The announcement of Pat McAfee joining forces with ESPN raised a lot of questions as to whether McAfee’s daily brand of sports talk can sustain itself for the long-term on cable.

But ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro has no doubts that Pat can be wildly successful for years to come. He spoke with The Big Lead recently and said bringing McAfee’s show to the daily lineup allows the network to tap into a different audience.

“When we talk about our priorities at ESPN, one of the things we always mention is audience expansion,” Pitaro said. “That means a lot of things, but it especially means attracting a younger audience. We feel like Pat really helps us in that regard.”

“I have a son and a daughter, both of whom not just know who Pat is but they like him, and I have a father who also happens to really like Pat,” he added. “That’ll tell you a lot about his appeal.”

Also expanding the relationship between The Worldwide Leader and McAfee made sense in Pitaro’s eyes. The two sides already have a history.

“We’ve been in business with Pat for some time by now,” he said. “He’s done a fantastic job for us on College GameDay, he’s done some alternate broadcasts that have really resonated with our audience, so we feel like his show is a natural extension of what we’re already doing.”

While NFL Sunday Ticket will be moving to YouTubeTV for football fans at home this fall, DirecTV will continue to distribute the service for bars and restaurants. An announcement of a multi-year agreement between the league and DirecTV was made on Thursday. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

“DirecTV for Business delivers a market-leading, consistent and reliable sports viewing experience to fans in more than 300,000 bars, restaurants and other commercial establishments across the United States,” said Mike Wittrock, DirecTV’s chief sales and service officer. “We’re thrilled to partner with EverPass and continue carriage of NFL Sunday Ticket.”

EverPass Media was established earlier this year by the NFL. Working with RedBird Capital, the goal was to manage the distribution of Sunday Ticket to commercial consumers.

Last season, the league worked out a deal with DirecTV to carry Thursday Night Football games to those same customers. Thursday games are broadcast to residential customers on Amazon Prime Video.

Stephen A. Smith continues to be one of sports media’s most entertaining and busy personalities in the media. In addition to his work on ESPN and his podcast, he wrote a best-selling book and occasionally appears on General Hospital as an actor. Smith, however, is not satisfied with his accomplishments thus far, and has lofty goals in mind.

“I want to end my career being recognized as arguably the greatest television talent in history,” Smith said on the Tamron Hall Show. “That’s what I want to do. That’s what I want to accomplish.”

Smith recently started his own production company – Mr. SAS Productions – and it has a hand in producing the ESPN alternate telecast titled NBA in Stephen A’s World. His visions, however, penetrate beyond sports, looking for ways to further augment his versatility and fulfill his goals. Smith had previously mentioned running for the U.S. presidency and floated a political future, all while being the featured commentator on his top-rated morning show.

“I’m going to pursue acting,” Smith revealed. “I finally made a decision to do that. That’s something that I want to do because I like portraying other characters and finding myself marrying that character. The challenge of it – because I think it makes me better on television.”

He outlined his journey to working at ESPN and becoming one of the most popular sports media personalities in his book, and has spoken about it on many occasions. During his interview with Tamron Hall, she quotes something he told Vanity Fair about his formative years and how he cultivated the knowledge to work in sports media.

“I couldn’t rap. I wasn’t a good enough basketball player. I wasn’t a good enough athlete, or an artist where thousands of people are packing in an arena to watch me,” Smith said in the previous interview. “But I learned to read and write and comprehend, and I scratched, not clawed, and I worked my ass off.”