ESPN’s decision to partner with members of Barstool Sports, a publication known for its crude humour and sexist jokes, has ended almost before it began.

The broadcaster teamed up with Dan “Big Cat” Katz and PFT Commenter, the hosts of the popular Pardon My Take podcast, to produce the Barstool Van Talk show. The first episode aired last week but on Monday, the ESPN president, John Skipper, said he had decided to cancel the series.

“Effective immediately, I am cancelling Barstool Van Talk,” Skipper said in a statement. “While we had approval on the content of the show, I erred in assuming we could distance our efforts from the Barstool site and its content. Apart from this decision, we appreciate the efforts of Big Cat and PFT Commenter. They delivered the show they promised.”

The show was already under a cloud even before it had aired. Last week, ESPN host Samantha Ponder sent a tweet drawing attention to abuse she had received from Barstool’s founder, Dave Portnoy. “Welcome to the ESPN family @BarstoolBigCat (& welcome to all ur minions who will respond to this so kindly),” wrote Ponder, along with a screenshot from a 2014 Barstool blog telling the presenter to “fuck yourself” after she wrote about the Ray Rice domestic abuse scandal. Portnoy also called Ponder “a slut” and described her daughter as a “rat kid” in another broadcast.

Sensitive Man (@sensitivemann) @sam_ponder https://t.co/s6FxNyFrZy 8 minutes in, youre welcome

Katz and PFT Commenter, who has never revealed his real name, were not responsible for the slurs aimed at Ponder, and are on the milder end of the views presented on Barstool. However, there were reports that Ponder was not the only person at ESPN with concerns about the partnership.

jamesmiller (@JimMiller) Criticism from outside was matched by criticism from inside @espn & Skipper placed great deal of import on the later. https://t.co/26EWayS0YH

For their part, Katz and PFT Commenter expressed their disappointment at Skipper’s decision. “We had a great time working on the show and were extremely excited about the future,” the pair said in a statement on Twitter. “Thank you to all the Award Winning Listeners/Watchers for supporting us, and thank you to all the great people who worked alongside us at ESPN and Embassy Row. Although we are heartbroken, Pardon My Take will continue to get bigger and stronger every single day. Please subscribe to Pardon My Take, unsubscribe and resubscribe, and leave a 5-star review to help take some of the sting off this for us.”

Portnoy later posted a video statement to Twitter in which he remained bullish over Barstool’s future. “You want to see why everyone says Barstool is gonna be the next ESPN?, Portnoy said. “It’s this: because we do things our way, for better or for worse, we’ll continue to do it and people who have been with us forever know we’re not sexist, we’re not chauvinistic, we’re not any of it. We make fun of everybody.

“It sucks the show is off, but for the future and the confidence of this company, there is nothing ESPN actually could have done to illustrate why we are rising and why they are falling … For Barstool, we will move on and get stronger like we always do.”

Barstool is immensely popular with young, mostly male, readers and listeners, and was valued at around $15m when an investment group bought a 51% stake in 2016. Earlier this month, journalist Elika Sadeghi turned down a job with the company after being asked to agree to a contact clause saying she should expect to be exposed to “offensive speech, sexual scenarios, suggestive gestures, and references to stereotypes” in the workplace.

Portnoy said the clause was standard for a publication that deals in humour. “We’re not saying you can grope somebody, we’re not saying you can sexually harass somebody, we’re saying we’re gonna make jokes and you gotta be cool with it,” he said.

ESPN has experienced a rocky time of late. In April it laid off about 100 employees, including some of the network’s most popular on-air and online personalities. This month the broadcaster suspended anchor Jemele Hill after her public criticism of two NFL owners’ directives over silent player protests during the national anthem.