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Dan Patrick Weighs in on Pat McAfee Backlash, Aaron Rodgers Interviews

Also in ‘Traina Thoughts’: Charles Barkley plays his favorite game; sports take centerstage on ‘Jeopardy!’; Victor Wembanyama gets big ratings; and more.

Jimmy Traina

1. Pat McAfee has been in the spotlight for a while now, but things have gone to another level since he recently joined ESPN.

There was a survey by The Athletic about McAfee’s work on College GameDay, which McAfee addressed by casting doubt on his GameDay future.

There was also a recent New York Post article that revealed McAfee has been paying Aaron Rodgers for his weekly interviews.

Given his stature in sports media and talk radio and his history at ESPN, I asked Dan Patrick what he made of the McAfee backlash on the latest episode of SI Media With Jimmy Traina.

“I know a lot of what happened with Pat was he was an underdog when he started out, then all of a sudden gaining success and then more success and then he was doing wrestling,” says Patrick. 

“He was doing everything he needed to do to build his brand and then he left and went to ESPN. ESPN had just let people go, and Oh, my gosh, they’re paying him that that amount of money.

“So there’s backlash maybe there and I don’t know what kind of it dripped over into College GameDay because, let’s face it, with Coach Corso, how long is he going to be there on the set, and they’re looking for somebody who has a dynamic personality. Herby and Desmond don’t have that dynamic personality. They’re football guys. 

“Rece Davis does an incredible job as a host. So what is that entertainment value? Who’s going to be that guy? And sometimes you may consciously or subconsciously not realize you’re trying too hard. I don’t know if people have a backlash because they may feel like Pat’s trying to be the villain or trying to be the agitator. I find him incredibly smart. I find him interesting. He’s funny. He has changed the whole dynamic with this. But as far who likes him or doesn’t like him, I grew up in the era of Howard Cosell and 50% loved him and 50% hated him, but 100% were tuning in for him."

What does Patrick make of McAfee paying Rodgers to be on his show each Tuesday for a lengthy interview? 

“There are a lot of local radio shows that do this,” says Patrick. "A lot of big-time radio shows who pay people money to show up. Are you a journalist or not? Pat’s not a journalist. He’s an entertainer. I do think that journalism is really with small letters now. I don’t think there’s a lot of people who aspire to be journalists anymore. Bob Ley may be the last true journalist in this business, or Jeremy Schaap. 

“I don’t know if people think that you can make a great living by being a journalist. You gotta be an entertainer. You gotta get clicks. So it’s exploded. Whatever Pat’s approach is to entertainment and you want to pay somebody to come on, fine. I’m not tuning in for journalism with Pat. I’m tuning in for entertainment. And if he wants to have Aaron Rodgers on and Aaron Rodgers wants to say whatever he wants to say, that’s Pat show and Pat’s audience, and ESPN has to answer for that.

“Me? It doesn’t matter. I haven’t been there in 17 years.”

What about the criticism that McAfee doesn’t push back on Rodgers when the Jets quarterback makes controversial claims?

“I don’t want to program anybody’s show, Jimmy, because it’s his show,” says Patrick. “It’s his interpretation. He’s not programming mine. You may be critical of how I do it, or I don’t have hot takes. That’s fine. This is how I want to do it. This is who I am, and that’s who Pat is.

“Would I like to see him push back? Yeah. If Aaron was on my show, would there be pushback? Yeah. But I was brought up in a different era. I’m 30 years older than Pat McAfee. I came in at CNN doing things where the product was most important, and you had to be a journalist and approach it that way. Pat didn’t. He was a punter, right, and all of a sudden he’s got a show and he’s making millions of dollars and he’s got Nick Saban and Aaron Rodgers and he’s gonna have them on and he’ll compensate them. Fine. I don’t care."

You can listen to the full podcast with Dan Patrick below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.

You can also watch SI Media With Jimmy Traina on YouTube.

2. Speaking of Patrick, he was also a guest this week on Calm Down With Erin and Charissa and shared one hell of a story about a conversation he had with O.J. Simpson.

3. We’re not even a week into the NBA season, but TNT has already gifted us with an edition of “Who He Play For?” starring Charles Barkley.

4. There was a sports category on Jeopardy! Thursday night, “Hall of Famer by Position.” The contestants managed to answer only one of the five questions correctly, and social media was aghast. I may be on an island with this one, but I didn’t think it was that embarrassing. Unless you’re a sports fan, it’s not surprising you wouldn’t be able to answer these questions.

A much more important Jeopardy! development is that Good Morning Football's and “Traina Thoughts” friend Peter Schrager was a contestant on Celebrity Jeopardy! on Wednesday night. 

After correctly answering a music question about ’80s legend Debbie Gibson, Schrager got a shout out from the pop star.

5. God bless Morgan Freeman.

6. ESPN had its most-watched NBA opening night in 11 years on Wednesday, with 2,552,000 viewers tuning in for Celtics-Knicks and 2,989,000 watching Mavericks-Spurs in Victor Wembanyama’s debut. The season-opening doubleheader was up a whopping 80% from 2022.

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7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: It was announced this week that Dolly Parton will perform at halftime of the Commanders-Cowboys game on Thanksgiving. So here is Dolly on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1977 in an appearance that would’ve gotten Carson canceled and NBC boycotted today.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out SI Media With Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

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Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.

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