Pat McAfee is headed to ESPN and he has acknowledged that some of his most devoted fans are not happy about it. Charles Barkley was a guest on his show Friday and offered some advice for dealing with critics.

“Listen, I was watching you last week and you said people give you a hard time for taking your new deal. Tell them to shut the f*** up, alright?”

Barkley, who revealed that he and McAfee are friends and text regularly, said that he is happy to see the show break new ground and have success. He added that the people complaining are not thinking about the situation logically.

“I just laugh. I’m like, ‘Well, who the f*** don’t take a better job?'”.

McAfee admitted last week that he underestimated the number of listeners and fans that were upset. After it was announced that he was joining ESPN, he was inundated with messages from fans worried that he was going to let Disney change his uncensored show.

He was disappointed by the lack of faith in the show and trust in him implied. He told Charles Barkley that the kind of advice someone with the Hall of Famer’s track record was offering meant a lot.

“I appreciate you, Chuck,” he said. “Hey, I need to hear that. I need to hear that because you have been a trailblazer in my world, in the media world, obviously.”

Dana White stands by what he said about suits ruining great businesses on the Pat McAfee Show earlier this week. But he clarified that when he mentioned issues at Barstool Sports, that was not criticism for that specific brand. His problem is with Penn Gaming, which acquired Barstool earlier this year.

“I had a situation yesterday with Barstool and it’s turning into a corporate f***ing shitshow too,” he said on McAfee’s Thursday show. “It’s what happens when you get these f***ing suits involved in your business.”

Earlier in the conversation, White implied that he was worried about what may happen to the show once McAfee and crew move to ESPN. He said, “most of them don’t know jack shit” when talking about executives in the entertainment space.

Later that evening at a UFC press conference, Dana White was asked about his comments about Barstool. He clarified that he is not ending the relationship between that company and the UFC.

“Basically what I’m saying is, when you build a company like Barstool Sports, the way that it was built with a guy like Dave Portnoy, once you get a bunch of suits involved… it just changes the dynamic of the whole thing,” he said. “Ask Vice how that went.”

During an appearance on The Kirk Minihane Show this week, Dave Portnoy raised questions about his future with Barstool Sports. He said his contract is up in 20 months. He is not confident that Penn Entertainment will renew it.

Sports betting is reaching a younger audience in a big way according to a study commissioned by the NCAA. When asked if they had ever placed a bet on a sporting event, 58% responded that they had.

Students that live on campus are even more likely to lay money down. 67% of them said they had placed a bet on sports before.

Advertising is clearly working on this demographic. Of the respondents that live on campus, 63% report having seen sports betting advertising. Overall, 58% of students say that ads make them more likely to gamble and 70% believe that consistent sports gambling is a way to supplement their income.

In recent years, schools have reassessed their relationship with sportsbooks. In fact, the study comes on the heels of Alabama firing baseball coach Brad Bohannon for allegedly providing inside information to a gambler and student-athletes at Iowa and Iowa State were ruled ineligible for placing bets on games.

College sports on TV and radio are havens for sportsbook ads. The NCAA may look to take more steps to address its relationship with gambling, but it is hard to imagine that will change.

The American Gaming Association revealed in February that the US betting market generated $7.5 billion in revenue last year. That is a 75% increase over 2021.