The Josh Innes Show - McAfee/Kelce Overload Part 1

Episode Date: September 15, 2026

Once again, I ask this question...what does Pat McAfee actually mean to the bottom line at ESPN? I don't ask that to be an asshole. I ask because I'd legit like to know. The guy is everywhere. My other question: Has Pat McAfee ever offered any insight that you remember? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You know, I don't really hate Taylor Swift. I'm watching the game last night. It was an awful game. Really wasn't worth anybody's time. But they would occasionally show Taylor Swift. And yeah, she gets overly excited about everything and probably knows the camera's on her. So it's like, you know what? You know, I'm going to put on a little show for the people because that's what they came here for.

You know, like the people came here to see me get overly excited about my husband and I'm going to. You know, he made like one or two plays. Made that one big play that was, you know, like 40-something yards or whatever it was. 50 yards. I've got how many yards it was. It was a lot of yards. I think it was over 50 yards. And, you know, she gets really excited.

But I'm not bothered by her. You know, like there's nothing about her that I find really annoying. I think that she's done a decent job of being less annoying. What I'm annoyed by are the number of people who went to this stupid wedding and like to basically brag that they were. went to this stupid wedding. Like, I think of celebrities. And I understand that it's probably hard for celebrities to be friends with non-celebrities, especially after you've been a celebrity. Like, how do you become a friend? Like, if you're a nationally known person, whether you're an actor

or an athlete or an announcer or whatever, like, how do you go back to civilian life and become friends with randos? You know, like maybe you can't. Maybe it's impossible to do. Unless you were friends with these people before you were a real big deal, you know. But I'm really annoyed by the number of these celebrities who are all like best friends, like these people from Kansas City. How the fuck are all these celebrities from Kansas City? They're all just magically Chiefs fans. We had no idea any of these people were Chiefs fans until the Chiefs got good.

You ever noticed that? Like, you knew who Jack Nicholson rooted for because he sat court side at Knicks games. So you knew that Jack Nicholson loved. the Knicks, or not the Knicks, but the Lakers. Like, you knew that. You knew Spike Lee was a Knicks fan, right? But that was kind of like the extent of it, right? Like, you didn't know a ton about celebrities and who they rooted for in sports.

Now, part of that is because there was no social media and stuff. So you couldn't just follow these people easily. So maybe you didn't know. But then out of nowhere, all these fucking people are Chiefs fans. It's like, oh, did you guys know that Paul Rudd is a Chiefs fan? Hey, did you guys know that the gay guy or the fake gay guy Eric Stone Street from Modern Family?

Did you know that Eric Stone Street's a Chiefs fan? Did you know that Rob Riggles a Chiefs fan? Did you know that this girl from S&L is a Chiefs fan? Did you know that Ellie Kemper is a Chiefs fan? They're all Chiefs fans now. And I don't feel like you ever heard anything about this until they were actually good. And you might say, well, Josh, why would we have ever heard anything about that

considering that, you know, up until recently there was no social media or constant attention to it. Well, I know that Don Draper over there, right? What the fuck is Don Draper's name? How am I drawn to John Hamm? That John Hamm was a Cardinals fan. He narrated one of their World Series videos. Like, you knew that John Hamm was a Cardinals fan. But you didn't know this about a lot of celebrities.

But now, like, everybody is magically from Kansas City, and they're all Chiefs fans. So I find those people annoying. I also find, as you know, I find the Kelsey family annoying. And let me play a couple commercials and then we'll continue. And my disdain for the Kelsey's again has nothing to do with what you might say is the obvious for things that happened in Philadelphia 11 years ago, 10 years ago, whatever it was. It has nothing to do with that. They're just fucking annoying people.

And really, Travis is the least annoying. I think we've had this conversation before. Travis is actually the least annoying of them. Like it's annoying that he went from being Malibu's most wanted to being a guy in a J. Krew catalog. Like that's annoying. But whatever. I mean,

if, you know, you change yourself for your lady because your lady's where the money's at and, you know, fine. Like, I don't find him to be an annoying person. In fact, he's kind of out of side out of mind. Like,

you don't really hear from him anymore, you know? Obviously, like, no matter what happens, you end up running into, you know, Jason Kelsey, who's just the least interesting fucking person.

on the planet. Bless his heart. He's not interesting. You know, like, as someone who sits around on the internet and has taken my shirt off many times, what you learn is that taking off your shirt after a while really isn't all that interesting or all that funny. Like, you sit around long enough. You're like, boy, is this all I got? You know, back when I was sitting on Twitch until, you know, three in the morning with my shirt off singing yacht rock songs. Like, is this really all I fucking got? I'm pretty limited here. This is what I do. As we've said before about, you know, know, Jason Kelsey, is that Jason Kelsey is, you know, a guy that, like, has pulled my finger guy.

Like, he doesn't have much. Like, he's a kind of guy that, like, if he's got nothing else, we'll just keep doing a borat impression, even though nobody does borat impressions anymore. Like, I feel like Jason Kelsey probably did the borat impression way past its, you know, expiration date. Like, I feel like he was sitting around, like, in 2017, still being, like, like, like, you know, you feel like that's probably what he did. Like, yeah, it's borat.

And it's like, ESPN did something that there was a pretty impressive accomplishment. I give them credit for this because this was impressive. They somehow decided we're just going to take two people that the world is totally sick of and we're just going to force them on you a little bit more on Monday night football. Like, here's Pat McAfee, here's Jason Kelsey. you never get a chance to miss them because they never go the fuck away. And look, you can't hate Pat McAfee for finding ways to make money and striking while the iron's hot, I guess. Look, you got to go out and make a buck.

And at some point, you know, the people will get, you know, you won't be hot anymore. You won't be that. But like, I wonder how hot Pat McAfee actually is. And this is not a knock on McAfee. And we talk about this, you know, in the past before. but I wonder how big of an impact he has or how much of an impact McAfee actually has on ratings and revenue for ESPN. Now, you would think he must have giant impacts because, well, you know, they keep him on there and they keep putting him on more shit. He's on game days.

He's on the NFL. He's on his own show. He's doing a watchalong for the big games. And like you would think he has to have some sort of impact. But does he? You know, you don't know this. Like, it's kind of hard to gauge. And it's really kind of hard to gauge that in any walk of life.

Like, you know, I work on the radio, sort of. And, you know, like you'll see people. And it's really just about the luck of the ratings straw, right? If you got the numbers falling your way in this weird bullshit system we use for things, if the numbers are falling your way, you look like you're the most talented human in the world. And everybody wants to put you on the radio when they're not going your way. way, you don't look all that talented anymore. Like, when I was in Nashville, I caught the good end of the rating stick, right? And by that I mean, you know, this small little group of

people that determine the ratings with these little devices. We ended up having some of those for most of the time I was there. So I hit the lottery. It was a perfect storm. We're number one for a couple of books in Nashville, and I look very smart. And from everything I've been told now is people were going to, you know, potentially put me on multiple radio stations at that time because, you know, a lot of these big money classic rock stations and shows were kind of dying off, you know, and they were expensive. And eventually they were going to have to try to kind of change gears, shift gears a little bit from some of these shows that were getting older and retiring.

And perhaps Josh Ennis would have sounded good. And I was already on three radio stations, you know. I was on in Memphis and Detroit and Nashville. And by the way, I was doing it in a way that a lot of people weren't doing it, which was I was doing it basically live for three different stations. Like the part I've always hated about this is kind of having to pretend like you're in these other places. And it's one thing if you're just doing a DJ stuff and pretending like you're in another place. but when you're doing like a full-on show and you kind of have to pretend like you're in this place

and that you're interested in these things that are happening in this city instead of just doing your show, having to do three different shows, it was kind of weird. But it was fine and I did a really good job and I actually had really good numbers in Detroit, right? I don't know if we ever talked about that,

but the best morning show numbers WLLZ ever had and that new iteration of WLLLZ was when I was doing more. mornings from Nashville. That show did really fucking well. Like I think it peaked at like number six or number seven, which you might say, Josh, who gives a shit about number six or number seven? Well, when I was there last time, we were like number 18, number 19. So like we had a moment where we were doing really fucking well. And I looked like I was really fucking smart, you know. And I was kind of like the hot commodity, you know, and they were going to start putting me in a lot of places.

But I was kind of impatient with that and I wanted to go to St. Louis. So when the St. Louis offer came and they started paying me a lot of money, I'm like, I got to go at St. Louis, you know. I've got a, you know, there was a lot of money they paid me to go there. And I thought I wanted to live in St. Louis. And I wanted to go to the Cardinals games every night. And cool, you know, like that was the thing. But instead, you know, I left. And, you know, who knows?

You know, we talk about this. Me and Jilly talk about this sometimes, you know, but basically going to St. Louis and And then that bottoming out after 15 months really set me back in the world because essentially what ended up happening is it kind of restarted my clock in a way. Now, I'm glad that I heart rehired me and they hired me in Detroit. And I appreciate that. But it's just funny because, you know, now I'm basically a DJ. You know, I'm not the big wacky morning guy that was, you know, generating all this wacky attention.

Like when I was in Nashville, like every day we were doing something that was making news or having parades for the party buses or, you know, whatever, having guys and thongs run down the street to support the show, you know, all that kind of stuff. Like I was probably on the fast track to being like one of these top guys in Iheart. Like, and at the time you don't realize that because you're like, shit, someone just offered me more money and I want to leave. But looking back on it now, I was probably on the fast track to being a really big deal at I heart and now I'm probably never going to be a really big deal at I heart and look I made a choice

and it was to me it was still a good choice at the time you know but you know and then somebody else comes in and and now they kind of take the place of what you probably would have been it is what it is you know I mean like I can't change that so whatever