Aaron Rodgers‘ the weekly slot is open Pat McAfee‘s YouTube The show is often a newsmaking draw, but today’s edition reached a new level as the quarterback confirmed his “intention” to play for New York Jets.
The daily show drew just 500,000 concurrent live viewers on Wednesday, an audience several times the size for ESPN or other cable TV networks on a typical weekday. During NFL free agency, Rogers’ fate became a major storyline as the 39-year-old kept the sports world and New York City in suspense for weeks about whether he would go to the New York, stay at Green Bay Packers or just retire. Some compared Wednesday’s quiet interview with LeBron James to the widely acclaimed announcement in 2010 that he would “take his talents to South Beach” and play with the Miami Heat, a move that was famously packaged for TV as The decision.
As of last Friday, Rogers told McAfee, “my intention is to play for the New York Jets.” The only thing holding up a trade between the teams is “compensation,” he added, meaning what the Packers will receive in return for the four-time league MVP.
Rogers coming to New York is almost at the top of the all-time list of splashy sports arrivals in the city. Along with national media outlets, several dozen beat reporters cover the Jets daily, compared to a much smaller group of Packers media in Green Bay. The Green Bay-Appleton, WI market is the 68th largest in the US, according to Nielsen. Along with his gifts on the field, Rogers has a huge contrarian streak, which will get him a brighter spotlight in New York. He sparked a backlash last year after telling reporters in 2021 that he had been “vaccinated” against Covid. Months later, it was revealed that he had not, in fact, received the Covid vaccine but instead offered a deliberately misleading answer when asked if he had been vaxxed. (Back then, leagues, teams and health authorities were engaged in the complex process of returning to action in front of fans and navigating the waves of the pandemic.)
McAfee, a former NFL punter, has risen to prominence in sports media in recent years. His freewheeling YouTube show regularly takes on big names and features the host talking to a panel of pundits and fellow athletes in an uncensored forum, with viewers contributing in the comments section. on YouTube. The show’s traction earned it more than 2.1 million subscribers and earned McAfee a four-$120 million deal with sports betting company FanDuel (although a New York Post this week’s report indicates that the relationship could be resolved before the deal is completed).
In addition to delivering the words that starved Jets fans have wanted to hear since Joe Namath left town after delivering the team’s lone Super Bowl win in 1969, Rogers as always had plenty of opinions about the media. After emerging from a one-day “darkness retreat” last month, Rogers said he discovered that ESPN reporter Adam Schefter — one of the top scoop-meisters in the NFL establishment — had obtained his contact information. contact and reached out for a Packers-Jets update . “Ask Schefter what I texted him when he got my number,” he told McAfee with a smile. “Lose my number!”
Here’s one of the clips from Rodger’s hour-long appearance: