Pat McAfee's five-year ESPN contract reportedly worth $85M

Pat McAfee, the NFL punter turned sports provocative podcaster, will receive $85 million for his new deal with ESPN.

That’s according to the New York Post’s Andrew Marchand, who covers sports media for the site. The 36-year-old McAfee starts full-time with ESPN this fall. He’ll continue to be part of ESPN’s College Football GameDay traveling road show. Plus, The Pat McAfee Show will air on week days, running on the main ESPN channel. The show also will appear on the network’s free YouTube channel and on ESPN+, the network’s streaming service.

McAfee declined to confirm the contract details to the Post. Via DM, McAfee wrote “Interesting number. I don’t talk about the business side of it all, the actual numbers and such.”

On paper, it appears McAfee took a pay cut. His podcast was in the middle of a sponsorship with Fan Duel. That endorsement deal reportedly was worth $120 million over five years.

In paying McAfee about $17 million a year, ESPN receives 230 fully produced shows a year. The network can, in turn, sell advertising spots for the show. The network believes that McAfee’s show, which likely will run between 2 and 3 p.m. Eastern, will draw more viewers than SportsCenter and “This Just In,” hosted by Max Kellerman in those slots.

ESPN signed Pat McAfee to deal similar to Peyton Manning’s

The Post reported that Pat McAfee received a similar deal to what ESPN negotiated with Peyton Manning. The former star quarterback, along with his younger brother Eli Manning, hosts a popular simulcast of Monday Night Football during the fall. Manning’s Omaha Productions produces the simulcast along with the show “Peyton’s Places.”

Pat McAfee has developed a strong relationship with Jimmy Pitaro. Disney CEO Bob Iger also helped woo McAfee to the all sports network. They both promised that they wanted McAfee to do the same show on ESPN as the one he did on his own YouTube channel.

In another DM exchange with the Post, Pat McAfee wrote: “I will be paying my people and we will be producing the show fully.” He added that ESPN “will be handling a lot more of the backend stuff, while also providing a platform that is incomparable linear wise with a network of talent that is deep and awesome.

“Their production assets, league rights capabilities, and access to everything in the sports world makes us incredibly pumped about the possibilities,” McAfee wrote. “And (we) can’t wait to get started this fall. Jimmy and I had a lot of great convos (through) this whole process.. some zooms, calls (WHADD), texts (WHADD), emails (WHADD). it was a cool couple of months negotiation phase involving a lot of different factors.”