Pat McAfee Is Mopping The Floor With Dan Le Batard In YouTube Views

Two weeks ago, Dan Le Batard complained that ESPN chose Pat McAfee over him. He claims the network preferred McAfee's apolitical approach to sports over his politically-dyed coverage.

We disputed that to be the case at the time, listing several instances where ESPN backed liberal pundits over those who focus only on sports.

We argued ESPN chose McAfee over Le Batard by reason of success.

Both hosts simulcast their daily programs live on YouTube, where numbers are public. So, we thought we'd compare them side-by-side to see if our assessment, that McAfee is a bigger draw than Le Batard, is accurate.

Here's what we learned:

On Monday, the day after an eventful football weekend, McAfee's live show drew 557,000 views on YouTube. Le Batard, using the same metric, had 46,000 views.

McAfee drew more than 12 times the views as Le Batard.

Both shows dipped on Tuesday. However, the head-to-head comparison remained ugly. For Le Batard, that is.

Le Batard fell to just 32,000 views, compared to 428,000 for McAfee.

"The Dan Le Batard Show" showed gains on Wednesday due to the Damien Lillard trade, which proved his reporting that the star would end up in Miami incorrect, with a view count of 103,000.

Still, McAfee's show had 356,000.

Le Batard regressed back to the mean on Thursday at 41,000 views. McAfee totaled 326,000.

Consider that YouTube is the exclusive video home for Dan Le Batard. Meanwhile, McAfee's show also simulcasts live on ESPN television and ESPN+.

McAfee's YouTube numbers would be even higher were he still only available on the platform.

For someone as self-righteous as Le Batard, he has failed to prove he can draw an audience anywhere other than Apple Podcasts.

It's not just McAfee who laps Le Batard's on YouTube, with 2.3 million subscribers to 160,000.

Stephen A. Smith created his YouTube page nearly two years after Le Batard, yet has nearly 400,000 subscribers.

Rich Eisen has never shown an ability to draw an audience -- anywhere. But Eisen has six times the subscribers as Le Batard.

"Pardon My Take" recently started to upload full episodes to YouTube and now has 500,000 subscribers.

Colin Cowherd's Volume page already has 688,000 subscribers.

Speaking of Cowherd, ESPN elevated Le Batard's show to 10 am to 1 pm in 2015 following Colin's departure. With that promotion, the time slot's radio declined by 50% on radio and 60% on ESPNU.

Of course, Le Batard is more of a "draw" than Bomani Jones, whom he also complained ESPN chose McAfee over.

"ESPN chose [Pat[ over Bomani and me and Sarah and whatever it is that we were doing that doesn’t fit with the politics of whatever McAfee’s doing, which is not going to go near Trump and is going to rah rah the hell out of football very well all season," said Le Batard.

Bomani set record lows on ESPN, ESPN Radio, and HBO. All three of his past shows were canceled as a result. Bomani has been a media free agent since July and remains unemployed. Translation: his market is bleak.

But odd it was for Le Batard to compare himself to McAfee, considering the results we just uncovered.

There's a reason Zach Wilson didn't publicly complain the Jets chose Aaron Rodgers over him.

Dan Le Batard's politics didn't necessarily hurt his standing with management. His politics hurt his standing with sports fans.

ESPN chose McAfee over Le Batard because sports fans chose McAfee over Le Batard.

According to the ratings, there is a demand for Pat McAfee.

There is only a finite market for bitter, sweaty, sanctimonious, and perpetually offended sportscasters like Dan Le Batard.