When WWE Raw moved to Netflix on January 6, 2025, Pat McAfee was in the commentary booth. Not as a guest, but as part of the regular broadcast team alongside Michael Cole, confirmed by WWE Chief Content Officer Triple H before the first episode even aired. Now, his name and Netflix are linked in a different context.

“@Netflix is expected to be a primary front-runner to secure @PatMcAfeeShow as his next deal window begins to take over the next 12-24 months as his @ESPN deal progresses, with @AriEmanuel now involved in positioning his next deal,” Sports journalist Blake Avignon shared on X.

Ari Emanuel’s involvement is the detail that shifts the whole frame. Emanuel is a ‘super agent,’ and also happens to be the CEO of the TKO group, the same venture that owns UFC and WWE. Emanuel was also the architect behind Netflix’s WWE deal. McAfee hired him as his agent in February 2026, and Emanuel made it clear he wants to turn McAfee “into the next Sylvester Stallone.”

And a Netflix deal isn’t the only thing Emanuel has set into motion for McAfee. McAfee is also set to appear in the next season of Tulsa King and a Peter Berg film called The Mosquito Bowl. This isn’t the signature of someone who is renegotiating a sports talk show.

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McAfee started his The Pat McAfee Show on YouTube back in 2019, long before ESPN came into the picture. ESPN made an announcement about the $85 million licensing agreement in September 2023, with the show achieving 242 million total views in just the first four weeks on ESPN channels. In September 2025, the show recorded 1 billion total social media views in just one month, with 447,000 viewers watching each episode live. There was a year-on-year increase of 18%, making this the most viewed year for the show on ESPN.

Regarding his relationship with WWE, Triple H summed it up best in January 2026. When asked about McAfee’s role, the CCO delivered high praise.

“Pat McAfee is the face of the WWE to a lot of people,” he said. “Pat’s association with us goes back quite a way. I was vaguely aware of who he was. I knew he was a kicker for the Colts. You know, it’s been incredible to see him go from little podcaster to NFL stuff to ESPN, to just keep blowing up along the way.”

Last year, ESPN president of content Burke Magnus had also publicly said he wants McAfee to stay beyond 2028, when his current deal expires.

“There is a validation for athletes and executives to be on his show,” Magnus had said. “Every commissioner wants to be on his show. Every athlete wants to be on the show. There’s a cool factor, a relevance factor. It’s fun and funny and entertaining. As we sit here today, I could not imagine our daytime schedule without his show.”

That has remained the network’s stated position ever since. But what happened at Augusta last week told a different story.

The Masters said no, three times

McAfee confirmed on his show last week that Augusta National rejected The Pat McAfee Show’s request to cover Masters Par 3 Contest for the third straight year.

“We have attempted to be part of the Wednesday coverage of the Masters Par 3 thing for three years now,” McAfee said. “They told us to go to hell… they’ve turned us down very loudly numerous times.”

ESPN sent Jason Kelce to Augusta instead. The former Eagles center had just made his golf broadcasting debut at a TGL event in March, and ESPN quickly slotted him as an on-course reporter for the Par 3 Contest on April 8. McAfee didn’t let it go quietly on air.

It’s always easy to say Augusta takes care of its own credentials and owes nothing to anyone. That is true, but that’s three consecutive years now. The average daily viewership for 2025 is expected to be 436,000 via television and online media. Not granting a credential over three years when you’re televising the tournament is not exactly a credential issue. There is precedence.

During NFL free agency coverage in 2025, ESPN’s NFL division had moved McAfee’s show off the main channel and put it on ESPN2, running a SportsCenter special opposite him. McAfee didn’t let it go quietly on air

“ESPN NFL. They didn’t think we would be able to handle it last year, so they counter-programmed us on ESPN 2,” McAfee said in a recent edition of his show. “They tell us immediately, ‘You’re not allowed to have Schefter, he’s with us,’ all of this. It’s like, OK, we’ll see how this goes for you guys.”

For the 2026 free agent period, ESPN did something else. The host of the show from his Thunderdome studio in Indianapolis was McAfee, who had on his panel Adam Schefter, Dan Orlovsky, and Peter Schrager. No ESPN2 counter-programming. The network had quietly conceded, but the fact that it took a year of friction to get there says more than the correction did.

As for the latest Augusta snub, Kelce got in on his first attempt, after covering TGL’s final three regular-season matches. McAfee, whose show is bigger by every number ESPN has published, has been turned down three straight years. That gap could be one of the things Netflix uses to pull McAfee to their side.

For now, ESPN has an $85 million deal with the most-watched daily show it owns. But its biggest star keeps running into walls like Augusta and the 2025 NFL free agency. Netflix, on the other hand, already has Pat McAfee’s face on its platform every Monday night.