Pat McAfee saw the press clippings.
Earlier Wednesday, The Post’s Andrew Marchand reported that McAfee could walk away in the middle of his four-year, $120 million endorsement deal with FanDuel.
On his program, prior to interviewing Aaron Rodgers, McAfee segued from talking about a different Post story – about Mike Greenberg’s wife Stacy’s documentation of the ESPN talent’s obsession over the Jets landing Rodgers – to discussing Marchand’s column.
“There was an article about us in the New York Post as well this morning,” McAfee said.
“I got a lot going on in my life. I got a baby girl on the way. This past season there was so much stuff off the show that had to be dealt with and handled.”
McAfee said he and his crew were “very, very” lucky to have a big audience for their show, but his numerous responsibilities are taking a toll.
“There comes some problems with all that too — not problems, but obstacles,” he said.
“What it comes with is a lot of busy work, almost, like time, time, time, time, time checked out from life [outside of work], almost.”
He spoke again about the baby that is due in the coming months.
“I never had visions or thoughts that I would be a father,” he said. “Because I always said that if I wanted to have a child, I would want to have generational wealth, because I wouldn’t want my child to have any of the stresses or anything that that potentially brings into your life.”
He acknowledged that life with a lot of money is “not perfect” and that there are a “a lot of new problems,” but that he’d previously thought he would need to work his whole life to survive and that would be his “excuse” to avoid fatherhood and be alone.
However, he said, he met his wife, Samantha, who “would be the greatest mom of all-time.”
He mentioned the miscarriages that his wife previously suffered, and how those impacted his perspective.
“Every time I’ve fallen in love with the idea that I’m gonna be able to shape a human, to help shape society, hopefully, but to do that you’ve got to be around. You’ve got to be present,” he said.
“So in an effort to make my life a lot easier, I’m exploring the options of maybe joining a network or a family or a community that can handle a lot of the things that we’re running into at this stage.”
He said he was “very thankful” for everything he has done with FanDuel, but that they “do not have a network that would alleviate a lot of the issues that we are currently [facing]. They’ve been very understanding with us.”
He then acknowledged FanDuel TV, the television channel the sportsbook recently created, but noted that they didn’t have the infrastructure to “alleviate a lot of the issues” and administrative tasks a bigger network would be able to handle.
McAfee has been juggling his show with ESPN and/or WWE responsibilities, and reiterated that he wants to carve some time out for his family going forward.
“It would nice to maybe live just a little bit of a life,” he said.
“There’s a chance that the FanDuel relationship could jeopardize an opportunity somewhere else, [but there’s also] there’s a chance that we end up somewhere and FanDuel is the thing.”
He emphasized that regardless of what happens, his show will not be paywalled and it will be available on YouTube.
“The show will always be free,” he said. “YouTube will still cook … the people that watch, I would never want to f—king offend you.”
