ESPN made a surprising decision recently to partner with Barstool Sports for a late-night TV show, but the partnership was incredibly short-lived.
On Monday, ESPN announced that it has cancelled its new show “Barstool Van Talk” after just one episode. ESPN president John Skipper admitted in a statement that the network was hoping to be able to distance itself from the Barstool brand despite working with two of its employees.
Statement from ESPN President John Skipper about Barstool Van Talk: pic.twitter.com/ysgSKDvmjx
— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) October 23, 2017
Dan “Big Cat” Katz and PFT Commenter are cohosts of “Pardon My Take,” which has quickly become one of the most popular podcasts in the country. The Barstool personalities released a statement of their own after the news broke.
A statement on today's news: pic.twitter.com/JyaxG4l5kO
— Pardon My Take (@PardonMyTake) October 23, 2017
It’s almost impossible to believe ESPN didn’t know there would be backlash after partnering with Barstool. What network executives probably didn’t expect was one of their own employees leading the charge in bashing the World Wide Leader for getting into bed with a site that has been criticized for its content, which is exactly what Sam Ponder did in a series of tweets last week.
