For the past three years, we haven’t seen Lee Corso picking his iconic headgear often at College GameDay. Yet, GameDay’s charm and fandom skyrocketed. Enter Pat McAfee with his signature kicking contest, and GameDay saw a 27% increase in its audience this year. Not anymore, though. Probably!

McAfee hosted his 2025’s last kicking contest in the Texas A&M vs Miami game at College Station. The stakes this time were $1 million, and an Aggies student, Austin Roberts, just had to put the ball 33 yards into the field goal. Except this time, something felt uneasy as McAfee announced it could be “our final kick of the season and maybe of the entire series.”

Robert missed the field goal, and the ESPN GameDay host graciously gave him a second chance. The stakes this time were $1.5 million. But before Roberts could even attempt it, McAfee exclaimed again. “One more kick. Final kick of the season. Final kick, maybe, of the field goal kicking contest.”

Not many took notice of the statement, especially when a whopping seven-figure payout was at large. But some sitting at their homes, watching the extravaganza unfold, were having glaring questions.

With all these games, is ESPN finally forcing McAfee to shut down his iconic kicking contest? “It would make absolutely no business sense. That’s for sure,” a frontofficesports source said. “They had the Corso thing for almost four decades. This is a similar deal. It’s a main attraction for the show. It has a benevolent quality to it because a lot of money goes to charity. So everybody is really proud of that.”

It’s also not up to ESPN. The ESPN GameDay host pays the contest’s payouts from his own pocket. Just this year, the man gave away a whopping $4.45 million, which included both charities and payouts to students. In 2024, McAfee ate up $1 million from his purse and, in total, has given away $6.25 million in three years. The contest has now undoubtedly become a spectacle for College GameDay.

The contest started in 2023 with humble beginnings. A Washington sophomore, Greyson Wilhelm, held a sign reading “kicking is easy” and drilled a field goal. McAfee, on the other hand, created a contest out of it and even handed out $30,000 to Wilhelm.

It was the lone payout for the year, but it kick-started something grand yet rooted in generous intentions. That’s the reason why, when Roberts missed the field goal for the second time, he still took home $500,000. But what if the contest ends?

What explains Pat McAfee announcing the end of his iconic kicking contest?

It’s unlikely that we would see the contest end, but it will be unreasonable to expect McAfee to splurge those $4-5 million every year. The ESPN GameDay host is locked in with ESPN for several years and also has a separate $17 million deal to license his ‘Pat McAfee Show’ to ESPN. Despite McAfee being notorious for ditching employees, a McAfee and ESPN rift is quite unlikely. The business aspect of it doesn’t even make sense.

This year, the GameDay garnered a whopping 2.7 million average viewers. That’s 23% more than what it was in 2024. All signs then point to ESPN potentially finding a sponsor to fund the prize money involved in the kicking contest.

“If Allstate’s going to sponsor field goal nets, surely there’s a deep-pocketed corporate sponsor that would love to slap their brand all over a highly entertaining segment that combines the best of college football, charity, and campus spirit,” Michael McCarthy of frontofficesports predicted. The sponsorship will solve every problem the contest might be facing.

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Pat McAfee no longer eats up his net worth, and ESPN happily keeps its signature kicking contest. It’s a win-win for both. Or it’s entirely possible that McAfee’s words at College Station were just for showmanship. Remember, the man is also a pro-wrestling commentator, and the John Cena-esque showmanship comes naturally. Why not show it in the biggest show of college football? For now, we have eight more months to wait and watch, if McAfee’s kicking contest features in its 4th year.