The top sports podcast in the country plans on writing a book.
A day after teasing an announcement forthcoming on a pre-recorded interview on The Dan Patrick Show, Pardon My Take hosts Dan “Big Cat” Katz and PFT Commenter (Eric Sollenberger) revealed that they’d be writing a book. They wouldn’t be the first Barstool Sports personality to do so, as Dave Portnoy was reportedly shopping a book deal.
But this one’s different.
“We are writing a book. The two dumbest guys in the world, we’re going to write a book,” Katz quipped. “We’ve been asked to write a book a bunch of times. We’ve gotten to the meeting point, talking about it. And then, finally, this year we’re like, ‘You know what? We’re about to hit 10 years. We’ve been very successful; very blessed.’ I think it’s a cool story. A lot of partnerships don’t stay that long, so we’re going to write a 10-year kind of a history of Pardon My Take. And a lot of stupid stuff in there, as well.
“We actually had a meeting. We hired a ghostwriter. And our first question to the ghostwriter was, ‘Hey, you’ve got to be ready. We’re going to do a chapter were we interview you.’ Which, I don’t think you’re supposed to do with ghostwriters.”
Katz says the reason they announced the book on The Dan Patrick Show is the very fact that Patrick’s got a chapter to write. They’re outsourcing a lot of the book, but also writing plenty themselves. The plan is to structure it year by year, with each chapter framed as an interview with their ghostwriter. In between, friends will pen some chapters, and of course, there’ll be plenty of the usual “stupid” stuff scattered throughout.
“It’s gonna be barely readable,” Katz offered.
The duo struck gold from day one with Pardon My Take. Nine years in, they’re not about to mess with a winning formula, but they do have some new plans — like this book — in the works.
“It’s gonna be fun, though, because we’re going to go down memory lane,” Big Cat continued. “There’s a lot of stories that we haven’t probably told, getting more into depth about the whole ESPN-Barstool Van Talk, how close we were to possibly leaving, and all that stuff. So, I think it’s going to be interesting. We didn’t want to write a book just to be like, ‘Hey, here’s a book,’ but ten years does feel somewhat monumental in this business.”
They’ve opened up before. Last November, Pardon My Take dropped a documentary on their YouTube channel about the show’s very short-lived Barstool Van Talk late-night spinoff on ESPN. Hosts and former CEO Erika Ayers Badan discussed the “tax” and “scarlet letter” that Barstool talent carries inside corporate sports media.
Back in 2017, then-ESPN president John Skipper gave the green light for the Pardon My Take TV spinoff to air Tuesdays at 1 a.m. ET. But before the first episode even aired, a social media feud erupted between Barstool founder Dave Portnoy and then-ESPN host Sam Ponder over old lewd comments from a Barstool podcast. By the time episode two was set to drop, ESPN pulled the plug.
That brief Van Talk chapter was just one of many untold stories, and now Pardon My Take is ready to share more.
And don’t worry, there will also be an audiobook.