Pat McAfee’s ascent to the absolute peak of sports media is undeniably unprecedented. He is now part of Monday Night Football, with ESPN adding him to the Monday Night Countdown crew. However, according to Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, McAfee might never have reached these broadcasting heights without his early days at Barstool. 

“Well, we didn’t make McAfee, because McAfee was a punter and very talented,” Portnoy said on 98.5 The Sports Hub. “Would McAfee be what he is now without us? Probably not. I remember when we first talked to him, one of the first things he said, he’s like, ‘I want to be WWE champion.’ He’d never wrestled. He did that all on his own. He had this crazy ambition. But he also went to basically the school of Barstool. And we were a very good school at that time on how to use the internet, social media.

“I think he was right place, right time. Supremely talented. Like, we have tons of people who haven’t become McAfee. But he was the right guy to get the perfect education at the right time.” 

After retiring from the NFL at 29, McAfee officially joined Barstool Sports in 2017. But things fell apart in just 18 months, and the former punter stepped away after “being disrespected.”

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McAfee bet heavily on himself by launching his own independent media operation. It grew big enough for ESPN to pay attention, eventually hiring him in 2019. Six years later, he has become the face of the network. Along with hosting his eponymous show, which is licensed by the network now, McAfee is also a constant on College GameDay. And now, he is set to be part of Monday Night Countdown, joining figures like Jason Kelce.

“He’s a very like rah-rah Midwest down-to-earth guy,” Portnoy said about why McAfee has become so big in football media. “And for that, when you get put on like an ESPN, he was already building it, but that’s just so different at the time to kind of what they had.”

There are a good share of football fans that don’t like McAfee. He’s not one to dress up in a suit and maintain decorum. He’s the kind to take off his shirt and let some curse words slip, all for the sake of keeping his viewers entertained. Whatever the case is, he is one of the biggest crowd-pullers for the network, and it values him.

McAfee is also reportedly in talks to become ESPN’s richest employee, thanks to a potential extension that could give him more than $60 million per year. His current earnings are roughly $30 million per year, The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand wrote. With time, McAfee might also begin to have influence over things in the network.

Portnoy admitted that Barstool didn’t single-handedly create Pat McAfee. But it gave him the education and environment that pushed his natural talent to flourish.