Stephen A. Smith used his podcast to break his silence on the rumors of a “beef” with Pat McAfee and emphatically shut them down. Both ESPN hosts have downplayed the reported incident.
Smith, being the content machine that he is, knew that it was best to address the situation on the Stephen A. Smith show for sake of ratings. He was right! More than 2,000 people were tuned in live for the premiere of the most recent episode, which is a pretty big number for YouTube. Those views will only continue to grow now that it has been posted.
Anyway, Smith addressed the McAfee situation about 36 hours after the New York Post reported on an “explosive” argument that happened between the two last month. It supposedly escalated to the point that the latter called the former a “motherf—–,” as if that is not how humans in the real world talk.
The heated incident was apparently so intense that McAfee was banned from appearing on First Take. That, according to Smith, is entirely untrue.
They both delivered a statement in the initial report through ESPN. McAfee later provided additional comment to further clarify his outlook on the whole thing. Smith hit it head-on during his show on Friday night.
I wanted to address a story that was printed just a couple of days ago […] where folks were alluding to some dispute I allegedly had with Pat McAfee.
There’s a few things that are incredibly important to say.
No. 1, there is no dispute whatsoever. Pat McAfee is my teammate. Pat McAfee and I work together at ESPN. There is no banishment from First Take or any other show. He is more than welcome to come on First Take in the future and I’m going to be more than welcome to come on his show.
I don’t know how many times I have to say this, but I’m going to try this one more time— not just relying on a statement or a quote that I issued through ESPN.
— Stephen A. Smith
Smith then looked into the camera to deliver a message about how he roots for his teammates and his colleagues. He does not root against anybody and believes that the people out there who do root against their own are “idiots” because a “rising tide raises all boats.”
His full comments are queued up here:
And that settles it!
Stephen A. Smith and Pat McAfee are not beefing. They do not hate each other. No one is banned from anything.
Regardless of whether the initial report was accurate or not, it was all much ado about nothing.