Takes

I hope Pardon My Take is the only job I have for the rest of my life.

It's the best job ever. I always tell people that if I had told like a guidance counselor when I was in college or high school what I wanted to do when I grow up, I would've said something very similar to what this job is right now. Longest job I've ever had, by far. And I honestly want this to be the only job that I have for the rest of my life.

The Olympics should allow more highlights to be shared so people actually want to watch the events

The Olympics sucks and they just don't give any highlights for anything. It's so stupid. Why do they do that? Why not make it something that people wanna watch and go, 'oh, I saw that event, let me go check it out.'

This Dungeons and Dragons episode is the best one the show has ever done

It is Dungeons and Dragons Day, the best one we've ever done... I honestly think it's the best one we've ever done.

Al Michaels' broadcasting mood is determined by the length of his flight to the stadium

My theory too on Al is that it just depends on how long of a flight he had to take. So when he's like at a Charger's vi the Charger's playing the Vikings, which was a blowout, he was pretty happy tonight... If he has to call next week Jets, patriots, we're gonna get a surly surly al Michaels 'cause he is gotta go cross country. He's gonna be pissed off.

TV networks should force in-house umpires to wear full gear during broadcasts

I have a dumb sports rule for you guys... our friends of Fox were going to the in-house umpire Mark Carlson. He was wearing a suit and tie. I think the in-house umpire should have to wear a full chest protector and mask because baseball's the one sport where managers wear full uniforms. Why aren't we doing that?

Hard Knocks is just a 45-minute commercial for whatever team they are profiling

Hard Knocks is just gonna be like a 45 minute commercial for whatever team they happen to be profiling because otherwise no teams would ever do it and the NFL wouldn't allow it.

Inside the NBA and NFL RedZone are the two most beloved products in sports media

Inside the NBA and RedZone are, I would say, two of the highest approval rating things that exist in the sports world. We don't like when you change a score bug by like one pixel.

The 'AWL's are the best podcast listeners of all time

If you were to make a list of the 100 best podcast listeners of all time, the AWL is number one easy.

The Barstool Sports partnership with Fox Sports will not change the content of Pardon My Take

I'll say right now, [the Fox deal] is not gonna change this show at all. We made sure of that. We, we it's gonna be a great, like, this is very different than the ESPN partnership back in 2017. Fox is a very willing partner. They're very excited. We're very excited. They believe in us. We believe in them a lot different than what we went through with ESPN.

The new FS1 show featuring Barstool Chicago will not cannibalize Pardon My Take

It's gonna be a mix of everybody in this office and people that might not be in this office right now that might stop in. I don't expect to be spending a full-time jobs worth of time going on the show, but I'll go to try to make it on like once a week is what we discussed. That way it's not gonna cannibalize Pardon My Take.

Pardon My Take listeners (AWLs) are mean to the hosts online but are always polite and friendly in person

Love you guys love seeing you guys out there supportive, you know, say mean stuff online, but they're always nice in person. I've never had a bad interaction with an AWL in person. And that is all that matters.

Announcing you are writing a book is the funnest part of writing a book

Announcing that you're writing a book is the funnest part of writing a book. Oh yeah. Now we gotta write a book. We've ended up canceling the books at the last minute several times, which always feels great to do.

I will officially retire from broadcasting in two and a half years

Two and a half years, and then I'll be done. I won't be working, yeah. I won't. I'll be strictly Sandler movies and that's it.

Keith Olbermann was an unbelievable partner with a great news sense on SportsCenter

I was with Keith Olbermann, and we said, we want the first 15 minutes to be about Mickey Mantle... Keith would always fight the, he had a great news sense. He was, he was unbelievable as a partner. Unbelievable.

Adam Schefter uses specific character limits to bait clicks in notifications

I saw his post about a trade. It said Jalen Ramsey has been traded from the Miami Dolphins to, and then it was the...dot dot dot. It cut off right there. I think that Schefter knows exactly how many characters to use to make people actually click through and look at his tweet instead of just looking at the notification. I think that he's that good.

The Pardon My Take crew has never lost a man in their Dungeons and Dragons history

Every time we play this game, we make sure all of us remain a tightness all. We've never lost a man.

The NBA Finals don't feel special because there is no 'Finals' script on the court anymore

How do you not have just like a script NBA finals? How do you not have anything, maybe even on the baseline there? It's the same argument I make with the throwback jerseys... When I watch a highlight of this game 10 years from now, I wanna know it was the NBA finals and there's nothing on the fucking court except YouTube TV.

The Stanley Cup and NBA Finals should be scheduled to happen at the same time

What I'm rooting for is for the Stanley Cup and the NBA finals to happen at the same time. Yeah, I, well, around the same time. I don't know how the schedules work out with like how they're set. But I would just prefer to not have one series be over while the other sport is still going on.

WNBA players should stay off social media to avoid the toxic discourse

I would imagine that most of the really, really bad shit that you deal with is from people that are DMing you from anonymous accounts... I would just log off, have somebody else run your social media, do your ad deals, do all that shit for you. But don't, I, I would stay off.

Jim Nantz's wallet toast card was actually a prank on a reporter

So the card is a prank, but he does like his Toast Nantz style... Nantz ordered his special brand of toast... I made sure the reporter saw the card and when he asked about it, I said, well that card has saved me a lot of hours.

It is impossible to have airtight rules for Barstool competitions because people will always find loopholes

Whenever we do any bar stool competition of any kind, you could spend a year... going through all the plans, the preparations, the rules, everything. Within one hour, one of us will find a loophole and be like, this is bullshit. It's just, it's, it's impossible.

LeBron's swearing in the McAfee interview made him more relatable

The part that I liked the most was the swearing. It makes him relatable. It was the best swear.

LeBron James is one of the best and most gracious interview subjects

I'd say him [LeBron], I appreciate the times that we talk where I think he gives you more than just the, the garden variety. When they [LeBron, Tiger, Jeter] seem like they're invested and actually present in a way that they're—I don't wanna say into it, but that it isn't a chore. That's the best you can hope for.

TV networks must fix scoreboard spoilers that show scores ahead of the live broadcast

I don't understand how it's still an issue... if you're watching four games at once, half the time you see the scoreboard on one game and it will be ahead of the actual game you're watching... figure it out. Don't let it spoil us.

Pardon My Take fans who play Dungeons and Dragons as Barbarians almost always use the 'Reckless Attack' feature to imitate Big Cat's character, Norm

All the barbarian AWLs, when I run the game for them and I ask them whether they go reckless, they say 'just like Norm.' ... they all want to be like Norm.

The Pardon My Take crew will attend the Gen Con Dungeons and Dragons convention in Indianapolis in August 2025

[Timm Woods]: The Indianapolis one is Gen Con. It is the biggest Dungeons and Dragons convention in the world. And if you guys were there, I could take you on the whole tour. [Big Cat]: When is it? [Timm Woods]: It is in August. [Big Cat]: 100% we're gonna do that. That sounds amazing.

The Simpsons characters are significantly better in 2D than 3D

I did watch the first half of The Simpsons broadcast last night, and I don't know why it took me so long to remember this. The Simpsons are a million times better in 2D. The Simpsons in 3D. Not that fun.

Al Michaels is at his best when he is visibly annoyed by the quality of football

When Al Michaels is at his best now is when he's annoyed with the quality of football. And he was so annoyed. He gets into surly old man mode very early on in the first half. He was just like, well this is awful. This is terrible, Kirk, get me outta here.

Skip Bayless would have found a way to criticize LeBron James's legacy regardless of the Olympic MVP outcome

Skip obviously went straight to Twitter and was like, Steph Curry won the MVP. Right? Yeah. He said LeBron did win the MVP and yeah, skip was like, this is an indictment on LeBron's legacy just perfect spin zone... if Steph had gotten the MVP, it would've been the same video being like LeBron didn't get the MVP and this was his team.

TV reruns are actually actors performing the exact same script live for a second time

I used to think that when you'd watch a rerun of a show on TV, that it was an all new taping of the exact same script... I thought that like, I'd be watching Saved by the Bell... They're doing the same song, but they're just taping it again for us.

Michael Phelps ruined swimming for me because he was too dominant

Michael Phelps ruined swimming for me personally. Because he was so goddamn dominant that, and it happened so recently that I'm watching swimming and I'm like, well, Phelps would've beaten all these guys.

Adam Schefter is one of the few media members you can actually trust with off-the-record information

Adam and I actually are close... he's one of the media members you can actually trust that if it's off the record, it's not going anywhere. Like he actually will keep it close to the vest.

The EA Sports College Football 25 release will change how everyone deals with the summer

Ea Sports College football's out [next week]... It's the most anticipated video game I think release ever. It's gonna change how summer's dealt with.

Rory McIlroy's tire spinning exit gave reporters a better story than a boring press conference would have

The media gets so mad after Claire. And then they have all their articles about how this person didn't give them anything to write about. Right. And he actually, Rory gave everybody so much more stuff to write about. Right. So much more stuff to talk about by not answering questions than he did if he had stuck around and just given like deadpan answers of credit to Bryce. And he played really, really well. Of course I'm disappointed. Very upset that I missed those puts, you know? Yeah. It's one of those things, golf's a hard game. That's what Rory would've said.

Success in broadcasting is a combination of luck and constant preparation

Luck a hundred percent. A lot of life is being right place, right time... But like certain people tend to be lucky because they're constantly prepared. They're constantly ready for that moment. And then all of a sudden that right moment does flip and it clicks... All you can do is be good.

Modern sports broadcasting has become much higher intensity compared to the calmer calls of the 1970s and 80s.

Compare a 1970s or eighties call of a finals game or a Super Bowl and then compare it to now, it's different in a lot of cases. And I think that's a big part that it's become okay. In fact, it's become a good way to show you're excited as much of a fan. Back in the old days, you wouldn't do that 'cause you'd sound like a fan. Now it's more encouraged and I think fans like that.

I completely bombed my stand-up comedy set

It was just, it was all downhill. I knew it was bad. My dad texted me after he just said, 'you okay'. I was, I was like, I'm, I was like, I'm fine... but even if I prepped a year, you can't, you can't teach public speaking.

I'm going to play football as long as possible to avoid having to do sports media

Honestly, man, that's the last thing I want to do is be doing interviews to get myself behind a camera. So I'm gonna try to do this as long as possible and, and diminish those possibilities as much as I can.

I hate watching playoff football on an app like Peacock

I hate the experience of watching a game on an app as opposed to watching on TV, where you can easily and elegantly and seamlessly flip back and forth and show off your skills going back to the game right as it's about to snap again... it's a playoff game and it stinks.

I failed my own podcast production system by not pressing publish

I was the one who did not press the publish button... The system broke, but the, the system will not break again... My system is that I check before I do the [tweet]. I'll never tweet the tweet without seeing, seeing. It's up on, on Apple... I broke my system.

Fans will initially complain that the new PMT studio looks 'too clean' and professional

I think people are gonna love it... but I think there will be a little adjustment where people will be like, oh, they're, they're, they looked. It looks too clean... Just wait.

Announcers need to stop saying 'asterisk' on wins

I don't know why it's become a thing that announcers are now saying asterisk. They did it for the Lions game too. Tarico did the asterisk for No Kelsey, Chris Jones. And then last night they're like, well, asterisk there was tripping on the part return. Who the fuck cares. The Wind's a win.

Madden releases have shifted from celebrations to complaining days because of the internet

It's also just a perfect example of life with the internet where Madden release used to be a celebration day. You stick around long enough and it just becomes a complaining day.

Silence is the most powerful tool a broadcaster has

I think so there have been times in my career, and that's 20 plus years ago, there are times in my career where you realize silence is the most powerful tool you have to let the natural sounds come over at television, which, you know, I think I've been pretty respectful of over the years.

The AWLs will tune into the PLL tonight

The AWLs will tune into the PLL tonight. ESPN Plus. Calling the Waterdogs game tonight.

Pardon My Take and Barstool will reach a new level of success in Chicago

I really think that you guys are gonna take Pardon My Take and Barstool Sports as a whole to the next level in Chicago. I think you guys are really gonna do some amazing stuff out there and create some awesome content.

The social media app Threads is boring and already dead because it's too nice

I'm already, it was fun for like two and a half days. ... I don't know what to do with it now because I just don't, there's nothing, it's too nice. ... I think I'm done. I think I'm done with it.

The Vegas Sphere is the coolest thing ever and the future of advertising

It's maybe the coolest thing I've ever seen. Like, I feel like it's gonna be everywhere all the time now. Like it's the, it's the future. ... However much it costs to advertise on it is like it's better than a billboard.

Wonton Don was such a great guest that next time we play D&D, he and Nick should both join us.

Wonton Don was a great fill in. It might just be Nick and Donny next time with us because it was that great. So much fun with him.

Every group of fans that has played this adventure has successfully finished it.

Every one of the a w l groups who has gone through this adventure has gotten to the end and finished it. But I also told them I wasn't sure if you guys would or not.