Pat McAfee’s media empire continues to expand with news that he will join the cast of ESPN’s “College GameDay” in a full-time capacity beginning this weekend.
The news was first reported by the New York Post's Andrew Marchand late Tuesday night) McAfee will be a full-time member of the “GameDay” crew, joining Rece Davis, Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit, David Pollock, Desmond Howard, and a host of other characters.
If you’ve been keeping track of McAfee’s exploits, you’ll know just how wild this deal will be for him. McAfee hosts a daily radio show that recently left SiriusXM syndication (but will still broadcast on YouTube,) and he is one of the voices for WWE’s “Friday Night SmackDown” alongside veteran play-by-play man Michael Cole. McAfee was also linked to Prime Video's “Thursday Night Football” in what was expected to be a partial-season alternate broadcast, but nothing has materialized from those rumors… at least not yet.
Amazon has already inked Andrea Kramer and Hannah Storm and viral trick-shot artists Dude Perfect for alternate broadcasts during the season, but the common belief is that Prime Video isn’t done adding to the lineup just yet.
McAfee is also in the midst of a four-year, $120 million deal with FanDuel, which has been upping its content offerings in preparation for football season. FanDuel will repurpose TVG into FanDuel TV and likely include McAfee in some capacity, though nothing is set in stone just yet. However, you should expect McAfee to heavily factor into the channel’s programming if words from FanDuel’s CEO have any bearing.
“Having proven on-air talent, live content from the most influential name in sports media in Pat McAfee and the industry’s best team covering horse racing today demonstrates that FanDuel TV will be a dynamic network from day one,” FanDuel Group CEO Amy Howe said.
This isn’t even McAfee’s only college football venture for ESPN. McAfee is also slated to host an alternate broadcast for select college football games that will air on ESPN2 throughout the season. If that sounds like another football-themed alternate broadcast, that’s because McAfee’s broadcast is produced by Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions, just like the ManningCast.