Pat McAfee Says ESPN’s Latest List is What Everyone Hates About ESPN

Stephen Douglas | Jul 16, 2024

McAfee on ESPN talking about an ESPN list. / ESPN

ESPN released the first half of a list ranking the top 100 professional athletes of the 21st Century on Monday. The timing was perfect to carry talk shows during one of the most barren annual parts of the sports calendar. Of course, not everyone was a fan, including ESPN's own Pat McAfee who called the list a "s--show" and "the epitome of everything that everybody hates about ESPN."

McAfee lit into the list on Tuesday's edition of The Pat McAfee Show, on the company's flagship station, while teasing an upcoming appearance from his ESPN colleague Dan Orlovsky.

Pat McAfee nukes ESPN's recent list of their Top 100 athletes of the 2000s... on ESPN!

"It is the epitome of everything that everybody hates about ESPN... what a shitshow." pic.twitter.com/VfYZjorEo3

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 16, 2024

"Dan Orlovsky, whose been on ESPN all morning have the same exact converation for the past three shows, will join us in six minutes," said McAfee. "And we'll probably just cook him and ESPN as a whole for all the sh-- they've been putting out from ESPN's people. Now, there is a top 100 list that is coming out from ESPN people and I'll tell you what. It is the epiotme of everything that everybody hates about ESPN. What they chose to do in ranking the top 100 athletes of like the 21st century. They only gave us like 50 to 100 yesterday. What a sh--show. What an absolutely terrible list. And we'll blame Dan Orlovsky for that."

Orlovsky may have had a ballot, but he certainly wasn't the only one to blame for this list. However, many people at ESPN probably were involved in its creation. The worth and merits of the list are debatable and they probably knew that there would be a mixed reaction as there is whenever anyone publishes a list on the Internet. However, they probably weren't expecting one of their highest-paid and highest-profile co-workers to trash it immediately.

Especially with the ESPN logo right there in the corner of the screen. For almost anyone else on the network, this would be out of bounds, but for McAfee, it's par for the course. All that matters is that he mentioned the list at all. It's like viral marketing where the people who made the product aren't aware they're going to be the butt of the joke, but the entire joke.