Pat McAfee has become the biggest name in sports media, and Dave Portnoy wants a slice of the credit. The Barstool Sports founder recently suggested that McAfee's explosive rise to fame wouldn't have happened without his time at the company.
Speaking on 98.5 The Sports Hub, Portnoy reflected on McAfee's brief stint with Barstool from 2017 to 2018, before the former NFL punter left to build his own media empire and eventually land at ESPN. Portnoy stopped short of taking full credit, but he made it clear that Barstool played a pivotal role.
“We didn’t make McAfee because McAfee was a punter and very talented. Would McAfee be what he is now without us? Probably not,” Portnoy said.
Portnoy recalled McAfee's outsized ambitions from day one. “I remember when we first talked to him, one of the first things he said was like, ‘I want to be WWE Champion.’ He had never wrestled. He did that all on his own,” Portnoy said. “He had these crazy ambitions, but he also went to basically the school of Barstool, and we were a very good school at that time on how to use the internet, social media.”
The Barstool founder framed McAfee's journey as a perfect storm of talent and timing. “So I think he was right place, right time, supremely talented. We’ve had tons of people who haven’t become McAfee, but he was the right guy to get the perfect education at the right time,” Portnoy added. “There’s something about him. I mean, he turned down millions to punt. He comes to us, makes money but leaves on his own so it’s kind of like an American success story.”
McAfee's path from punter to media mogul is nothing short of remarkable. After leaving Barstool, he launched his own show, which quickly gained a massive following, and in 2023 he signed a lucrative deal with ESPN. Now, he's set to join Monday Night Countdown, and ESPN is reportedly considering an alt-cast featuring him.
Not everyone is thrilled about McAfee's ubiquity. Some NFL fans have vowed to boycott ESPN over his addition, while others have cried foul at his omnipresence across the network. But Portnoy's comments add a new layer to the narrative, suggesting that Barstool's influence was instrumental in shaping McAfee's approach to content creation.
Whether McAfee will respond to Portnoy's remarks remains to be seen, but the debate over who truly made McAfee is likely to continue. For now, McAfee is focused on his new role, preparing to bring his unique energy to ESPN's NFL coverage.
