​Linda Cohn spent 34 years watching ESPN evolve, and her long view has given her a sharper sense of how the network operates than most. In a Yahoo Sports Daily appearance after her retirement from the Worldwide Leader, Cohn weighed in on whether Pat McAfee had surpassed Stephen A. Smith as ESPN’s face. She described the question as apples and oranges, stressing that McAfee and Smith are entirely different people with distinct shows and lanes. In her view, there isn’t a ranking or ladder to climb between them; both occupy a rarefied space at ESPN at the same time, just through different avenues.
When she thinks about McAfee’s place, Cohn doesn’t compare him to Smith. Her reference point is Dan Patrick. Patrick built The Dan Patrick Show into a fully independent operation, with a loyal core crew, syndication across the country, and eventual NBC ownership, all without surrendering creative control. McAfee followed a similar blueprint, but on a larger scale: he cultivated a massive audience outside ESPN, then brought the show to the network under an arrangement that preserved his creative autonomy. “My former colleague Dan Patrick did that long before,” Cohn said. “Dan created a team around him in that little man-cave setup. Pat McAfee basically did the same thing, and he deserves credit for taking it even further, convincing ESPN and others that it was the right move.”
McAfee is reportedly in talks for an extension in the $60 to $65 million per year range, a figure that would place him at the top of the sports media salary scale (at least on paper) and has already shifted industry compensation norms. McAfee’s original deal helped push the market upward and, in turn, created the conditions for Smith to land his own nine-figure pact. Smith has openly acknowledged the dynamic, even as chatter of tensions between the two flickered across their ESPN tenure.
Cohn did not intend to diminish Smith’s importance in that equation. The criticism that he doesn’t genuinely watch games and operates mainly from headlines is a familiar one within sports media circles, including from former colleagues, and she acknowledged its existence without subscribing to it. “Stephen A. is one of the hardest-working people in this business, next to Adam Schefter,” she said. “He’s asked to do a lot, he’s constantly on, he rarely says no. He does radio, he has his own channel, he’s on TV as we know, he does First Take, and he’s a survivor. That’s in his DNA.”
Yet neither man embodies the ESPN that Cohn devoted four decades of her life to. The network she joined was built on the premise that the programming itself is the product, and no single personality loomed larger than the brand. In the era she knew best, the show and the content trumped any one face. The culture she describes emphasizes the team and the programming as the centerpiece, rather than a singular star who could eclipse the whole operation. In that sense, Cohn’s perspective reflects a time when ESPN’s identity was less about one iconic host and more about the collection of voices, the breadth of coverage, and the relentless pursuit of compelling sports storytelling.