Klemmer breaks down why he passed on Nadu's $2,000-an-hour podcast

Drawn Together has quietly become one of the more disarming interview formats Barstool runs — two people, two easels, no cameras hiding the fact that everyone's just doodling while they talk. The newest episode dropped with Chris Klemmer as the subject, and it went places nobody scripted, from a kindergarten skip to a very specific breakdown of podcast economics that didn't add up.

The episode opens with host Oona asking Klemmer point blank whether Kirk likes him — the kind of loaded office-politics question that only makes sense if you've been around Barstool long enough to know the stakes. Klemmer's answer is classic hedge: "I think so. I hope so." But the real nugget buried in that post is the reveal that Mike Portnoy was reportedly an early fan of Klemmer's, which is a wild co-sign to have in your corner given Portnoy's own outsized presence in the building.

Viva La Stool

@VivaLaStool

“Does Kirk like you?” -Oona “I think so. I hope so” -Klemmer ps it turns out Mike Portnoy was an early fan of Klemmer

Then the interview rewinds all the way to childhood, and it's not a small flex. Klemmer explains he was reading so well at 5 years old that teachers wanted to skip him straight from kindergarten to third grade — the kind of anecdote that sounds made up until someone tells it with a straight face on mic.

Barstool Sports

@barstoolsports

Imagine being so good at reading that you were asked to skip Kindergarten and head straight to the third grade. That's how good @ChrisKlemmer was at 5 years old

The part of the episode that's actually generating buzz, though, is Klemmer doing math on air about the Nadu podcast situation. His breakdown: if the deal was $60,000 for one podcast a week across roughly 32 episodes, that shakes out to something like $2,000 an hour of actual work. Klemmer's reaction was blunt — he flat out said he didn't understand why anyone would walk away from that. It tracks with the broader story that's been circulating about Jeff Nadu reportedly negotiating himself out of what's been described as one of the easiest paydays in recent Barstool memory, and Klemmer laying out the hourly rate in real time is what turned a passing reference into an actual conversation piece.

Viva La Stool

@VivaLaStool

“If you do the math, they were saying it was $60,000 for one podcast a week and they were gonna do like 32 episodes. Thats $2,000 an hour. I don’t understand why he would do that” -Klemmer talking about Nadu

None of this required a press release or a formal statement — it's just two guys with easels and a mic letting the numbers speak for themselves. That's the appeal of Drawn Together as a format: it's low stakes enough that people say things plainly instead of in Barstool-speak, and Klemmer clearly wasn't holding back on either his own backstory or his read on how Nadu's situation played out. Whether or not the Nadu math becomes its own follow-up story, it's already done its job of getting people talking about a deal that, on paper, looked impossible to turn down.