Pat McAfee references his past lawsuit with Brett Favre while discussing potential changes in college football player compensation. Credit: ESPN’s “College GameDay”
By Sam Neumann on

Pat McAfee is no lawyer, and he’ll be the first one to tell you.

The former Indianapolis Colts punter turned College GameDay personality has had himself quite the weekend already in Dublin, claiming to have drank 30-something Guinness beers on Friday. On Saturday, McAfee was his usual, playing to the crowd while participating in some self-deprecating humor.

That humor was McAfee joking about being sued by Brett Favre, which did happen.

Nick Saban was riffing about how a court case will bring a new era of college football and a new way to distribute money and share with players, which he said they should still have the opportunity to do, as well as Name, Image, and Likeness opportunities.

“I think this lawsuit’s gonna create some parameters,” Saban said. “There will be some — people hate to use this term — revenue sharing, but there will be some of that. And Name, Image, and Likeness, there will be some system where you can’t just pay players; their market value has to equal what they’re getting for whatever they do from a marketability standpoint.”

That’s where McAfee chimed in.

In February 2023, Favre and his lawyer, Eric Hirschmann, filed a defamation lawsuit against McAfee, alleging The Pat McAfee Show host accused the retired quarterback of being a “thief” who stole “from poor people in Mississippi.” McAfee, who repeatedly used the word “allegedly” while discussing Favre on his program, vowed to fight the lawsuit, but it was eventually resolved.

Favre ultimately withdrew his lawsuit against McAfee in May. McAfee stated that no settlement was reached but offered a public apology, clarifying that his comments were made in jest and were based solely on publicly available information.

“As many of you know, Brett Favre sued me over statements that I made about him on this program,” McAfee said in May 2023. “As I confirmed in my court papers and I repeat here, my statements expressed in comedic style were based solely on public information and allegations. As I have previously stated, I respect the hell out of Brett Favre, the football player, and his Hall of Fame career on the field, and I have no personal knowledge about any case involving Brett in Mississippi. I am pleased to report that based solely on me again clarifying these points now, with no settlement paid, Brett is withdrawing his suit against me.”

Back to McAfee on Saturday….

“…So, I’ve been through the entirety of the situation,” McAfee continued. “What Charlie Baker laid out was this injunction, which is gonna get approved by a judge, Q1 next year — it’ll give 10 years. Pretty much, what everybody’s heard is this $20 million from the school. That’ll operate like a salary cap seemingly for these schools and these teams, and they’re allowed to want this to be negotiated with the players, as opposed to a third-party entity like a collective or something else. It’ll be more so driven by the school, and they think it’ll be regulated a lot better with that.”

That’s when Desmond Howard, a former teammate of Favre’s, interjected, mentioning that he was involved in a legal dispute with the photographer who captured his iconic Heisman pose during his time at Michigan.

“Hey, shoutout to all the lawyers out there,” McAfee quipped. “You guys are great.”

[College GameDay]

About Sam Neumann

Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.

View all posts by Sam Neumann