The 2023 college football season marked Pat McAfee’s second on ESPN’s College GameDay. But while the All-Pro-punter-turned-TV personality/part-time pro wrestler was expected to usher in a new era of ESPN’s flagship college football show, GameDay appears to remain at a crossroads.
So much so, that Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff was able to claim a ratings victory this past Saturday (although ESPN also claimed a victory of its own based on its GameDay simulcasts).
While it’s worth noting that Fox did have the broadcast of the highly anticipated game between Michigan and Ohio State, the idea of Big Noon Kickoff beating GameDay in the ratings (disputed or otherwise) would have seemed unfathomable just a year ago. And according to Dan Le Batard, that’s at least somewhat of an indictment on the impact that McAfee has (or hasn’t) made on the show.
“They get McAfee and they give a new set of rules, but I thought that would result in College GameDay getting bigger and better — more popular,” Le Batard said on Thursday’s episode of The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz. “I underestimated the allegiance that the viewer has to, ‘David Pollack made me feel a little more comfortable on Saturday mornings. He was there and he’s not Pat McAfee, but whatever. He fit with Desmond Howard and he fit with those guys’ and they like him.
“McAfee can be very sensitive, I’m reading him and everyone around him is saying he’s a good teammate, they all love him, they’re all getting along with him… but now the numbers are coming back and this is something that McAfee could not have expected. I’ve seen his reaction to some criticism and he is not enjoying it. He’s been popular all his life. He’s been getting applause all his life. And now a guy in the media age who grew up on social media is hearing, ‘Yeah, 90 people might be applauding, but there are three who are very loud who are not applauding.”
After producer Mike Ryan Ruiz pushed back, noting that in addition to Pollack, GameDay has lost other key contributors including Tom Rinaldi and Chris “The Bear” Fallica in recent years, Le Batard clarified that he wasn’t blaming McAfee for Big Noon Kickoff closing the gap.
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not, all that matters is perception,” Le Batard said. “I always say that perception is not reality, but when all you has have is perception and fudged numbers — Fox is saying, ‘We’ve caught College GameDay. We’ve caught one of the most popular shows on sports television.”
As Ruiz noted, while many still consider GameDay to be a superior product than Big Noon Kickoff, there’s no denying that layoffs and departures have taken a toll on the former. And while the addition of McAfee might have been an attempt to put a fresh coat of paint on the show and help paper over some of the holes, thus far, that strategy hasn’t been paying off.
[The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz]
