Pardon The Interruption has been an ESPN mainstay since the program launched on the network in 2001. Featuring Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon, who both at the time wrote for The Washington Post, PTI has become the longest-running daily program on ESPN outside of SportsCenter.
Recently, Wilbon was a guest on The Jim Jackson Show Podcast and discussed how, initially, he turned down the offer to co-host Pardon The Interruption.
“It wasn’t my goal. It wasn’t my objective to be on the broadcast. I was a print journalist working for The Washington Post,” said Wilbon. “I wasn’t thinking about that. I was comfortable. I was, at the time to be fair, being compensated in a way that I never thought I would when I was 18, 20, 25, 30 years old. Then ESPN said we want you and Tony to bring what you do as journalists to the screen. We were like yeah right, get out of here.”
Furthermore, the former Washington Post columnist said he was counseled by several high-profile people in sports to truly consider taking the concept from ESPN and move forward with it. Wilbon also spoke about a dinner he had with Charles Barkley, where the NBA superstar pushed Wilbon to truly consider and take advantage of the opportunity.
“I was with Charles (Barkley), and we were working on a book,” explained Wilbon. “Charles (Barkley) and I were in Atlanta, and he said we’re going to dinner. We went to this place called The Clubhouse in Buckhead and he said ‘You got to talk this through. You can’t just say no. The world is changing.’ Finally, after several of these conversations that Charles had with Tony and me, I said OKAY fine, if we do this you got to be the first guest, you got to help out.”
As it turned out, Charles Barkley was the first guest on the debut episode of Pardon The Interruption, which aired October 22, 2001.
Since then, Pardon The Interruption has always followed Around The Horn, which will air its final episode on May 23. Although ESPN has not announced what show will replace the departing program, The Athletic reported that ESPN executives have initial ideas about extending PTI from its current 30-minute format to fill the full hour.
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