An image of a fan of Pat McAfee's TST team, "The CONCAFA Soccer Club." An image of a fan of Pat McAfee’s TST team, “The CONCAFA Soccer Club.” (The Soccer Tournament.)
By Andrew Bucholtz on

While sports media personality Pat McAfee has his The Pat McAfee Show appear on ESPN weekdays under a licensing agreement, that certainly hasn’t stopped him from criticizing company figures. The latest discussion there came from The Soccer Tournament announcers Sebastian Salazar and Herculez Gomez, who were calling a semifinal game involving the “CONCAFA Soccer Club” team McAfee put together (and played for at one point earlier in the tournament). They discussed if McAfee would play or if he was on the sidelines, then added an update from the truck that McAfee wasn’t there because of his WWE duties, leading to a “TST > WWE” line from Salazar:

McAfee was not a fan of this commentary. That led to an X exchange between him and Salazar:

Indeed, McAfee’s team lost 5-1 to the “Pumas de Alabama.” That led to this post from McAfee after the match:

As part of his regular WWE duties, McAfee was on the Money In The Bank pay-per-view broadcast Saturday in Inglewood, California, and will be on the Monday Night RAW broadcast Monday in Phoenix. This elimination stage of the TST event is taking place across the country from those events, in Cary, North Carolina, so there is some logic behind him not attending or playing in this match.

This TST team McAfee put together has quite the lineup of players, including former U.S. internationals Brek Shea and Geoff Cameron. So it’s not like they particularly needed him on the pitch. But it is interesting to see that turn into announcer criticism, and to McAfee shooting back on social media. And that’s just his latest criticism for other figures associated with ESPN.

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

View all posts by Andrew Bucholtz