Few ESPN personalities hit it off better with The Pat McAfee Show since it came to the network than NBA analyst Kendrick Perkins. Now, the longtime NBA veteran is joining the progrum each week in-studio.
McAfee announced the move on Tuesday and Perkins celebrated it in a post on X.
“(Perkins) will be joining us LIVE in the ThunderDome EVERY Thursday for the foreseeable future,” McAfee wrote.
https://twitter.com/KendrickPerkins/status/1770156453250171001
This means Perkins will travel to Indianapolis, where PMS broadcasts live from a renovated gymnasium they call the “Thunderdome.”
Perkins’ brash, goofy brand of analysis will be a great fit on PMS, giving the show a consistent voice on basketball, which it does not really have now.
However, the specifics of this arrangement are unclear. What is the difference between Perkins joining PMS regularly as part of his duties with ESPN compared to being an “official part of the (PMS) family”?
Given that ESPN licenses the show from McAfee’s company, we know guests like Aaron Rodgers and Nick Saban were on the payroll from McAfee directly. PMS producers like Ty Schmit have publicly said they are not ESPN employees, while the same can be assumed for contributors such as JJ Watt or Pacman Jones.
Still, talents like Adam Schefter and Dan Orlovsky appear on PMS weekly and have never been called official parts of the PMS family.
Perkins is sure to liven up the McAfee Show and bolster its basketball chatter, but from an industry standpoint, this announcement brings more questions into the ties between ESPN and PMS and how the relationship works behind the scenes.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.