How Barstool created one of the top podcasts despite making enemies along the way

Pardon My Take hosts Big Cat and PFT CommenterBarstool Sports

• “Pardon My Take” is less than two years old and yet it is consistently one of the top podcasts across all subjects.
• The success of the podcast has come despite not being associated with a large, traditional media outlet.
• With The Chernin Group recently making an additional investment in Barstool, there’s no reason to believe their success will end any time soon.

Super Bowl Media Day is a time for the teams to answer both serious and playful questions from dozens of media outlets from across the globe. But one of the fastest growing outlets in the US, Barstool Sports, continues to find itself on the outside looking in on Media Day.

The controversial, but incredibly popular-among-men-ages-18-34 website has clashed with the National Football League frequently over the last few years. From four Barstool employees, including their president, getting arrested for protesting Tom Brady’s suspension, to the company producing Roger Goodell clown shirts, to the recent dispute over Barstool’s “Saturday’s are for the boys” trademark, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the league is trying to distance itself from Barstool.

The league’s exclusion from media day hasn’t stopped Barstool though, with President David Portnoy sneaking in this year while podcast host PFT Commenter successfully snuck in last year. Getting to the press area isn’t difficult, according to PFT, who told Business Insider that “the dog show had tighter security last year.”

PFT hosts perhaps Barstool’s most popular entity, “Pardon My Take,” along with Daniel “Big Cat” Katz. The podcast is a comedy show disguised as a sports show where the pair dive int0 the day’s top stories in sports by making light of the “hot takes” that talking heads across the industry typically make.

The show accomplishes this through satirical segments such as its “Mount Rushmore” segment, where the two along with their producer, Hank, and their guest, pick a top four from a random topic like road trip activities or best hangover cures. They claim the idea is to poke fun at all the contrived debates sports talk shows use to fill up time.

They’ll also frequently dive outside of the sports world for entertainment with segments like “Bachelor talk for people who don’t watch ‘The Bachelor'” and a Game of Thrones recap (even though neither has a clue what is going on in the show) to make light of the many sports shows that feel the need to dive into pop culture.

The podcast is known for having some of the most loyal listeners in the industry, who frequently “subscribe, unsubscribe, then resubscribe,” which is why Pardon My Take is always at or near the top of the charts for sports podcasts.

Barstool Sports

But how did they get here less than 2 years after debuting?

The two shared with Business Insider how Pardon My Take came to be.

Big Cat was in real estate in Chicago when he had a quarter life crisis and decided he wasn’t cut out for the corporate world. He wanted to switch to the “fun thing,” which for him was talking about and writing about sports. For him, it started out as just an email to his friends, but in 2012 he started blogging for Barstool Sports from his apartment, long before it had hit the mainstream and there were only 5-6 people there.

PFT started out as a comedy writer, but temporarily gave it up for an office job in Austin, Texas. He got bored with his days so he made a Twitter account to make himself laugh. He began to gain notoriety for his Twitter account and comments on sports sites such as ProFootballTalk.com, so he started to get contracted to contribute to various sports blogs under the pseudonym PFT Commenter.

The two got hooked up with each other through people who read them online. They would eventually meet for beers in Chicago and would remain in contact with each other for the next couple of years. In early 2016, when The Chernin Group invested in Barstool, PFT was one of the first people Big Cat and President Dave Portnoy reached out to when they were looking to expand their talent base.

They recorded their first “Pardon My Take” podcast in February, 2016, and within a week it was already the top ranked sports podcast and in the top 10 overall. The duo admits that their first few episodes were “trash” with awful sound bites and an inconsistent pace, but they credit fan feedback and their ability to adapt quickly for the early and continuing success the show has experienced.

Their immediate popularity wasn’t always positive, however. They would also receive a cease and desist notice from ESPN claiming that their name and logo were infringing on two of their own popular sports talk properties: “Pardon the Interruption” and “First Take.” The logo would have to change but the two would use the letter as ammo for more comedic content by sending ESPN a cease and desist on sending further cease and desists their way.

While the downloads were immediate, it took some time for Big Cat and PFT to realize they had arrived. In late March, an interview with former Gonzaga basketball player Kyle Wiltjer was picked up by multiple media outlets after he claimed that Adam Morrison, another former Gonzaga and NBA player, had an apocalypse bunker in his his house. This was the first time that the show had really been noticed by the mainstream.

In the summer of 2016, they were able to land ESPN’s premier SportsCenter anchor, Scott Van Pelt as a guest on the show. Big Cat credits that interview as a major reason they’ve been able to land such famous guests on a regular basis in the year and a half since.

PFT also sees their Joe Buck interview that summer as a major moment for the show. According to PFT, “no matter what team you root for, you think Joe Buck hates your team.” The sports broadcaster is surely a figure many love to hate, so when their Twitter mentions were filled with comments such as “damn you, I can’t believe you made me like Joe Buck” and hundreds of others along those lines, PFT knew they had a special ability to humanize larger-than-life personalities.

While the show definitely sees its fair share of download spikes if the guest is big enough, the podcast’s loyal and dedicated listeners keep the show near the top of the charts regardless who is on.

Their notoriety has led to partnerships with major networks. Last year during Super Bowl week, Barstool’s Rundown featuring Big Cat aired nightly on Comedy Central. Last fall, the Pardon My Take team launched the show “Van Talk” on ESPN2, but it was canceled for unconfirmed reasons.

Those experiences made the two realize how important it is to their fans to not give up creative control. The media landscape has changed a lot in the last few years. Big Cat and PFT are confident that they can continue to grow their audience without attaching themselves to a major network — but they wouldn’t rule out a partnership that made sense as long as they maintained creative freedom.

The two consider themselves to be extremely lucky that they get to work for an outlet that allows for so much creative freedom. They credit that creative freedom, along with the unprecedented community feel — between Barstool employees and with their audience — with all of the success they’ve experienced in the almost two years since launch.

And with The Chernin Group recently making an additional investment in Barstool, there’s no reason to believe their success will end any time soon.