Pat McAfee’s kicking contest confirmed to return for fourth season on ‘College GameDay’

Pat McAfee’s kicking contest is back for a fourth season on College GameDay, closing the book on months of will-it-won’t-it speculation that started with McAfee’s own cryptic remarks.

The former Indianapolis Colts punter hinted twice last December that the contest could be over for good, telling a Texas A&M student mid-attempt, “It’ll be our final kick of the season, maybe of the entire series.”

The comment set off a small firestorm a few days later, when an anonymous industry source told Front Office Sports that ending the segment would “make absolutely no business sense,” which later drew a heated on-air response from both McAfee and that week’s guest, J.J. Watt, who called the criticism “the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“These people are just so f*cking blinded by [hate], it’s an absurd thing,” McAfee said.

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“But on that note, we just had a $1.5 million kick in front of 110,000 people. I don’t know what else we can (do). I mean, who knows what College GameDay looks like next year? There are so many different variables to it.

“But I’m not somebody; I think people know this… we don’t really stick with a lot of things. Get bored with things. It’s not like, ‘Hey, we found something, let’s do this forever.’ So me hinting that this might be the end of the series — what if something else comes up? What if it doesn’t happen? There are so many things to it. But also, saying that it’s bad business sense to do away with it, it’s like okay.”

“These people are just so f*cking blinded by [hate], it’s an absurd thing,” McAfee said.

“But on that note, we just had a $1.5 million kick in front of 110,000 people. I don’t know what else we can (do). I mean, who knows what College GameDay looks like next year? There are so many different variables to it.

“But I’m not somebody; I think people know this… we don’t really stick with a lot of things. Get bored with things. It’s not like, ‘Hey, we found something, let’s do this forever.’ So me hinting that this might be the end of the series — what if something else comes up? What if it doesn’t happen? There are so many things to it. But also, saying that it’s bad business sense to do away with it, it’s like okay.”

The uncertainty carried into the offseason, as Rece Davis deflected the question in June, telling FOS the matter fell under “Pat’s domain” and declining to elaborate further. ESPN delivered an equally noncommittal response when Awful Announcing pressed for details in late August, offering nothing beyond a vague assurance that fans would find out soon enough.

Sources close to GameDay production told Awful Announcing at the time that they anticipated the contest’s eventual return, though they conceded they had received no formal confirmation from the network, and several admitted they’d nearly forgotten Pat McAfee had raised the possibility of cancellation in the first place.

McAfee had spent three seasons bankrolling the prize money entirely out of pocket, an arrangement that had grown considerably more expensive as the segment’s profile and payouts both ballooned. Either a fresh sponsorship agreement covering those costs or a renegotiated financial arrangement folded into McAfee’s rumored $60 million-plus annual ESPN extension emerged as the two most plausible ways to bring the contest back without leaving McAfee personally on the hook for another year of six-figure kicks.

But those details were not readily available in Thursday’s announcement.

Along with the kicking contest, ESPN also confirmed that celebrity guest pickers will return this season — not that there was any doubt — with each week’s guest to be announced live on The Pat McAfee Show every Thursday.