Top ESPN executive stands up for Pat McAfee amid criticism

One of ESPN's top decision makers is standing by Pat McAfee after a recent poll that saw most college football fans didn't approve of the College GameDay personality.

Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

One of ESPN’s top decision makers is standing by Pat McAfee after the network’s rising star was once again the subject of some criticism this week.

ESPN president of content Burke Magnus went to bat for McAfee after a national survey published by The Athletic found that most fans said they didn’t like the College GameDay host.

Magnus thinks popularity is judged more accurately by what people watch, and not by what they might say in a questionnaire.

“I say that people vote with their remote controls,” Magnus said in an X post in response to the poll.

I say that people vote with their remote controls…so if three straight seasons of record high audiences for @CollegeGameDay (before & after any measurement changes) qualifies as “declining support” then sign me up for more @PatMcAfeeShow https://t.co/mME36V0nhS

— Burke Magnus (@burkemagnus) January 13, 2026

“So if three straight seasons of record high audiences for College GameDay (before & after any measurement changes) qualifies as ‘declining support’ then sign me up for more [Pat McAfee].”

What the poll said

The Athletic presented a number of questions to college football fans about their opinion of a number of media-related topics, including broadcast teams, networks, programs, and the more prominent personalities across the sport.

McAfee was naturally featured among those questions and when asked, the highest number of respondents in the history of the poll responded negatively to him.

Still not quite a majority, though, as 49.5 percent of those asked said they had a negative opinion of the polarizing College GameDay presenter.

A year ago, that number was 42.5 percent of college football fans who said they didn’t like McAfee’s presence in the media landscape.

The next season, that number swelled to 48.5 percent, and there was even talk for a time that McAfee may not return to the College GameDay program.

But return he did, helping give the show a transition point away from Lee Corso after the veteran broadcaster retired one week into the 2025 football season.

McAfee helped replace Corso

McAfee’s bombastic, and often shirtless, game predictions helped give the show a replacement for Corso’s famous headgear pick segment that ended the show during the years.

What else the poll said

Those who do like what McAfee brings to the table? That figure fell to 31.6 percent in the 2026 edition of The Athletic poll.

The undecideds comprise 18.9 percent of those who responded to the McAfee question.

College GameDay is still very popular

Whatever fans may think or not think of McAfee, they are very clear on the College GameDay program overall, a point that was raised by Magnus.

The overwhelming majority of those fans polled, 83.6 percent of them, said they prefer College GameDay to the Fox pre-game program Big Noon Kickoff when asked by The Athletic.

That confidence was expressed in the TV ratings this season, as College GameDay established viewership records in the 2025 season averaging 2.7 million viewers per week, a major jump of 22 percent from last season.