Bill Simmons Takes Jab At Pat McAfee’s Ratings In Escalating Spat Between The Two Sports Commentators

Ahmad Austin Jr.Feb 14th, 2024, 5:09 pm
 

Bill Simmons

Bill Simmons fired back at Pat McAfee in what is now becoming an escalating feud between two of the biggest names in sports media.

Earlier in the week, McAfee took a shot at Simmons for a relatively low number of buys for a Super Bowl promotional bet. According to McAfee, Simmons’ partnership with FanDuel only attracted around 8,000 people to take the bet. McAfee, on the other hand, had more than a quarter of a million people tailing his bet.

While his co-hosts laughed at McAfee sarcastically saying that Simmons’ numbers were impressive and that he’s “still got it,” he then told Bill, “Keep running your mouth” live on air.

On Wednesday, Simmons responded with a slight jab at McAfee for his ratings since joining ESPN.

“Have you noticed how, with sports ratings, everybody’s sports ratings are up on TV?” Simmons said on The Bill Simmons Podcast. “Like, we just had the Super Bowl [and] and it came out that it was the most-watched Super Bowl ever — 123 million. That seems weird because I thought people under 25 were on TikTok and on YouTube and on Snapchat and on all the streaming services. You have so many more TV choices. Why would the ratings go up?

“And then you see ESPN, they do at the the end of the year or end of the month, they’ll be like, ‘Highest ratings ever for Get Up and all these different shows. Same for Fox. All their shows are up. Everybody’s ratings are basically up except for the NBA and whoever replaced the 12 p.m. SportsCenter.”

The last line was, of course, directed squarely at McAfee. In September, The Pat McAfee Show began airing on ESPN from noon to 2 p.m. Though it’s now on TV, the show continues to stream live on YouTube noon-3 p.m.

ESPN has previously touted the early success of McAfee’s show. According to the network, the show netted more than 500,000 daily viewers in January — though it’s not known how much of that audience is from YouTube and how much is from traditional linear TV.

Listen above via The Bill Simmons Podcast

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