Takes

Jason Witten is the hottest prospect in the sports analyst market

When the hell did Jason Witten become the hottest piece of ass on the analyst circuit? ... Jason Witten just became the hottest prospect in the analyst market.

If you played for the Cowboys in the last 15 years, a media gig is waiting for you

If you played for the Dallas Cowboys in the last 15 years, you have a media gig that's waiting for you. T.O. in the booth. They should put T.O. and McNabb in the booth together.

Colin Cowherd's theory of Manalytics is actually real

The theory behind it that the regular season doesn't matter and the playoffs get a lot harder and your flashy PER and how you score at such an insane pace in the middle of December, that doesn't matter in the playoffs. ... It sucks that we can't mock manalytics because it actually makes sense. ... manalytics are real.

Jim Nantz has never been on the internet

Jim Nantz has never been online in any capacity that we're talking about. I don't think he's ever been... unless someone's showing him Instagram on their phone, he's not by himself scrolling on social media.

Deion Sanders only considers players great if they call him for advice

If you're a young player in the league and you call him for advice once a week, then you're a good player. If he mentors you, then you're one of the best players in the league. ... If you play in a boring place like Tennessee, then he just doesn't know who you are.

John Skipper's story about leaving ESPN due to cocaine extortion is missing key details.

I don't believe this is the full story. So my PR 101 would be maybe tell the whole story because now people are going to be like, huh, that seems a little odd. You were infrequent and you were careful. And then all of a sudden some random drug dealer was like [going to extort you].

Bet the favorite in the second half if they are losing at halftime

If a favorite is losing in the first half, you just bet the favorite in the second half. That's it. I invented that last year.

ESPN should hire Curt Schilling and Keith Olbermann for a PTI-style debate show

Politics are big now. Trump is huge. Pick a side. ... hire a PTI-style debate show with Curt Schilling and Keith Olbermann. And just like the MJ-LeBron debate comes up every day, just do a Colin Kaepernick debate every single day. People want to hear that.

Tony Romo was surprisingly good in his first year as an announcer

I swear to God on the lives of everyone I love, I was absolutely blown away at how good [Tony Romo] was. I really was. I was predicting he was going to have a tough transition because you have to be loud and you have to be kind of over the top... I thought he was fantastic.

The internet is a 'hustler's paradise' for content creators

It's a hustler's paradise in the content world. And it really becomes like the forefront of your mind for everything. So it's like it never stops.

Geno Smith is claiming the earth is flat as a media hack to stay relevant

when I saw him tweeting out videos today about it, my first thought was he's launching some new brand awareness thing. And so it was a great way to get back in the national conversation. Right. Was tweeting about how the earth flies. That is a hack into the media. Just tweet something. It's too easy.

We can make millions of dollars using bait-and-switch YouTube videos

Why don't we do that? We could be making millions. We need to create the fake YouTube account and then be like, oh, my God, check out the biggest play from the Super Bowl. And then it's just us pitching Pardon My Take at draftjoshallen.com and Bitcoin to Jen... I think we could actually make a lot of money off the bait and switch on YouTube.

The 2018 Winter Olympics have been the least viral Olympics of all time

I have no stats to back this up, but these have been the least viral Olympics of all time... Not letting people tweet in Instagram clips. Otherwise, you take their accounts down. So dumb. I tried to look at people for highlights of the hockey game, and it was just tweets.

The WatchESPN app allows the network to spy on you inside your house

Alex Jones thinks that Bill Walton was being 100% serious... It would also be great if Bill Walton accidentally exposed this, and ESPN was trying not to let this out, and he was just off on one of his weird trips, and he unwittingly uncovered the most giant conspiracy in the history of cable television.

The Olympics starting events before the opening ceremony is total 'bullshit'

Why does curling start before everything else? They really need that much time to do curling? ... So they don't light the torch, but they play the Olympics. It's bullshit. So-called bullshit.

The Super Bowl National Anthem will go over two minutes

So I'm taking the over [on the national anthem] just because you don't want to root for the under in the national anthem. That's pretty much treason, right?

Adam Schefter covering the NBA has become a distraction

And this one is for our little pee boy... Adam Schefter, who was scooped on the Todd Haley news when he was on the Le Batard show talking about the NBA. Yeah, has the NBA become a distraction for Adam Schefter?

Editing Wikipedia for clients will be a high-paying job in twenty years

Editing Wikipedia pages is actually... That's going to be a very high-paying job if you have that skill set over the next 20 years. When was the last time you looked somebody up for an interview and dug deeper than their Wikipedia page?

Tony Romo is a good announcer but he talks way too much

Let the fucking moments breathe. All he does is talk. He talks the entire broadcast... I hate how much some people think he's the perfect analyst... If he just let it breathe a little bit, he would be everything everyone says that he already is.

The NHL does a terrible job of marketing the league

I feel like the NHL just doesn't do a good job of marketing the league. It's so goofy. I don't understand it. You do stuff that really kind of confuses the casual fan. They haven't talked about [the All-Star Game] at all.

Bill Belichick will become the commissioner of Lacrosse to take down the NFL

Bill Belichick hates the NFL, hates Roger Goodell... He's going to become the commissioner of lacrosse. He knows. He sees the writing on the wall. The NFL is going to be dead soon. Concussions. Everyone's going to stop playing... then he's going to start recruiting the best football minds to lacrosse... he goes on top as the best coach of all time [by taking down the NFL].

The National Championship TV ratings are going to suck

The ratings are going to suck. There's no question the ratings are going to suck. Because outside of this quarter of the country, people just don't care.

Apple purposefully slows down old iPhones when new ones are released

Apple has come out and admitted that they slow down your old iPhones when they release a new one. Yeah, we predicted that like two months ago once my phone started to suck. We all knew this was the case, so fuck you, Steve Jobs... You fucking slow down our phones?

The NFL Network should hire Jeff Fisher to bring them back to mediocrity

Jeff Fisher, he brings the mediocrity back. So you're going from low... To right in the middle. I think Jeff Fisher's the perfect hire.

Stephen A. Smith has a point about his 'Screaming A. Smith' nickname being unfair

Stephen A. Smith says there's racial undertones to anyone who calls him Screamin' A. Smith. So he says there's a lot of people out there who scream. Why don't they get the Screamin' A. Smith nickname? ... I've done some thinking about this out loud, some verbal thoughts, and you're right. I will stop saying screaming.

Lacrosse is booming and the sales are up

My cool throne is lacrosse. Nike chairman Phil Knight, he was commenting on the Duke Florida game the other day, and he said, lacrosse is growing. So the sales are up. They're growing, not a show. Business is booming.

Crime reports should always include which sports team the criminal supports

Every time a crime's committed in America, every time there's a report about it in the news, they should just say what teams the people who committed the crimes liked. That'd be great. ... It just adds like a little bit of levity to every headline that you get. Like Steelers fan murdered his whole family. ... Classic Steelers. So funny.

Apple intentionally ruins old iPhones via software updates to force users to upgrade

Apple, every single time they release a new iPhone, they do something with the software and they make all of our old iPhones suck. It's fucked up. They just screw up the IOS and they make it drain your battery allegedly... theoretically I'm very woke to this.

Facial expressions in impressions are a 'cheat' to make people believe the voice is better

The facial stuff is all a cheat. If you can do the mannerisms and the stuff with your face, it's a total cheat to get people to believe the voice is better than it is because people will start to see.

Twitter's 280-character limit is too much reading

280 characters is too many, too much reading. I agree. Just reading in general, I think they should have reduced it by half.

Sam Ponder's tweets are the legal definition of 'interference with contractual relations'

There is a doctrine in the law called interference with contractual relations. Knowing that you are about to enter into some kind of a business relationship with a third party... if someone attempts to have that contract stopped. That is the very definition of this case, of that tort.

The TV show should have remained titled Pardon My Take rather than changing it to Barstool Van Talk

I was against the name change. I thought [Pardon My Take] made sense from a branding standpoint from what we've built right here to bring our audience over to television. I thought it made all the sense in the world to keep the show's name as [Pardon My Take].

I stand by the totality of my work despite previous offensive comments used to cancel the show

I've said many things that I'm sure if you showed to me today, I'd be like, eh, probably not the best. But I think more than anything, more than like one tweet or one word you said, you should be judged by the totality of everything you've done. And I will stand by everything I've done at Barstool. I'll stand by the platform that it's given me. I'll stand by the audience that I've built.

ESPN mismanaged the Barstool deal by putting the show on the air when they knew they couldn't handle the internal pressure

I really wish ESPN had stood tall on it because I think it was shitty that they put us on, and then they basically took us off. When they knew that this all could come brewing, they should have just never put us on to begin with. It was mismanaged from the beginning.

I will likely retire from the radio show in five or six years

Three or four. Five, maybe. Maybe five. I don't know. Maybe six. No more than five more years.

Bill Simmons' HBO show was 'trash' from the first interview

I did his HBO show, which I knew was trash. I knew which we all knew was trash from the first interview from the first person... I knew that when I watched the Simmons thing, everybody knew, because there was so much anticipation and hype, and because he left ESPN, you knew... yo, this is in deep shit.

Barstool Van Talk is already the best show on ESPN

I said to my man, I said, this is the best show on ESPN already. SVP is room for improvement. There's a lot of room for improvement. Keep it fucking real, Big Cat... No one wants to see any fucking highlights from a motherfucker in a suit at 11:30 at night.

I will never do another show with Ryen Russillo

I don't think we're ever going to do a show again. [SVP and Russillo]

Instant replay should be abolished in sports

I think we should actually get rid of instant replay. All together, just give it all the power back to the refs and the umps... I feel like I watch instant replays more than I watch sports now.

Ernie Johnson and Ron Darling are the least electric duo to call an elimination game

Ernie Johnson and Ron Darling. Maybe the least electric duo to call an elimination game in sports. It sounded like they were just hanging out... It sounded like Ernie Johnson was on the phone with his wife in the other hand, and then he'd just pop into the mic and be like, that's a double.

I miss Joe Buck's 'big game' voice

I'm going to say it. I miss Joe Buck... Joe Buck has a big game voice. That's a fact. Yeah, he could say the exact same things that Ernie Johnson says, but there's something about Joe Buck. You hear that voice, and you know what? It's pageantry.

Barstool Van Talk on ESPN2 is the biggest opportunity we've ever had

We see this as probably the biggest opportunity we've ever had. And we know what's at stake for our entire company and for all the people that we work with and care about, and we want to do a great job, and all we care about is making sure we put on the best possible show.

The 'Golden Age' of podcasts is over now that people are making wedding planning podcasts

The couple that met because one was a fan of his podcast and then they're getting married and they're creating a podcast together about going through the wedding planning. That right there is like if you could think of the most stereotypical podcast podcast. It is over, boys. It is all done.

Rooting against Tony Romo in the broadcast booth is as fun as rooting against him on the field

Rooting against [Tony Romo] in the booth is actually becoming as fun as rooting against him on the field was. He's like, now this could be a screen here. In my head, I'm like, throw the fucking ball deep.

Tony Romo misses almost all of his in-game predictions

He gets a lot of predictions wrong. That's the one thing that they've said about Tony that he's really good at is making predictions, but they don't talk about how he misses almost all of them.

Tony Romo talks too much and doesn't let the game breathe

If you think Tony Romo is revolutionizing broadcasting and the greatest thing ever, you're just straight up not listening to him talk over Jim Nantz. ... I want to watch, let the game breathe. Tony Romo's like, he's down my fucking throat the whole game.

NFL ratings are down because players aren't sleeping with Kardashians anymore

Do you think that's why NBA ratings are up and NFL is down because none of the NFL players are sleeping with the Kardashians?

Twitter's 280-character limit will ruin threads and make the app unbearable

Twitter has announced that the app that everyone loves and can't make any money has announced they're going to make everyone read more. So 280 characters... I might not be able to be on Twitter anymore. That's so much reading. They just doubled their product. And they just ruined threads.

Mainstream sports media is struggling because players now have their own platforms to control the narrative

That right there is why people and athletes kind of don't have the best relationship with the media. And it's why people start their own podcast or people do things on Uninterrupted or if people want to go on their own Instagram or Facebook Live. And I think that's why mainstream media, especially in sports, is struggling a little bit.

I am firmly anti-Tony Romo as a broadcaster because he provides too many spoilers

I'm fucking sick of everyone saying how great Tony Romo is... It's impressive that he calls plays, but I don't really want to know what's coming. It's a spoiler. He's literally doing in real time spoilers right in my face. And everyone's like, Tony Romo, such a breath of fresh air. I am firmly in the anti-Tony Romo until people just cool down a little about it.