CAM HAZZARDThe full segment from The Pat McAfee Show, August 12, 2026. The ending is worth it.
On August 12 I dunked live on ESPN inside the Thunderdome, the Pat McAfee Show’s home base in Indianapolis. Five dunks with no real warm-up, an Eastbay over an NFL lineman to close the show, and a $25,000 surprise I didn’t find out about until the ride back to the hotel. Three weeks earlier, I didn’t even know Pat McAfee knew my name.
The Pat McAfee Show Clip I Never Expected
On July 22, the day after I won Group A of DunkMan, Pat McAfee was on ESPN doing his normal sports commentary when he pulled up a clip of my winning dunk and showed it to his whole audience. I wasn’t expecting it at all. Watching yourself on ESPN, completely out of nowhere, is one of the most surreal feelings I’ve had all summer.
I thought that was the end of it. Super cool moment, save the clip, move on. My manager saw it differently. He reached out on my behalf to see if there was any chance I could get on the show. I didn’t really think it was possible, but I liked the idea, so he sent it.
Within a few days, Pat McAfee himself responded and said he wanted me on the show. I could hardly believe it.
“We Can’t Wait to Have You Break the Thunderdome World Record”
I flew to Indianapolis and walked into the Thunderdome, the show’s main headquarters. They escorted me to the green room, where I did some light stretching, nothing too crazy, because I genuinely wasn’t expecting to dunk on live TV that day.
During one of the commercial breaks, Pat McAfee came back to the green room to say what’s up. He was fired up that I was there. Then he said, “Man, we can’t wait to have you break the Thunderdome world record,” and walked out.
I had no idea what that meant.
So I watched the show from the back and pieced it together. He was telling the audience he wanted me to be the first person to set a Thunderdome world record, which is their way of saying the craziest dunk that’s ever been thrown down in that building. I was not ready for that. I was worn out from travel, and I’d cooked myself in a three-and-a-half-hour dunk session that same morning (that whole week is its own story). My entire warm-up was a C4 energy drink and some light stretching in a side room.
Five Dunks on Live ESPN
The sequence went like this:
- A light one-hander to feel out the rim and get my legs under me.
- A 360 windmill, which I missed. Honestly, I wasn’t worried about it. With no full warm-up that dunk is a coin flip, and I told them exactly that.
- A 360 pump to get myself going.
- My signature, the 360 under both. Fewer than 10 people in the world land it, and that one got the whole room going.
- The finale. Right before the show ended they wanted one more, so they sent out the biggest guy in the studio, an NFL lineman standing around 6’4″, and put him under the rim. The whole crew was hyping me up. I jumped over him and threw down an Eastbay to close the segment.
That’s how the show ended. Me over a lineman, the crew losing it.
The $25,000 I Found Out About on YouTube
On the way back to the hotel I was still processing everything, so I pulled up the live clip on YouTube to watch it back. That’s when I heard Pat McAfee say, “We’re gonna send him $25,000.”
Complete shock. I wasn’t expecting a dollar from this trip. I flew out for the experience and would have done it for free. Instead I came home with a story I’ll tell forever and a nice bonus on top of it.
I’ve said before that my whole approach is “be so good they can’t ignore you.” This trip was the first time I really felt that working at a national level. A month ago Pat McAfee didn’t know who I was. Now he’s showing my dunks to his audience and flying me out to Indianapolis. Next up: the DunkMan World Championship, August 25 in Atlanta, live on TNT. Grateful doesn’t even begin to cover it.