Hey, it's Pablo here, and this is indeed ESPN Daily.

It is our fourth and final installment of our mini-series on Pardon the Interruption.

And our first three episodes on PTI are in this same feed.

You can go and find them.

But we give this one to you today specifically.

Friday, October 22nd, 2021.

Because today is the 20-year anniversary

of the day this sports television show

went out and infected all of sports and also television.

And by now we've covered how every cable news show went out and stole PTI's topic

rundown on the right side of the screen.

Yep, that is where all of that started.

And we've covered how PTI's very visible countdown clock, a kind of anti-television device,

foreshadowed the short attention spans of the internet.

But even more than that, PTI inspired a whole genre.

It became the model for the debate show.

And 20 years later, here we are.

Drowning in debate, televised conflict is pretty much everywhere.

Which is pretty dark.

But also, pretty ironic.

Because the biggest reason for PTI's success isn't conflict or format or some device.

It's something that can't be stolen.

...