Because it morphs from a tv firm right into a streaming firm, ESPN is present process fast transformation. But when the extraordinary occasions of the previous week are any indication, the transformation of its company tradition is simply as seismic.

For many years, the largest star at ESPN was ESPN. A protracted checklist of its best-known staff — like Keith Olbermann, Invoice Simmons and Dan Le Batard — clashed with executives, and the story at all times ended the identical manner: These staff left, and ESPN stored proper on rolling.

However final week Pat McAfee, the Indianapolis Colts punter turned new-media shock jock and ESPN star, immediately criticized a robust government on the Disney-owned community by identify, calling him a “rat.” Not solely was Mr. McAfee not fired, he seemingly was not punished in any respect, stunning present and former ESPN executives and staff.

“We all know there isn’t any extra offensive crime within the universe of ESPN and Disney than host-on-host crime, or talent-on-talent crime,” Jemele Hill, a former “SportsCenter” host who left ESPN in 2018 after sparring with executives, said last week.

To complicate issues even additional, days earlier, Aaron Rodgers, the New York Jets quarterback and a daily paid visitor on Mr. McAfee’s every day afternoon speak present, mentioned throughout an look that lots of people, “together with Jimmy Kimmel,” have been hoping a courtroom wouldn’t make public a listing of the associates of Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and registered intercourse offender.

Mr. Kimmel’s late-night speak present is broadcast on ABC, which Disney additionally owns.

It was once that executives at ESPN’s headquarters in Bristol, Conn., thought of publicly criticizing a colleague virtually the worst factor an worker might do.

Tony Kornheiser was faraway from the air for 2 weeks for remarking on Hannah Storm’s clothes. Mr. Simmons was twice suspended from social media, as soon as for feuding with an ESPN-owned radio station and one other time for criticizing the community’s fashionable present “First Take.” Mr. Olbermann was suspended for happening Comedy Central and calling Bristol a “God-forsaken place.”

However Mr. McAfee’s nice escape has shined a light-weight on his uncommon association with ESPN, which licenses however doesn’t personal his present. It additionally illustrates the bind that ESPN’s executives are in by empowering Mr. McAfee when the corporate is transitioning from the cable period it dominated into the streaming and social media period it has to date entered with much less success.

Mr. McAfee is each an ESPN worker who seems on a few of its faculty soccer and Nationwide Soccer League reveals, in addition to a contractor who produces “The Pat McAfee Present,” which is proven for a number of hours on each the ESPN cable channel and the ESPN+ streaming service.

Mr. McAfee beforehand labored for the Barstool Sports activities media firm, the FanDuel sports activities betting firm and World Wrestling Leisure, and arrived at ESPN with a big and dependable viewers. His present is a freewheeling shoutfest paying homage to Don Imus or Howard Stern, with a recurring forged of characters and way more swearing than ESPN permits most reveals.

Final week he known as Norby Williamson, who has labored at ESPN since 1985 and is formally the executive editor and head of event and studio production, a “rat.” Mr. McAfee additionally accused him of leaking unflattering scores knowledge for his present to The New York Post.

“There are some individuals actively attempting to sabotage us from inside ESPN,” Mr. McAfee mentioned on the air. “Extra particularly, I consider Norby Williamson is the man making an attempt to sabotage our program.”

In an announcement over the weekend, ESPN mentioned constructive issues about each males, including that the corporate would “deal with this matter internally and don’t have any additional remark.” Mr. McAfee and Mr. Williamson didn’t reply to messages requesting remark, and ESPN declined to make them or any executives obtainable for an interview.

Then there’s Mr. Rodgers, whose weekly appearances on Mr. McAfee’s present generally function anti-vaccine diatribes and have turn into more and more unpredictable. After Mr. Kimmel — whose identify was not on the Epstein checklist launched by the courtroom — threatened to sue Mr. Rodgers, Mr. McAfee apologized on his behalf, form of, saying he thought Mr. Rodgers was simply attempting to rile up Mr. Kimmel as a part of a small feud between the 2. Mr. Rodgers didn’t provide an apology when he appeared on the present on Tuesday, as a substitute saying ESPN executives and others within the information media misinterpreted his feedback.

Whereas Mr. McAfee appeared considerably uncomfortable in the midst of a conflict between Mr. Rodgers and Mr. Kimmel, he didn’t apologize for his personal criticism of Mr. Williamson. Actually, he reiterated it.

“We love Burke Magnus,” Mr. McAfee mentioned on his present on Monday, naming a parade of high ESPN and Disney executives who’re extra highly effective than Mr. Williamson. “Love Burke Magnus. And in addition love Jimmy Pitaro. Love Bob Iger. However there’s fairly a transition period right here between the outdated and the brand new. And the outdated don’t like what the brand new be doing.”

Talking about Mr. Williamson, he added that he was not taking again “something that I mentioned about mentioned particular person,” and that there have been “just a few outdated hags” that didn’t perceive what the long run seemed like.

Mr. Williamson has lengthy been a robust however divisive determine inside ESPN. “The joke was they couldn’t do away with him, and now he has extra energy than ever,” Mr. Simmons said on his podcast in 2017, evaluating Mr. Williamson to Littlefinger, a power-hungry and Machiavellian character from “Recreation of Thrones.”

Mr. Williamson’s area has lengthy been “SportsCenter,” which he obsessively promotes inside ESPN. Whereas different high executives concentrate on big-picture points, Mr. Williamson is thought to ship out emails specializing in the smallest tweaks to reveals, and has a reputation for liking a traditional, meat-and-potatoes model of “SportsCenter” targeted on highlights.

It’s not clear the place the dispute between Mr. Williamson and Mr. McAfee might have begun. Mr. McAfee’s arrival on the firm did relegate the midday exhibiting of “SportsCenter” to ESPN2 from ESPN, however in any other case the 2 function in separate domains.

It could be that the combat is an element of a bigger battle relating to energy inside the community, and whether or not it ought to relaxation extra squarely with on-air expertise or with executives.

Mr. McAfee is within the first 12 months of a five-year settlement that reportedly pays him a total of $85 million. ESPN wouldn’t need to cope with the fallout of ending that contract prematurely, particularly when Mr. McAfee is one in all its star personalities and occupies hours of tv time every day.

One doable cause Mr. McAfee escaped punishment is that, whereas Mr. Williamson had by no means been criticized by an ESPN worker so publicly, it wasn’t the primary time somebody on the community clashed with him and believed he was being undermining.

“These individuals did this to us on the finish, with a sequence of strategic, orchestrated leaks,” Mr. Le Batard said Monday on his podcast, referring to his battles with Mr. Williamson and others, and his eventual departure from ESPN three years in the past.

Mr. Le Batard as soon as had a stark warning for workers, like himself, who chafed at ESPN’s strictures. “Don’t go away ESPN, man,” he mentioned on the radio in 2016. “ESPN is a monster platform that’s chargeable for all of our successes.”

However in 2023, not less than because it pertains to Mr. McAfee, his opinion has modified.

“It is a man who has bought all his personal energy and is renting to them,” Mr. Le Batard mentioned on his present. “He will probably be greater the second that he leaves there, as a result of he was too scorching for Disney to deal with, than he was at any level earlier than that. He has nothing to worry right here, and that has to scare the hell out of them.”