Pardon My Take

Pardon My Take (abbreviated "PMT") is a comedic sports podcast released three times per week by Barstool Sports. It is hosted by Dan "Big Cat" Katz and PFT Commenter. The podcast debuted on February 29, 2016. It first appeared on the US iTunes charts on March 2, 2016, in the number one position.

Over the years, Pardon My Take featured many different interns. They include Jake "Mr. Positions" Marsh, Billy Football (the intern) and less notably Jilly Football. Billy Football is no longer on the show and did not move to Chicago with the rest of the crew. Jake also left the show in 2024 to pursue a career in sports broadcasting. Along with them, Max (producer) and a character by the name of Memes also occasionally chime in on the show.

The podcast's audience generally ranges between 750 thousand and 1.5 million listeners per episode.^[1] In 2016, Apple named Pardon My Take one of the best podcasts of 2016,^[2] and in 2017, The Big Lead ranked Katz and PFT Commenter as the number one sports media talents under 40.^[3] In 2018, Pardon My Take was the 14th most downloaded podcast of the year on iTunes.

Pardon My Take listeners are affectionally referred to as "AWLs" or award-winning listeners (nine years running).

Pardon My Take was first launched in February 2016 when PFT Commenter left the sports website SB Nation to join Barstool Sports.^[4] Longtime Barstool contributor Big Cat had been regularly communicating with PFT Commenter through Twitter prior to 2016 and the two teamed up to create Pardon My Take.^[1]

Since its inception, Pardon My Take has used satire to comment on traditional sports media, particularly ESPN and some of its notable personalities.^[5] The show's name is a play on the titles of ESPN television shows Pardon the Interruption and First Take. The logo of the podcast, which took graphic elements from the two ESPN shows, prompted ESPN to send a cease-and-desist letter to Barstool Sports soon after the launch of the podcast. Barstool did change the logo.^[6][7]

Beginning in early March 2020, Pardon My Take began to be affected by the COVID-19 virus, as it is a podcast that revolves around current events in the sporting world. To keep the show interesting and running 3 days a week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday), PFT Commenter and Big Cat implemented a new segment, usually at the end of the podcast, to review popular TV shows such as "Love Is Blind", documentaries such as "Tiger King" and "The King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters", and movies such as the comedy sports film "The Garbage Picking Field Goal Kicker". The two co-hosts still provide interviews with popular sports figures and other celebrities in each episode. They also implemented a Dungeons and Dragons segment on May 23, 2020, with Timm Woods as the Dungeon Master. The sports hiatus also signaled the beginning of the "Mount Flushmore" series, a play on their "Mount Rushmores"' of the past, some of the topics they used have been fears, places to be drunk, toppings, appetizers, and states of the United States of America.

Most Pardon My Take episodes consist of three parts. The hosts open the show with a recap of current sports news. News is followed by an interview with a sports personality, celebrity, journalist, or athlete. Frequent guests include Ryan Whitney, Blake Bortles, Blake Griffin, Brooks Koepka, Mark Titus, Ryen Russillo, Chris Long, Mike Florio, Jerry O’Connell, Scott Van Pelt, Dan Haren, and Max Homa. The show is closed with a collection of recurring original segments which vary episode to episode. Popular segments include: "Hot Seat, Cool Throne", "Who's Back of the Week", "Fyre Fest of the Week", and "Guys on Chicks". Occasionally, the Pardon My Take hosts will alter the show's format for special episodes, including their yearly recap show and their annual award show since 2016, the "Takies."^[8] The hosts have held video exit interviews with their guests. Most of the interviews throughout 2016 concluded by Big Cat asking the guest three questions—if the guest washed their apples, who the most famous person in the guest's cell phone was, and a third question tailored to each guest. This third question was often the most provocative one of the interview and began with Big Cat saying "a question I'm gonna ask, that you don't have to answer, but I'm gonna ask anyway."^[9]

For most of its history, the show opened by playing "Electric Avenue" by Eddie Grant and closed by playing (an often re-mixed version of) "Take On Me" by A-ha. For example, the April 14, 2021, episode ended with the vocals of "Take On Me" dubbed over the song from the Buick commercials.^[10] In the August 27, 2024 episode, both songs were conspicuously absent, replaced by the PMT YouTube intro and outro music, and have not been heard on the podcast since. The PMT crew has not publicly addressed the disappearance of "Electric Avenue" and "Take On Me".

On August 28, 2020^[11] Big Cat received a Ping-Pong Ball Lottery Machine for the Pardon My Take studio. The addition of the Lottery Ball Machine added a new segment where before ending the show hosts Big Cat and PFT Commenter along with supporting staff Billy Football, Jake Marsh, PMTMemes, Liam "Bubba" Crowley, Hank, and producer Max would guess a number 1-100. Billy Football was the first member of the show to guess a ball correctly, guessing 69 on December 4, 2020.^{[citation needed]} Over the course of the next two years, all members of the Podcast correctly guessed the number except for Hank.^[11] Miraculously, Hank finally guessed the number 6 correctly on May 12, 2023, bringing his 987 day incorrect guessing streak to an end.

On 8 November 2023, Hank also was the first to guess correctly on the new lottery ball machine in the new Chicago office. He chose number 52 in honor of the Khalil Mack bobble head that is in the studio.

During the show taping on April 25, 2024, Dan "Big Cat" Katz correctly guessed the lottery ball. His selection was number 13 in honor of Caleb Williams' college number on the night he was selected first overall in the 2024 NFL Draft by the Chicago Bears, and a clear indictor of the greatness he will bring to the city. This was the second win on the new lottery machine for Katz, after he vacated his first win due to complaints from the shows loser producer, Max, who has never guessed it correctly.

In 2024, AWL DechDotDev created a website to track the history of the lottery ball machine, adeptly named Pardon My Balls.

Blake of the Year (BOTY) is an annual competition put on by the PMT crew during the summer Takie Awards. Since 2018, participants have been selected based on whether they display qualities that Big Cat and PFT Commenter believe are typical of people named Blake. Examples of such are: a lax outlook on their profession; seeming to be an average dude; or just having the name Blake (some exceptions apply. See Brooks Koepka).

Originally, the rules for the competition were very simple. During a recording of the show, one of the hosts would call a Blake; whoever picked up first was ruled the winner. The timer would start at the moment of the host dialing and end once the Blake answered the call and spoke into the phone.

Blake Bortles recorded a response time of 11.70 seconds while Blake Griffin missed the call after falling asleep on a plane in route to Las Vegas to participate in Team USA’s training camp.

This year the competition expanded to include Brooks "Blake" Koepka who reported a debut response time of 7.90 seconds. Blake Bortles was unable to be reached this year while Blake Griffin rebounded astoundingly by posting a record setting response time of 2.80 seconds, a record that still stands to this day.

Blake Bortles posted a response time of 5.75 seconds but was narrowly beaten out by Brooks Koepka who recorded a response time of 5.50 seconds. Despite his competitors' incredibly quick response times, Blake Griffin continued his reign of dominance with a response time of 3.30 seconds, cementing himself as the first back-to-back or "Blake-to-Blake" champion in Blake of the Year history.^[12]

In 2021, the rules were changed to a random number draw from a Chinese lottery machine. Each round the Blakes would pick a number 1-100, and if their number was selected they would be ruled the winner.

After an excruciatingly long competition, Blake Bortles became the second two-time winner in Blake of the Year history by having his lottery ball number called after nearly 30 minutes of play.

In 2022, the rules were changed to a trivia gameshow where contestants answered a series of trivia questions with the Blake answering the most questions correctly having the opportunity to call a coin flip between the contestants to determine the winner.

This year the participants field shrank back down to two Blakes after Brooks Koepka was suspended from play following his signing with the LIV tour. After three rounds of trivia, Blake Bortles failed to list all of the teams Blake Griffin had played for in his career whereas Blake Griffin correctly recalled all of the teams Blake Bortles played for, winning the trivia by a score of 5.5 to 5. With his trivia victory, Blake Griffin was then given the opportunity to call the coin flip to determine the winner which he subsequently called correctly with a choice of tails. Blake Griffin continued his dominant run to become the first three-time champion in Blake of the Year history with many calling it a historic dynasty.

In 2023, the rules were changed to include three rounds awarded at one point each with round one being a speech given by each Blake as to why they deserve BOTY, the second round being Blake Trivia, and the third round being a round of fast paced speed rhyming with the word "Blake". The tiebreaker format for this year included a random draw from a Chinese lottery machine. In the tiebreaker round each Blake was given 33.3% of the numbers in a first to three competition so the drawing would not replicate the results of the 2021 BOTY competition.

After very convincing speeches by all Blakes in round one, Blake Bortles took the first round putting him up 1-0-0. In the second round, all Blakes correctly answered their trivia questions but the judges awarded the win to Brooks "Blake" Koepka evening up the score to 1-1-0. In the third round, all Blakes participated in a rhyming competition using the word Blake to determine the winner. After boneheadedly rhyming "Blake" with "lake" twice in subsequent rounds, Brooks "Blake" Koepka was eliminated shrinking the contestant field down to the original Blakes. After impudently rhyming "Blake" with "Copulate", Blake Griffin took round three by locking in the final rhyme of the game with the word "quake", cementing a three-way 1-1-1 tie to send the competition to a lottery ball tiebreaker. Brooks "Blake" Koepka was given lottery balls 1-33, Blake Bortles was given lottery balls 34-66, and Blake Griffin was given lottery balls 67-99. Blake Griffin took the first point with a drawing of 96 going up 1-0-0. In a shocking come from behind victory, Blake Bortles fired off three straight lottery ball picks with drawings of 54, 56, and 35 to secure his third BOTY crown and send him back to the mountain top of Blakes.

In 2024, the rules for the competition reverted back to the original format with a new school twist. A Zoom link was sent out at the same time to all three Blakes, whoever connected to the meeting first with both audio and video was declared the winner.

Blake Griffin reclaimed his title by connecting to the Zoom with a lightning-fast response time of 20.19 seconds, securing his fourth championship and reclaiming his sole position at the top of the BOTY scoreboard. Blake Bortles came in close behind with a response time of 47.40 seconds. Unfortunately, Brooks "Blake" Koepka was unable to be reached this year as he was competing in a LIV golf tournament in the UK.

Regular participants are Blake Griffin, Blake Bortles and Brooks Koepka.

The winner of the competition receives the honor of being the voice of the show's introduction, "It's Pardon My Take presented by Barstool Sports," for every episode of that upcoming year.

• Official website