Pat McAfee dropped his highly anticipated interview with LeBron James on Wednesday’s episode of The Pat McAfee Show.
While there will probably be several headlines that come from the McAfee-James interview (even on First Take before the interview even dropped), it was hard to follow the conversation at times because the audio kept dropping from the ESPN broadcast.
At literally dozens of times throughout the interview, it appeared that ESPN had audio issues as the sound would drop for short periods of time. Seasoned watchers/listeners of The Pat McAfee Show knew exactly what was happening. LeBron James and Pat McAfee were swearing and ESPN was dropping the audio feed because they were saying words that you still can’t say on television.
But people who may have been tuning in for the first time for the LeBron interview 0r have only seen bits and pieces of the McAfee progrum were baffled and took to social media to complain about ESPN having audio issues, not realizing what exactly was going on.
Whoever is in charge of editing this LeBron interview is gonna see jail time for the audio. This is horrible @espn @PatMcAfeeShow
— Solo (@likethe_redcup) March 26, 2025
@PatMcAfeeShow your Audio team sucks ass. ESPN trash these days.
— Luke (@LucasGordo5) March 26, 2025
1) Pat McAfee getting LeBron for an hour should quiet McAfee critics.
2) How can you not think even a tiny bit that LeBron went on with McAfee to troll Stephen A?
3) I don’t know why ESPN didn’t just bleep LeBron’s cursing instead of dropping the entire audio every two minutes.
— Jimmy Traina (@JimmyTraina) March 26, 2025
Man what the hell is up with yal audio @espn
— CASH OUT KING (@TheyHateDirt) March 26, 2025
Whoever is in charge of editing this LeBron interview is gonna see jail time for the audio. This is horrible @espn @PatMcAfeeShow
— Solo (@likethe_redcup) March 26, 2025
@PatMcAfeeShow bro what’s up with the show always cutting audio for 10-15 secs every few mins?? It got bad in the Lebron interview.
— Piztol (@Piztol234078) March 26, 2025
Yup, choppy as hell..ESPN is getting hacked live
— iEatCode (@vicpal25) March 26, 2025
The audio on this LeBron – Pat Mcafee keeps going out 😤
— Ryan Nelson (@RyanNelson23) March 26, 2025
Pat McAfee… you have LeBron on the show today, why DA FUCK is the audio going in and out!!!! Fix dat weak ass shit!!
— 👹🍃 (@_Metta3Piece) March 26, 2025
The audio issues ESPN has with Pat McAfee’s show is so annoying
— D (@GunslingerViews) March 26, 2025
The interview was pre-recorded on Tuesday and aired in full on delay on Wednesday. Could LeBron James and Pat McAfee just been bleeped when they dropped f-bombs instead of being muted in full for several seconds at a time? Who knows. But given the amount of swearing, it probably would have taken all night long to comb through because there was at least one m—–f—– that came through live on the air amidst the regular audio drops.
As for the content of the interview itself, it showed why Pat McAfee has risen to superstar status in sports media. LeBron James opened up to him like we have rarely ever seen before. And being able to draw in stars has always been his biggest attribute.
Of course, critics would argue that you have to sacrifice hard-hitting questions to get that chummy atmosphere, but nobody is ever going to confuse McAfee with Tim Russert anytime soon. LeBron touched on The Decision, his feud with Stephen A. Smith, his relationships with Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, and much more. And there were likely a lot of people that enjoyed seeing that openness from LeBron James… at least for what they could hear.