Who says Pat McAfee can’t draw viewers to his weekday TV show?
The Pat McAfee Show just wrapped its most-watched year ever at ESPN, Front Office Sports has learned.
The weekday show averaged 436,000 viewers across TV/digital in its noon to 2 p.m. ET time slot during 2025. That was up 8% from the year before. (Despite a request from FOS, ESPN says it doesn’t break out TV-only numbers for McAfee’s show, which moved to ESPN in the fall of 2023 from YouTube.) In September, McAfee’s show generated more than 1 billion social media views for the first time in a single month.
That’s good news for the controversial McAfee, his castmates, and their strongest supporters at ESPN: SVP Mike Foss, president of content Burke Magnus, and chairman Jimmy Pitaro.
Whenever Magnus and Pitaro were pressed by reporters about what McAfee’s TV show was drawing, they raved about his ability to attract A-list guests from superstar players to commissioners and appeal to younger viewers. Now they have the Nielsen numbers to back it up.
Combined with McAfee leading College GameDay to its most-watched season in 2025 (with an average of 2.7 million viewers), the former Colts punter should be even more bulletproof in Bristol. One big question is whether he’ll bring his popular kicking contest back to GameDay.
McAfee’s strong ratings were one of the highlights of a big year overall for ESPN studio shows. The network’s morning programming block of Get Up, First Take, and The Pat McAfee Show all drew their most-watched years. Across the board, ESPN studio shows posted year-over-year audience growth, per Nielsen. Here are the details:
- Mike Greenberg’s Get Up surged to its most-watched year, with viewership growing 10% to an average of 424,000 viewers. The early morning show from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. ET struggled out of the gate after its premiere in 2018. But Greenberg righted the ship. Now his Get Up has posted four straight years of year-over-year growth.
- Stephen A. Smith’s First Take continued to be a powerhouse in its 10 a.m. to noon ET time slot, averaging a record 517,000 viewers. That was up 6% from last year. Like Get Up, Smith’s First Take surged during the NFL and college football seasons, despite the high-profile departures of Molly Qerim and Shannon Sharpe.
- The iconic Pardon the Interruption with Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon had its best year since 2019. The 5:30 p.m. show averaged 679,000 viewers, up 5%. It was ESPN’s most-watched weekday studio show.
- Host Laura Rutledge’s NFL Live posted its best performance since 2016, with viewership rising 18% from a year ago to 427,000 average viewers. As cast member Mina Kimes has pointed out, the 4 p.m. show is also attracting more female fans and younger viewers. Viewership among women and viewers up to age 17 grew 48% and 78%, respectively, according to ESPN.
- Scott Van Pelt’s midnight SportsCenter ranked as ESPN’s most-watched studio show overall in 2025. The show averaged 737,000 viewers, up 4% from the year before.
Meanwhile, McAfee took another shot at traditional sports media. After multiple sportswriters expressed their objections to local Jacksonville writer Lynn Jones encouraging Jaguars coach Liam Coen after the Bills defeated the Jaguars, McAfee took aim on social media:
“Love seeing these sports ‘journalists’ getting ABSOLUTELY BURIED for being curmudgeon bums.. OBVIOUSLY NOT ALL OF THEM but a LARGE % of these things hate sports.. they hate what sports are for people (happiness).. They hate what sports are for society (unifier).. they’re political journalists by nature who’ve preyed on sports because they saw it as an easier path to ‘make it,’” he wrote on X/Twitter.
“Their days are numbered.. My show being broadcasted on ESPN 10 hours a week with ZERO creative say from any ‘journalism school’ puppets is living proof of that.. that’s why they attack me as much as possible.. I’m happy the world is starting to see what they truly are.”
