SI

Pat McAfee Calls Out ESPN Stars Over Dispute With YouTube TV

Andy Nesbitt

Pat McAfee is over the ESPN-YouTube TV situation.
Pat McAfee is over the ESPN-YouTube TV situation. / @ThePatMcAfeeShow

The dispute between ESPN and YouTube TV continues, with fans missing out on more live sports each day while also not being able to see ESPN coverage of big events like Tuesday's NFL deadline.

The biggest moment of this dispute between two billion-dollar companies (Disney and Google, which own ESPN and YouTube TV) started over the weekend and wiped out an entire Saturday of college football action for a lot of people who pay good money for a YouTube TV subscription. It then really came to a head Monday night when fans, including J.J. Watt, were unable to watch the Cardinals-Cowboys game.

On Tuesday, ESPN's Pat McAfee addressed the situation and had a message for some his big-name coworkers who have shared videos on social media talking about the dispute and how fans can go to a website so they "don't miss any" action.

Here's an example of one of those from Mike Greenberg:

Here's what McAfee had to say about those messages:

“We’re all done with it. And also, if you’re on TV, stop telling people to go to a website to save a multi-billion-dollar deal. Nobody cares what you have to say. There will be nothing that we have to say or any website that will be visited. There are, I don’t want to say the exact names, but these people (hands up high), let’s put our swords down. Let’s put our swords down for the good of sports."

He added:

“We need each other. A lot of people saying ‘greedy corporations,’ it’s like, yeah. We need each other, especially with where sports are right now. And we’re in the middle of it, so let’s get it done. And stop asking me to go to a website. I don’t want to do that, so stop... all you’re doing is pissing everybody off even more. So it’s like, let’s just not do that.”

You can watch McAfee addressing the dispute at the 1:20 mark of this video:

It feels like this dispute is only going to continue and the victim in all of this will continue to be the fans who just want to watch the games on the service they've been paying for.

Hopefully the two sides can reach an agreement and hopefully the big names at ESPN can listen to McAfee and stop trying to tell viewers how they can help. Because this isn't on them. It's on two billion dollar companies that just want to make more money.

More on Sports Illustrated

FREE NEWSLETTER. SI BTN Newsletter. Start off your day with SI:CYMI. dark

feed

Published
Andy Nesbitt
ANDY NESBITT

Andy Nesbitt is the assistant managing editor of audience engagement at Sports Illustrated. He works closely with the Breaking and Trending News team to shape SI’s daily coverage across all sports. A 20-year veteran of the sports media business, he has worked for Fox Sports, For the Win, The Boston Globe and NBC Sports, having joined SI in February 2023. Nesbitt is a golf fanatic who desperately wants to see the Super Bowl played on a Saturday night.

Home/Media