As we learned last week, Prince Harry will receive the Pat Tillman Award for Service at this year’s ESPYs. In ESPN’s press release, they cited Harry’s work on the Invictus Games and Harry’s own combat military service. Harry receiving an award named after Pat Tillman is a huge deal here in the US, and obviously, the Invictus Games have grown into a global brand. So of course there’s pushback. I was expecting pushback from the British media and from Kensington Palace. I was not expecting it from Pat McAfee, the dipsh-t football bro/analyst on ESPN. McAfee is exactly the kind of guy who is too stupid to read his own network’s press releases. McAfee is exactly the kind of guy who platforms Aaron Rodgers’ vaccine conspiracies and Jimmy Kimmel slander. McAfee is exactly the kind of guy who refers to Caitlin Clark as “the white bitch.” And now Pat McAfee is the kind of guy who thinks ESPN is giving Prince Harry the Pat Tillman Award for Service because Harry is a sports fan.
Pat McAfee has slammed the ESPYS for shortlisting Prince Harry among its nominees for ‘the Pat Tilman Award for Service,’ as he also bemoaned that Americans weren’t considered in the selection process. Discussing the chatter on the Duke of Sussex being tipped for the prestigious prize, which is given to a ‘person with a strong connection to sports who has served others in a way that echoes the legacy of the former NFL player and US Army Ranger,’ the ESPN analyst wasn’t afraid to lay into the event’s committee on the network, Friday.
‘A lot of conversation about Pat Tillman’s name. American hero… Now there’s an award named after him, as there should be in the sports world because that is somebody who is the definition of selfless,’ McAfee said at first. ‘It’s going to Prince Harry, who I don’t even think is a prince anymore… He said don’t call me that,’ McAfee then quipped in a subtle dig at King Charles’ estranged son, later adding: ‘See, why does the ESPYS do this sh*t?’
After ‘Boston Connor’ – a member of the cast on the Pat McAfee Show – described Prince Harry’s nomination for the award as ‘probably the most embarrassing thing I’ve seen in my entire life,’ McAfee questioned whether the ESPY Awards’ committee even did its homework on its candidate search in the first place.
‘When you do something like this, you know the immediate reaction from humans and sports fans and like people with common sense and brains is going to be like ”Hey, don’t be putting our f***ing guy with that guy,’ McAfee said before sharing his perception of Prince Harry, who founded The Invictus Games and served in the British Army. ‘I don’t know anything about him except for the South Park episode and what I’ve learned from the Crown. But like did his people know like ”you publicly put me up for this award. You’re just asking basically ever person that considers themselves American and saying ”this is bulls***”’. Especially at a sports award type of thing… I assume he knew that. They didn’t expect that?’
‘We should celebrate sports,’ McAfee added. ‘The worldwide leaders should celebrate sport but doing something like this is obviously trying to piss people off. And it’s like there’s been numerous decisions of this type of thing over the last what? Decade? And I think it’s just one person being put in charge of this entire thing. It’s like, c’mon bro…’
Replying to his buddy’s point McAfee suggested to just ‘make up’ an award for Prince Harry. ‘How about it’s like ESPY for royal family member who doesn’t want to be called ”royal family member” who loves sports,’ he said.
I’m including the clip below, and just note that I used the Mail because they actually transcribed almost everything that was said because they were so gleeful that this dumbf–k McAfee said all of this sh-t. As Awful Announcing notes in their tweet, at no point did McAfee and his bros mention Invictus Games, nor did they mention the fact that Harry, like Pat Tillman, served in combat in the war in Afghanistan. They really believe that ESPN just gave an award to Harry because he’s a sports fan. All of the “this should have gone to an American!!” sh-t is crazy too, considering the Pat Tillman Award went to Marcus Rashford, a British footballer, in 2021.
PS… The Mary Tillman story is coming up shortly, please do not threadjack.
“A lot of conversation about Pat Tillman’s name. American hero…Now there’s an award named after him, as there should be in the sports world because that is somebody who is the definition of selfless. It’s going to Prince Harry. Who I don’t even think is a prince anymore. See,… pic.twitter.com/eLx3rO2M1h
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) June 28, 2024
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.