Twenty-five years into Pardon the Interruption, Michael Wilbon has a theory about why the show is still running: ESPN never let it move in.<\/p>\n
Appearing on the Awful Announcing Podcast<\/a> with host Brandon Contes, Wilbon credited PTI\u2019s Washington, D.C. home base \u2014 and the distance it created from ESPN\u2019s Connecticut campus \u2014 as the reason the show has outlasted nearly everything else on the network\u2019s daytime schedule.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cThe show would not have existed,\u201d he said. \u201cThe meddling alone would have driven both of us out.\u201d<\/p>\n Wilbon credited that autonomy back to the show\u2019s original architects. Mark Shapiro conceived the format and pitched it to Wilbon over dinner in Los Angeles, while Wilbon was covering the NBA Finals, before Shapiro had officially been named ESPN\u2019s head of programming. Eric Rydholm then built it out and, according to Wilbon, ran interference for the hosts once it launched.<\/p>\n \u201cHe kept the people off of us in Bristol,\u201d the longtime Washington Post columnist said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have to deal with it. We didn\u2019t have to deal with their meddling.\u201d<\/p>\n That insulation extended to editorial control, too. Wilbon said neither he nor Tony Kornheiser<\/a> were ever willing to take marching orders on which teams or storylines to cover, using the Dallas Cowboys<\/a> as his standing example.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have to deal with somebody suggesting you got to talk more about the Cowboys,\u201d Wilbon added. \u201cThat gets a middle finger from me and Tony. And we\u2019re not shy about it.<\/p>\n The disdain, Wilbon said, ran both directions in the show\u2019s early years. Staffers in Bristol reportedly saw Wilbon and Kornheiser as outsiders muscling in on television real estate they hadn\u2019t earned through the network\u2019s usual pipeline, and some advised D.C.-based hires to rent rather than buy, betting the show wouldn\u2019t last.<\/p>\n \u201cThey saw us as interlopers, as intruders in their business,\u201d said Wilbon. \u201cWe saw them a certain way.<\/p>\n Wilbon\u2019s arrival at PTI wasn\u2019t inevitable in the first place. As he\u2019s previously said,<\/a> it took prodding from Charles Barkley<\/a> and former Maryland basketball coach Gary Williams to get him to say yes to the format at all.<\/p>\n Even then, Wilbon admitted he didn\u2019t expect the show to reach its current run when he and Kornheiser signed their original deal.<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018Look, Tony, the worst possible scenario is we got two years of money, and they\u2019ll get rid of us.\u2019 He goes, \u2018That\u2019s your worst case. That\u2019s my best case.’\u201d<\/p>\n