Michael Jordan has done one real interview in 2026. It was taped before the season, sliced into four NBC segments, and Mike Tirico himself admitted the format "was probably not what everyone wanted." Fans wanted MJ unfiltered. They got a four-minute clip about what it's like to play at Madison Square Garden.
Meanwhile, the most interesting Michael Jordan story in a decade is happening outside basketball:
- December 11, 2025 — 23XI Racing settles its antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR, winning permanent charters for every Cup team. Jordan testified for an hour. He embraced Jim France on the courthouse steps.
- February 15, 2026 — Tyler Reddick wins the Daytona 500 for 23XI. Jordan, in victory lane: "I can't even believe it. It was so gratifying."
- February 23, 2026 — Awful Announcing reports MJ has now spoken more on Fox NASCAR coverage than on his entire NBC NBA contract.
Pardon My Take is the only podcast that can actually have this conversation. Not Tirico. Not a press junket. Big Cat — who has publicly named Michael Jordan as his favorite player growing up — in a room with PFT Commenter, in a studio that just landed on Netflix in January 2026 and won Best Sports Podcast at the iHeartRadio Awards in March 2026. PMT does the thing nobody else does anymore: they make legends laugh and they make legends say things they didn't plan to say.
Jordan has the NASCAR victory lap, the load management hot take everyone keeps replaying, and 30 years of grudges he's never been asked about by anyone funny. This is the conversation.
Vote to make it real. Suggest the questions and topics you actually want asked — Tirico got 16 minutes and refused to use them. Share this page so 23XI sponsors and Barstool see the demand. Reply threads disappear. A vote count doesn't.
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Why Their Voice Would Be Valuable
Wright Thompson wrote "Michael Jordan Has Not Left The Building" — the most-read Jordan profile in ESPN's history and the piece that did more than any other to humanize Jordan in middle age. He's also a documented Pardon My Take guest, joining Big Cat and PFT in June 2025 to discuss his Jordan and Tiger Woods writing. If the writer who got closer to Jordan than any journalist alive backs this nomination, it carries the weight of saying: the conversation PMT could have with MJ is the one I couldn't fit in 12,000 words.