Pat McAfee accuses longtime ESPN exec Norby Williamson of ‘sabotage’
NEW YORK — The Pat McAfee Show continued to stay in the spotlight on Friday, with the popular host accusing longtime ESPN executive Norby Williamson of attempting to “sabotage” the program.
Pat McAfee made the bold accusation while speaking with co-host A.J. Hawk and the former punter explained why he felt ESPN’s Executive Editor and Head of Event and Studio Production was behind the deliberate attack.
“There are folks actively trying to sabotage us from within ESPN,” McAfee said. “More specifically, I believe Norby Williamson is the guy attempting to sabotage our program.”
McAfee went off on Williamson less than 24 hours after talks surfaced about the show’s viewership, which was announced late Friday. McAfee believes a recent New York Post article calling out the show’s ratings as not good enough to deal with the swarming controversies stems from Williamson leaking numbers.
On Tuesday, Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers joked that ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s might show up on the list of Jeffrey Epstein’s associates. Kimmel’s name was absent from the list and McAfee later apologized “for being part of it” on Wednesday.
“That is seemingly the only human that has information, and then somehow that information gets leaked and it’s wrong and then it sets a narrative of what our show is,” McAfee said about Williamson on Friday’s show. “And then are we just going to combat that from a rat every single time?”
The former NFL punter added: “Somebody tried to get ahead of our actual ratings release with wrong numbers 12 hours beforehand,” McAfee said. “That’s a sabotage attempt, and it’s been happening … from some people who didn’t necessarily love the old addition of The Pat McAfee Show to the ESPN family.”
McAfee went on to explain why he personally disliked Williamson. He said the exec, who has been with ESPN since 1985, “no-showed” him during a scheduled meeting years ago when he attempted to join the media world.
“That guy left me in his office for 45 minutes, no-showed me in 2018,” McAfee said. “So that guy has had no respect for me, and in return same thing to him, for a long time.”
