The only place in Disney’s media empire where you feel free to call a 22-year-old woman a “white b—” is weekday afternoon ESPN.
This is where “The Pat McAfee Show” was born and became a hit across North America. On Monday’s show, he decided to use the quote to defend Caitlin Clark, opening the show with a reference to the uproar over the cheap shots she received as a WNBA rookie, sparking a debate about the character. Discussions of race and stardom.
McPhee, a talented, foul-mouthed talk show host/”College GameDay” analyst/WWE commentator, decided the best way to put an exclamation point on his opening monologue was to veer into the b-word:
“I want people in the media to continue to say, ‘This rookie class, this rookie class, this rookie class,'” McPhee said. “No, let’s call it that: Indiana has a white guy, and he’s a superstar.”
The network declined to comment. McPhee later apologized in a post on X, saying he shouldn’t have used the term.
“I meant for it to be complimentary, like the clip as a whole,” he wrote, “but, many people have said it’s not at all. This is 100% my responsibility, and for that I apologize…I too Apologized to Caitlin.
Let’s call it that: If you walked into the halls of Bristol on Monday and described anyone this way, ESPN’s human resources department will remind you of every video you need to watch about harassment. You could get suspended or worse.
ESPN can hide the fact that McAfee is not an employee. The company pays him more than $17 million a year but leases his shows and McAfee retains creative control. McPhee pays all employees, including recurring freelancers like Aaron Rodgers. But this is a live broadcast on ESPN. The technical details of this arrangement don’t change that.
The Internet, where McPhee originated, first at Barstool Sports and later on social media, is a cruder sentiment than the one promoted by the Disney-owned company. McPhee probably didn’t mean to cause any harm by calling Clark a “white asshole,” and he could point to a WNBA player who clearly used the same word, but he’s not the one deciding who gets hurt.
The topic of Clark’s popularity has grown ever since the Chicago Sky’s Channedy Carter fouled Clark during a game on Saturday, a flagrant foul that drew criticism from Carter’s own coach. Carter looked like he also cursed Clark before doing so.
But there’s a difference between talking about WNBA players on the court and talking nonsense on the airwaves. This is different.
McPhee wasn’t the only ESPN star to underperform when discussing the WNBA on Monday. Ahead of McAfee’s “First Take,” Stephen A. Smith feuded with basketball analyst Monica McNutt.
Caitlin Clark helped skyrocket the WNBA’s popularity. Discussion of the matter on ESPN Monday fell short of expectations. (Luke Hales/Getty Images)
Smith, who makes $12 million a year at ESPN, was arguing with McNutt about Clark when he said, “Who’s talking about the WNBA? Who talks about women’s sports more than First Take?”
McNutt sounded like she was trying to be as respectful as possible to Smith, but she couldn’t help but dunk on him.
“Stephen A., your honor, if you would, with your platform, you could have done this three years ago,” McNutt said.
Smith looked like he’d been hit by a left hook and was forced to say, “Wow.”
For ESPN, the discussion about Clark provides the network with a bridge topic from Smith’s highly rated “First Take” to McAfee’s show, which continues to struggle on linear TV, losing nearly 50% again last month of Smith’s audience (501,000 to 261,000), according to sources familiar with the Nielsen data. ESPN likes to factor McAfee’s YouTube views into its ratings, which may have some credibility, but isn’t the same as the official calculation.
McNutt is right about history. Before Clark’s arrival, few people had talked about the WNBA with such substance on live television.
Every sport wants to be talked about on ESPN by the Smiths and McAfees of the world. It’s at the center of everyday sports, and the WNBA is now a regular topic of conversation in a way it’s never been before, even on a network that invests more in women’s sports than anyone else on television.
McPhee apologized. This is the right thing to do. Now, let’s see if ESPN’s top stars learned anything.
(Top photo of Pat McAfee: Ron Hoskins/NBAE via Getty Images)
