn’t boo every member of the United States or every citizen. Well, I didn’t say Canadians were terrible. I said your country was. So you booed us, I said you’re terrible. Let’s shake hands and move along.”