Smoke Screen: Pat McAfee and ESPN’s Problem With Smoke

In a world swarmed with news stories, it’s always weird to me what things end up dominating the conversation. Between the Macklemore/Ed Sheeran fallout and gas prices rising higher than the minimum wage, the thing that ended up in my DMs the most, with the message “did you see this,” was a video of Pat McAfee.

Maybe you were lucky enough to duck the story, but former Indianapolis Colts punter and current face of ESPN, Pat McAfee, allegedly smoked a blunt on air during a show.

I will never say that I try to keep up with him, but I am aware of McAfee. When I think of him now, I think of him more as the guy who helped ruin the lead-up to a WrestleMania main event. But I won’t deny his popularity. He is a fan favorite amongst a certain circle. And for those reasons, what may or may not have happened recently on air became a huge talking point.

Let’s start with the obvious: smoking on air, in general, isn’t prohibited. You just rarely see it on television anymore. I’ve even seen clips of McAfee’s show before where viewers accused him of smoking a blunt on air.

For the record, there is no confirmation that what McAfee was smoking this time was a blunt. McAfee has mentioned sage and CBD in response to the conversation. But the visual alone was enough to get people talking, and it brought up another name from ESPN’s past: Paul Pierce.

As social media has pointed out, ESPN fired Pierce in 2021 after an Instagram Live video showed the NBA legend smoking, drinking, and partying with dancers. ESPN never publicly said that smoking alone was the reason for his firing, and there is another major difference between the two situations.

Pierce wasn’t on ESPN when it happened. He was on his personal Instagram account.

McAfee was sitting behind his desk on a show airing on ESPN.

I don’t believe everything is equal. But if all things are supposed to be “equal,” it raises the question of how much freedom McAfee has compared to other ESPN personalities, especially given the unique relationship between ESPN and The Pat McAfee Show.

McAfee owns his show, while ESPN licenses and airs it. That makes his situation different from that of a traditional ESPN employee. It also makes the question of what he can and can’t do on air a little more complicated.

It’s a weird situation for ESPN, especially with how heavily invested the network is in McAfee becoming one of its biggest personalities.