Pat McAfee has firmly ruled himself out of contention for ESPN’s Monday Night Football booth, shutting down rumors that he could replace Troy Aikman.
The speculation erupted after a Front Office Sports column floated McAfee’s Super Bowl altcast as a potential trial for the main broadcast chair next season.
Aikman, who has called games alongside Joe Buck for 25 years, is in the final year of his deal with the network and has yet to sign a contract extension.
Buck, meanwhile, inked a massive six-year extension worth roughly $108 million last month, sparking reported tension between the longtime duo.
Addressing the speculation directly on Thursday’s edition of The Pat McAfee Show, the former punter left no room for interpretation.
‘I would just like to go on the record here very early in this particular program and say it,’ McAfee told his viewers.
Pat McAfee has firmly ruled himself out of contention for ESPN’s Monday Night Football
Troy Aikman has seriously hinted he will leave ESPN at the end of the NFL season
‘I’ve already Tweeted it out that it’s not real, and there’s been zero conversations about it,’ he continued.
‘A lot of people have said it, but there’s Monday Night Football contract business happening in a very public way, and we are big fans of Joe and Troy and of the Monday Night Football operation. That’s for them to figure out.’
The 39-year-old media personality claimed the rumors were merely an attempt to stir up controversy among his online critics.
‘There’s now been efforts to say that I am trying to get into the Monday Night Football booth as a color commentator or that ESPN is trying to put me in,’ he continued.
‘First of all, incredibly honored that I am at a position in life where people think that there’s a chance I’m going to be in the booth for Monday Night Football.’
However, McAfee made it crystal clear that sitting in a traditional two-man broadcast booth does not align with his interests.
‘I am not supposed to be a color commentator for football. That is something I’ve decided. I had a chance to try it a couple times. I hated it. I got bored.’
McAfee already boasts a prominent Monday night presence after joining the Monday Night Countdown pregame crew this season.
It follows reports that Aikman and ESPN colleague Joe Buck had an argument in the booth
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He is also set to host ESPN’s Field Pass alternate broadcast for select regular-season games and Super Bowl LXI alongside Dan Orlovsky and Darius Butler.
Buck and Aikman, meanwhile, joined ESPN in 2022 and signed big deals to leave Fox, with Aikman signing first then Buck following weeks later. But while Buck signed fresh terms with ESPN last month, talks over a new deal for Aikman have dried up.
Addressing the reports on Thursday morning, the three-time Super Bowl winner appeared to suggest his future lies away from ESPN and remained coy on the situation with Buck.
‘There’s probably a time and a place for all that. I don’t know if now is the time. I don’t know if it’s hard to figure out kind of what happened,’ he told 96.7 The Ticket in Dallas-Fort Worth.
‘I’ll broadcast through this season and I’ll be a free agent at the end of the year and kind of see what happens. I’m looking forward to whatever the rest of this season does hold and the Super Bowl and all that and where my next landing spot may be.’
It was confirmed last month that Buck will continue as the voice of Monday Night Football into the 2030s.
