Pat McAfee blasted ESPN’s plan to award Prince Harry the Pat Tillman Award for Service at the upcoming ESPYs.
During the “The Pat McAfee Show” on Friday, McAfee accused his own network of “trying to piss people off” for honoring the Duke of Sussex with an award named after the late NFL safety turned Army Ranger.
The award is handed out to those who have made significant contributions in the world, which echoes Tillman’s legacy.
“It’s going to Prince Harry,” McAfee said. “Who I don’t even think is a Prince anymore, right? He said don’t call me that? See, why does the ESPYs do this s–t?”
A member of McAfee’s crew, Boston Connor, called the decision to award Harry “asinine” while others said the award should’ve gone to “someone from the United States.”
“This is like actually the most embarrassing thing I’ve seen in my entire life,” he added.
Former NFL player and co-host AJ Hawk questioned McAfee, wanting clarification that the award was for “sports people” which the show’s host explained that it is given to “somebody who has committed their life to sport and everything like that.”
Prince Harry being named the recipient of the Pat Tillman award left a stale taste in McAfee’s mouth.
“When you do something like this, you know the immediate reaction from humans and from sports fans and from people with common sense and brains it’s gonna be like ‘Hey, don’t be putting our f—ing guy with that guy.'”
‘But like did his people know like ”you publicly put me up for this award. You’re just asking basically every person that considers themselves American and saying ”this is bulls—t’”. Especially at a sports award type of thing. .. I assume he knew that,” McAfee said. “They didn’t expect that?’
McAfee, who says he doesn’t know much about Harry except for the “South Park” episode and “The Crown,” failed to bring up the royal’s role in creating the Invictus Games during his rant.
The prince, who quit royal life in 2020, launched the Invictus Games in 2014 as multi-sport Paralympic-styled games for wounded or injured servicemen and veterans.
Harry will be presented the award at the July 11 awards show “in honor of his tireless work in making a positive impact for the veteran community through the power of sport,” the network announced.
“This one is for our entire service community,” Harry said after learning of the honor.
Harry also served in the British Armed Forces for 10 years, including two tours of duty in Afghanistan as an Apache helicopter pilot and a forward air controller.
The announcement was made on Thursday by ESPN, which also revealed the “special honorees” for The Arthur Ashe Award for Courage (Steve Gleason) and the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance (Dawn Staley.)
The award was created in 2014 and has been given to a person with a strong connection to sports who has served others in a way that echoes the legacy of Tillman.
Past recipients of the Pat Tillman Award for Service include Jake Wood (2018), Kirstie Ennis (2019), Kim Clavel (2020), Marcus Rashford (2021), Gretchen Evans (2022) and the Buffalo Bills Training Staff (2023).
