The Athletic survey shows declining support for Pat McAfee on ‘College GameDay’

A new survey conducted by The Athletic shows that support for ESPN’s Pat McAfee on College GameDay is waning among college football fans.

Despite spearheading popular segments like the weekly field goal kicking contest, Pat McAfee’s approval ratings is at an all-time low, according to a survey published by The Athletic on Monday. Readers were asked “How do you feel about Pat McAfee on College GameDay?” and nearly half of respondents answered “Don’t like it.” In total, 49.5% of voters in The Athletic’s annual college football media survey said they did not like McAfee on ESPN’s flagship college football program. 31.6% said they like him, while 18.9% said they have no opinion.

In the three years The Athletic has posed this exact question to its readers, this year saw the highest proportion of respondents that answered negatively with regards to McAfee, albeit by a slim margin. In 2024, just 42.5% of voters said they do not like McAfee on GameDay. And in 2023, the first year this question was asked, 48.9% of voters said they didn’t like McAfee on the show.

That 2023 poll turned out to be a story in its own right. After seeing the percentage of disapproving viewers, McAfee publicly mulled leaving College GameDay altogether. Of course, he returned to the program and has become a centerpiece of the show ever since.

This year, following the retirement of Lee Corso, McAfee has put his own flare on GameDay‘s final segment each week. Rather than ending with Corso’s headgear pick, McAfee has created his own signature ending, typically launching into a WWE-style rant that ends in him picking the home team, sending the crowd into a frenzy. It’s the type of energy that has endeared College GameDay to the masses for decades.

Along those lines, it is interesting that within the same survey, approval for the College GameDay program overall is quite high. This year, 83.6% of respondents said they preferred GameDay to Fox’s pregame competitor, Big Noon Kickoff.

Perhaps that means a significant portion of GameDay viewers are watching in spite of McAfee’s presence. But more likely, all this means is that we should take The Athletic’s survey with a grain of salt. McAfee is a polarizing figure in sports media and has been for years. People’s opinions of him are quite a bit more nuanced than simply liking or not liking him on a given show. It’s possible that many respondents used the McAfee question as a referendum of him more broadly, not simply within the context of College GameDay.

Viewers certainly continue to watch GameDay at high rates. The pregame show set viewership records this season (albeit with the usual Nielsen-related caveats). And the McAfee-sponsored field goal contest is practically universally liked.

Still, there’s clearly a cohort of college football fans that aren’t fans of McAfee, and that hasn’t changed as his prominent role at ESPN continues.