The Megyn Kelly Show - Dave Portnoy and Erika Nardini on Barstool's Success, Authenticity, and Helping Small Businesses ｜ Ep. 56

00:00:00.000 When I found out my friend got a great deal

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00:00:03.760 I started wondering,

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00:00:08.560 Like that woman over there with the designer jeans. 1.00

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00:00:12.780 Ooh, or those beautiful gold earrings.

00:00:15.260 Did she pay full price?

00:00:16.600 Or that leather tote?

00:00:17.620 Or that cashmere sweater?

00:00:18.500 Or those knee-high boots?

00:00:20.300 That dress?

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00:00:30.600 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:32.540 Your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:41.940 Hey everybody, I'm Megyn Kelly.

00:00:43.880 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:45.200 Today on the program, we've got Dave Portnoy and Erica Nardini.

00:00:50.300 These are the geniuses behind Barstool Sports.

00:00:54.900 This is way more than sports.

00:00:56.260 It's a sports culture comedy brand, really,

00:00:59.220 that is just multimedia in its approach.

00:01:02.280 You've got podcasts and you've got online sites.

00:01:04.500 And I mean, there's no telling where they're going to go

00:01:06.240 because the company now is valued at about a half a billion dollars or more.

00:01:10.260 But this guy, Dave, started it years and years ago as a one-man newspaper,

00:01:14.480 which he wrote himself, which he got advertising for himself,

00:01:17.280 which he stood in the subways of Boston handing out morning and night himself.

00:01:21.040 And now he's turning some of that goodness around and helping people with his money

00:01:26.440 and with donations from others to help businesses who have been crippled by these interminable

00:01:31.160 lockdowns.

00:01:32.260 Dave is the one who founded the company.

00:01:33.640 Eric is now the CEO as of a few years ago, and they've made a very powerful combo.

00:01:37.600 So we're psyched to talk to them because they really,

00:01:40.980 I would say if they had a brand logo, it'd probably be a big middle finger,

00:01:44.140 which ruffles feathers.

00:01:47.180 I get that.

00:01:48.120 But also is a little refreshing, right?

00:01:50.120 After all the constant, I don't know, censorship and judgment,

00:01:55.020 and you'll make up your own minds.

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00:03:38.080 And now, Dave Portnoy and Erica Nardini.

00:03:42.640 I'm so happy to have you both here.

00:03:44.480 Just so our audience knows, Dave founded the company.

00:03:47.220 He's the president of the company.

00:03:48.560 And Erica is now CEO of the company.

00:03:50.600 So, Dave, she's kind of your boss now.

00:03:53.320 Yeah, you can look at it that way.

00:03:56.060 That is how I choose to look at it.

00:03:58.780 So, I knew about Barstool Sports.

00:04:00.900 I had heard how popular it was.

00:04:02.900 You know, I'm not really into sports.

00:04:04.400 So, it's like this stuff sort of only crosses into my world when sports news comes into the

00:04:09.300 news world.

00:04:10.440 But I loved the fact that you got an interview with Donald Trump.

00:04:15.800 And I watched your interview and really enjoyed it.

00:04:18.760 It was your very first interview ever.

00:04:20.960 Is that true?

00:04:21.860 Yeah, that is true.

00:04:22.700 It's the only interview I really conducted.

00:04:26.640 So, you started with the president of the United States.

00:04:29.180 Were you nervous going into that?

00:04:31.500 Yeah.

00:04:32.180 I mean, how could he not be?

00:04:33.320 I'd never been to the White House.

00:04:35.040 And, you know, we had, like, Erica was there.

00:04:37.080 A couple of other people from our team were there.

00:04:39.020 But they really weren't allowed in the interview area.

00:04:41.820 It was all his team kind of surrounding us.

00:04:44.060 So, it's hard not to be a little bit intimidated in that environment, especially, like I said,

00:04:48.740 it's the first interview that I'd ever done.

00:04:50.340 So, yeah, it was a little nerve-wracking.

00:04:53.840 And you made news.

00:04:54.900 You got him to say that sometimes he regrets his tweets after he sends them.

00:04:59.620 And the retweets in particular are the ones that get him in trouble.

00:05:03.380 Yeah, I think I was one of the only people who ever got him to admit that he made a mistake

00:05:08.640 or regretted something.

00:05:10.600 But, yeah, I'm pretty good at making news one way or the other.

00:05:14.460 So, I've realized I'm preparing for this.

00:05:17.320 Now, I read that you've called yourself a Trump guy, though you're not partisan.

00:05:21.620 You're not really a partisan person.

00:05:23.880 So, what do you make a Trump now in the wake of the past few months and the Capitol riot

00:05:28.000 and the beating yet again that the media has given him?

00:05:31.460 Yeah, well, and I'd have to, a lot of things that have said about me are probably taken out of context.

00:05:36.640 So, I don't even know when, like, that, you just said I called myself a Trump guy.

00:05:40.520 That may have been, like, previous to his first election.

00:05:44.840 You know, I think he was an entertainer as president.

00:05:50.020 There's some things he did that I agree with.

00:05:52.560 There's some I didn't. 0.99

00:05:53.400 I think both the left and the right kind of suck. 0.98

00:05:56.900 You know, I think he definitely is to blame for a lot of what happened at the Capitol. 0.99

00:06:00.280 And he sort of threw a tantrum, I think, in some ways of being like, you know, he had wanted law and order for a long time.

00:06:09.180 And maybe the left is like, no.

00:06:11.340 And then when they wanted law and order, he was nowhere to be found.

00:06:13.740 So, I don't know.

00:06:14.780 Everything with politics drives me kind of crazy.

00:06:18.080 So, I wouldn't identify myself and haven't for a long time as a Trump guy, neither negative or positive. 0.98

00:06:24.580 I just think the extreme left and the extreme right in politics in general suck. 0.96

00:06:29.660 There was a poll out this week. 0.59

00:06:31.280 I just tweeted it out that only 18% of Republicans trust the media.

00:06:36.180 So, as somebody who doesn't consider himself partisan, I wonder, how do you feel about it?

00:06:41.120 Because you kind of got your start as a newspaper man.

00:06:44.500 Do you trust the media?

00:06:46.240 No.

00:06:47.040 No, I wouldn't.

00:06:47.960 I think there's very few and partial.

00:06:50.320 I mean, I think I'm a good example of it, for sure, has become more jaded.

00:06:53.560 Because if I read a lot of the articles that people read about myself, which have been generated from a small group of people, like, I'd think I'm Hitler.

00:07:02.020 Like, if I read it, I'd be like, oh, this guy's the worst.

00:07:05.500 But they're so pulled out of context and twisted and taken.

00:07:09.780 And the people, a lot of them who write them, I would qualify as, like, nut jobs.

00:07:13.720 And, you know, there's a lot of things that even outside of my world where I go on different shows or do different interviews and even take the Trump thing, for example.

00:07:22.740 Like, you know, Trump asked me to interview him.

00:07:26.480 We didn't reach out to him.

00:07:27.620 Like, that was a request they put to me.

00:07:30.080 And so we did it.

00:07:31.580 And, you know, I know just by affiliation, some people are like, oh, this guy is, you know, again, a Nazi.

00:07:38.420 He hates this.

00:07:38.820 He hates that.

00:07:39.520 They don't listen to anything that's even said.

00:07:41.180 They don't listen to the interview.

00:07:42.620 They don't care that we asked Biden to do an interview so we could get both sides.

00:07:46.120 So, you know, I just think a lot of written, it all comes from an agenda and people don't take the time to do the research or the back.

00:07:54.060 So, no, in general, I do not trust the media.

00:07:58.380 Well, I know.

00:07:58.800 I mean, just in preparing for the interview, one of the articles I saw, my team gets this stuff together for me, is a very unkind interview or article about you from the Daily Beast.

00:08:09.360 And it doesn't paint a nice picture, but I've been the subject of so many nasty articles in the Daily Beast.

00:08:15.900 I know exactly what you mean.

00:08:17.100 They decide whether they like you or they don't like you.

00:08:19.900 And then everything you've ever done is painted through the most negative lens, without any context, without any background on maybe the attacks that were launched on you first.

00:08:29.060 You know, like and then the public is left thinking, as you said, Hitler, it's it's incredibly frustrating.

00:08:35.960 Yeah.

00:08:36.080 And that's something we've come to deal with.

00:08:38.220 And the Daily Beast is one of those examples.

00:08:41.000 It's it's a group of writers who really don't care for me.

00:08:45.180 And I can almost pinpoint anything in all the examples, like any hit piece that's written on me.

00:08:50.220 I know the five to six things that are going to be in it before they're written.

00:08:53.700 And I've offered a thousand times.

00:08:55.700 You want to talk about go point by point in and I'll detail every accusation.

00:09:01.000 And if anyone with a rational brain listened to that conversation, they'd be like, oh, my God, this is not what it seems at all.

00:09:08.960 But they've never taken me up on that.

00:09:10.860 They've never, you know, taken because they have an agenda.

00:09:14.620 So it it is what it is.

00:09:17.920 And we've just come to deal with it.

00:09:19.880 I always say so we were bought by a casino company.

00:09:22.420 I'm sure we'll get into this casino companies regulated every state by, you know, the government, whatnot.

00:09:28.160 It's as conservative in industry as there is.

00:09:31.180 They did when I say, you know, weeks, months of back research on everything.

00:09:36.840 And they came to the same conclusion at the end.

00:09:39.260 There's nothing to it.

00:09:40.320 There's just they could never do business with us if the things that the people who say who hate us were true.

00:09:47.080 And also it's a small group.

00:09:48.560 It's like that's what social media is.

00:09:50.400 Social media is basically an echo chamber for people.

00:09:53.060 And they just like to hear each other talk.

00:09:55.160 But when we go out the street and we go in public and nobody's ever mean, the everyday common person is actually big fans of our social sports.

00:10:04.560 And we've been around for two decades because of that.

00:10:07.000 So online is not real life.

00:10:08.980 It really isn't.

00:10:09.660 You you you get that slowly but surely as the as the acrimony against you ramps up online and then you go out and you lead a beautiful life.

00:10:17.480 You start to realize the disconnect.

00:10:19.260 But I do have to give you props for offering to go through allegation by allegation.

00:10:24.120 I I have never done that and I've never really considered that a useful tool because I think the people who write those articles are dishonest brokers.

00:10:32.960 And the people who want to believe the bad things about you want to believe them and they're not really going to be disabused.

00:10:39.460 You know, it's like they're not winnable.

00:10:41.540 So why bother?

00:10:42.480 Why why get in the sty and roll around?

00:10:45.140 Yeah, no, that I agree with.

00:10:47.080 I've always said, you know, the people don't like me.

00:10:48.880 I could give them one hundred dollars for free.

00:10:50.400 They say, why didn't you give me a thousand like that?

00:10:52.660 That's kind of their mentality.

00:10:53.940 And I agree there's nothing that you can do to change it.

00:10:58.320 I mean, we have people we're doing the Barstool Fund now helping small business.

00:11:02.460 We're we're having people change that into somehow, you know, it's just a PR stunt for us, which is bananas.

00:11:09.460 If you know how it started.

00:11:10.820 And even so, it's like, how else would we raise money if we didn't publicize it?

00:11:14.720 But people, people have broken brains and maybe it'll go away because I do think it ramped up with Trump.

00:11:20.480 He just he was so divisive and such a lightning rod that almost every single person who had an issue with me or Barstool, if you look at like their Twitter, the 10 comments below it would be political.

00:11:32.640 It was they're just they couldn't get out of their own world and we're a comedy site and we weren't in that world.

00:11:38.700 But we got somehow got dragged into like we sold make America great hats again, right when Trump like what was running and we sold a lot of them and that's what we do.

00:11:49.100 We it doesn't matter what world we're in.

00:11:51.900 We sell merch and that's part of our business and whatever is hot in the streets we try to make money on.

00:11:56.960 And somehow just because we did that, like before anyone even was really that polarized by and people just the fact we sold those hats, people like, oh, again, these guys must be racist or whatever.

00:12:08.400 Like, what are you talking about?

00:12:09.600 It's just a different world.

00:12:11.400 Of course, they see it the way they want to see it.

00:12:12.980 I mean, I've told the story before, but in analyzing the presidential debates, this go around, there were only two, as you know, the first one I said, I thought I thought it was close to a draw.

00:12:22.900 So I gave the win to Biden because Trump needed a win.

00:12:25.880 He was behind in the polls.

00:12:26.900 And the second one, I thought Trump won.

00:12:28.440 And as soon as I sent out the tweet, I thought Trump won the second debate.

00:12:32.460 He's like, how could you?

00:12:34.140 You're a Trump lover. 1.00

00:12:35.840 F you. 0.99

00:12:36.400 It's like, well, does anyone care?

00:12:38.140 I thought Biden won the first one.

00:12:39.380 Does that F me for that, too?

00:12:40.940 Like, they're just so dishonest.

00:12:42.500 It's really hard to to let them get to you.

00:12:44.760 And you you've had an interesting approach to the media who attack you, which I definitely want to get to because I have so many thoughts and questions about it.

00:12:51.420 But wait, before we get to that, can we just start a little bit on the on the early beginnings of Barstool, because I think it's a great story.

00:12:58.280 What I read is that you started in the subways of Boston in the early 2000s, handing out homemade newspapers that you made with fake names as your staff.

00:13:07.900 So people didn't think it was just you.

00:13:10.280 Right.

00:13:10.840 So that's accurate.

00:13:11.860 So, yeah, it was a four page black and white like newsletter.

00:13:15.700 I did everything.

00:13:16.620 I mean, I woke up at the subway station.

00:13:18.840 It's like five a.m.

00:13:19.700 Handed them out.

00:13:20.780 I go home, you know, write articles, call for advertisers.

00:13:25.440 Then later in the day, I go catch the subway rush again, hand out newspapers.

00:13:30.080 I delivered them all.

00:13:31.340 I printed them all.

00:13:32.200 I did everything.

00:13:32.920 It was a one man show.

00:13:34.140 And to give the illusion that we're bigger, I would have fake aliases, fake ads.

00:13:39.860 You name it.

00:13:40.740 I tried it.

00:13:41.980 You know, it really was meant to be a business that I could run in and slowly grew.

00:13:47.820 And every penny that I had, I just poured back into it and employee by employee and really fan by fan.

00:13:53.740 We just organically grew.

00:13:56.160 OK, so what was the goal of the newspaper?

00:13:58.080 It wasn't always a comedy site.

00:13:59.680 No, it started as like a sports and gambling fantasy, like football type newsletter.

00:14:06.560 I was very interested in gambling.

00:14:09.080 I knew I wanted to try or get involved in something that I enjoyed.

00:14:12.820 I want to not hate my job.

00:14:14.460 So I flew out to Vegas, met with all the casinos to try to get in the marketing side of what they did.

00:14:19.300 It didn't work out.

00:14:20.460 They're basically, I had already had a real job for about five years.

00:14:23.880 And they said I had to start as a dealer.

00:14:25.820 So I didn't want to do that.

00:14:27.620 So that's where the newspaper started.

00:14:30.080 I created this gambling newsletter and had like offshore casinos, party poker, gambling companies advertising in it.

00:14:36.980 But it started really, I wanted to start my own business.

00:14:39.580 It wasn't like, hey, I'm only going to do the gambling.

00:14:42.620 I had three or four business ideas and I knew I wanted to try to start my own thing.

00:14:46.920 I kind of had that entrepreneurial spirit.

00:14:48.660 I wanted to work for myself.

00:14:50.220 This is the one I landed on that I thought I could accomplish the easiest.

00:14:54.060 Were you making any money at all back then?

00:14:55.720 How are you paying your bills?

00:14:57.760 So I basically had a pretty decent paying job out of college because the economy was gangbusters then.

00:15:05.300 It was like the dot-com boom.

00:15:06.560 I graduated Michigan in 99.

00:15:08.220 So I worked for five years, saved money.

00:15:10.900 And then I quit.

00:15:12.860 And for about six months to a year, I cold called for advertising for the newspaper.

00:15:19.440 So I pre-sold the newspaper for a year before the first issue launched.

00:15:24.940 So it wasn't making money, but it wasn't losing really money.

00:15:29.520 I was just about staying above.

00:15:31.900 I moved home with my parents in the beginning and then I had like a month-to-month lease so I could always get out of it.

00:15:37.540 But I remember the first $20,000 ad that I sold.

00:15:40.840 It was to a company called Party Poker right during the poker explosion.

00:15:44.480 I was in Vegas with the people who developed the actual software, like the Indians who wrote the software. 0.99

00:15:50.640 And I did everything myself.

00:15:53.280 I had no real expenses except the printing bill for the newspaper.

00:15:58.380 And I offset that with the ads that I had pre-sold for the year.

00:16:02.480 So I was able to kind of get my sea legs for a year.

00:16:04.900 And it grew word of mouth in Boston and I continued to just sell.

00:16:09.060 And so I always had kind of the break even, but my costs were almost negligible in the beginning.

00:16:15.220 I want our audience to know that this is now over a $100 million company.

00:16:18.520 So just the thought of you having to make up your staff names and doing it all yourself is pretty fun to think about.

00:16:25.060 It's an American success story.

00:16:26.520 Yeah, I mean, Penn, who bought a minority interest in us, the valuation was $450 million.

00:16:33.920 And that probably is far greater now than it was when we did the sale.

00:16:37.700 So we're closing on, I think, a billion dollar company at this point.

00:16:41.660 Holy moly.

00:16:43.780 That's amazing.

00:16:45.140 It's a good story.

00:16:46.920 Now, listen, back in the day when I first graduated from law school, I was dating a guy from Boston.

00:16:52.060 And I learned a little bit about Bostonians.

00:16:54.660 They love their sports.

00:16:55.700 They're backwards baseball caps.

00:16:57.740 They love being from Boston.

00:16:59.340 And they love the Patriots.

00:17:01.620 And I've learned enough about you to know that you are very pro-Patriots, pro-Tom Brady.

00:17:06.680 And I have to ask you how you feel about him now, even though he's a Buccaneer.

00:17:11.700 Yeah, it's certainly different.

00:17:13.980 You know, I had a little back and forth with him before the season saying he looked old and orange.

00:17:19.180 And he basically was like, come talk to me in January.

00:17:22.840 So he was proven right.

00:17:24.320 I reposted that.

00:17:25.920 And he reposted it on his Instagram.

00:17:28.960 So it is different.

00:17:30.540 It's, you know, I'm Patriot first.

00:17:32.660 I'm Brady second.

00:17:35.240 I don't know.

00:17:35.960 It's a little awkward seeing it happen, but whatever.

00:17:39.400 He's the greatest of all time.

00:17:41.340 Were you?

00:17:41.840 I know.

00:17:42.040 I actually watch.

00:17:42.700 I don't really know much about sports, as I say, but I did watch that game last night with them against.

00:17:48.480 I don't remember who the other team was.

00:17:50.200 Other Packers.

00:17:51.080 Other Packers.

00:17:51.880 Other Packers.

00:17:51.980 Right.

00:17:52.520 So were you, you know, you're watching that.

00:17:54.560 Were you happy he made it to the Super Bowl again while not wearing a Patriots uniform?

00:17:58.120 Uh, so no, because I bet on the Packers and ironically through the Barstool fund, Aaron Rodgers, who is the quarterback of the Packers, has been a big advocate for the fund.

00:18:09.100 He's actually been like joining me on some of these calls to the small businesses.

00:18:12.640 He donated half a million of his own money.

00:18:15.180 So I started becoming friendly with him and I rolled with him.

00:18:18.700 Uh, I should have stayed with my old love.

00:18:20.820 Yeah.

00:18:21.360 I, I follow Clay Travis of Outkick Sports and he was tweeting out comments about why, why would the Packers have given the ball to the best quarterback in the league with just a few minutes to go?

00:18:31.260 You know, they, uh, giving it over on that last down, even though I could follow that much.

00:18:35.480 Um, but I don't know.

00:18:36.760 I think there's a lot of hate for Tom Brady because he's incredibly good looking.

00:18:39.960 He's married to a supermodel.

00:18:41.320 He's got a ton of money.

00:18:43.180 He, you know, it's just like, there's a lot of reasons to dislike the guy, but you've been one of his chief defenders.

00:18:48.980 Um, and, and you loathe Roger Goodell, loathe Roger Goodell.

00:18:53.000 Why? 0.65

00:18:53.960 Well, I mean, Roger Goodell is a clown, but it, it, it started really way back when there was a huge scandal with Brady, the flake gate, where he was basically accused of deflating footballs. 0.89

00:19:07.460 I'm a Patriot fan. 0.92

00:19:08.320 Uh, Roger Goodell is basically like, uh, he's like Musa Mussolini of Stalin or something.

00:19:14.100 So he, he, he basically didn't have due process.

00:19:17.460 He convicted Brady with no evidence, kept changing the rules.

00:19:20.940 And as a Brady fan, and this was kind of tongue in cheek where it caught me site myself and three other Patriot fans handcuffed ourselves to each other at NFL headquarters in protest of Brady being suspended.

00:19:32.900 We spent a night in jail and that essentially began a long ongoing feud with the NFL commissioner and the NFL office.

00:19:43.220 I've been dragged out of the Superbowl in handcuffs.

00:19:45.700 I've been kicked out of media days.

00:19:47.780 Um, I tried to basically this year, Roger Goodell had a promotion for COVID and it was like whoever won, whoever bid the most money would be able to watch a game in his basement.

00:20:01.180 All the money went to frontline workers.

00:20:03.780 I won that.

00:20:04.760 I put 250 grand.

00:20:06.140 I won that charity.

00:20:07.140 He denied it.

00:20:08.160 He refused to take the money.

00:20:09.440 I don't think they ever gave that money as charity, to be honest.

00:20:12.360 Um, and then I've offered with the Barstool fund, if he donated 250 grand, which is a drop in the bucket for him, I would match that as well.

00:20:20.500 He didn't do that.

00:20:21.380 So he's just, uh, he's somebody who doesn't see eye to eye with us. 0.99

00:20:26.420 The flip side is he's so stupid if he just acknowledged us or like played with it or had an ounce of self-awareness, it would be over and it would probably be bad for us. 0.97

00:20:37.720 He's managed to let us still have this outsider like pirate ship vibe, even though we've grown into a pretty big media company by still like dragging me out of the Superbowl in handcuffs. 0.98

00:20:47.720 I don't think he's getting anywhere near, uh, the appropriate, uh, PR advice.

00:20:53.300 I think that the PR advice he's been given is absolutely objectively awful.

00:20:57.240 His PR person, I believe is married to, uh, Savannah Guthrie.

00:21:01.680 Um, so I know a little bit about it, but I watched a video of you when Tom Brady was going into court and there was some security guard who got your face and said, can you please just stand to the side?

00:21:11.440 And you said, no, stood looking at each other.

00:21:17.520 You go, what is this?

00:21:18.540 A standoff now?

00:21:20.120 Maybe.

00:21:20.500 Yeah.

00:21:21.040 Well, that, that's kind of back to the media agenda.

00:21:24.600 Like that, like during the deflategate thing, ESPN was basically the mouthpiece for the NFL commissioner and they were leaking information that was just wildly inaccurate.

00:21:34.720 And it proved to be wildly inaccurate after the fact and they would never answer it.

00:21:40.360 Like I was just trying to get somebody told just lies.

00:21:44.840 Somebody leaked lies to ESPN that began the deflategate saga.

00:21:49.000 And when the facts came out, everything that was said in the beginning of that was just wildly wrong.

00:21:55.720 There was no truth to any of it.

00:21:57.320 So I want to know where did the information come from?

00:22:00.060 And they just refused to answer it.

00:22:01.640 I saw you going after some guy, some reporter who had initially tweeted out, you went, talked to one of his colleagues who had tweeted out that the, you know, how much the footballs had been deflated by and it was inaccurate.

00:22:14.160 And it took months and months for him to actually take down the tweet, but it had already gone viral.

00:22:18.520 So people believed that there was a specific deflation on each football and therefore it couldn't be accidental.

00:22:24.220 And you were like a dog with a bone with that story trying to, you know, push all, you know, the alternate reality, which was, yeah, there, there, it wasn't true.

00:22:33.120 Wasn't true.

00:22:33.820 Right.

00:22:34.340 And, and, and the alternate reality of what I was trying to put became facts.

00:22:38.400 Like when everything came out, everything I said was correct and everything that was leaked was incorrect.

00:22:44.980 And now we're talking about deflate football.

00:22:47.100 So it's not life and death.

00:22:48.280 But when you look at the larger subjective, that's how the media works.

00:22:52.380 It doesn't matter if it's right or wrong.

00:22:54.700 Once it's out there and it catches steam, it's done.

00:22:58.760 And, and there's the, the retraction or the correction is never, ever the same remote size as the initial story.

00:23:08.760 So it doesn't even matter.

00:23:09.880 Damage was done.

00:23:10.660 More with Dave and Erica in just one second, but first sticking to your new year's resolution is a matter of making one right decision at a time.

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00:24:37.160 2008, you guys went digital and over time, the Barstool Sports of Today was born.

00:24:44.860 So now it's more of it's a comedy site.

00:24:47.080 It's like a lifestyle site.

00:24:49.380 It was described to me as content by the common man for the common man, sports bars, drinking pizza, sex and women.

00:24:55.380 And some of the stuff I've read about it, it reminded me of like the old Howard Stern a little bit, like some of the man show-ish stuff.

00:25:05.480 I mean, is that fair?

00:25:06.660 Do you think it's sort of irreverent in the way those two programs at least used to be?

00:25:11.260 Yeah, I certainly get the Howard Stern comparisons.

00:25:15.320 I often say like National Lampoon and Saturday Night Live.

00:25:19.820 Yeah.

00:25:20.700 But yes, it's fair.

00:25:22.160 It's a site that doesn't take ourselves too seriously.

00:25:25.000 But, you know, it's from both sides at this point, I would say.

00:25:28.520 And it's been that way for a while.

00:25:29.900 So when we say man show or, you know, something like that, I think people would say that's always guys talking about girls.

00:25:38.040 But the raunchiest thing we have is Call Her Daddy, which is a female podcast. 1.00

00:25:44.620 It's like the number one female podcast, girls talking about guys. 0.84

00:25:47.880 And people know and sometimes they don't go back in our history.

00:25:51.160 It's always been like one of the complaints I have when they're like, well, we're so sexist.

00:25:55.700 It does this.

00:25:56.240 It does that.

00:25:56.860 There's a girl, Jenna Marbles, who is one of the biggest YouTube stars there is.

00:26:01.740 She's been around for a long time.

00:26:03.980 And I hired her out of a tanning salon. 1.00

00:26:07.600 And she started, this is back before anybody knew who we were.

00:26:11.600 And we had a site called Stoolala.

00:26:13.700 It was just the female version of Barstool. 1.00

00:26:16.420 And while we would post a hot girl at the end of every day, a local girl, she was posting a hot guy.

00:26:22.460 So it was, we were doing it like equally.

00:26:25.000 Now, Jenna went on to become a gigantic star. 0.78

00:26:28.220 She moved to L.A. and we couldn't find anyone to like replace it.

00:26:32.280 But that part of our history is just never mentioned.

00:26:35.240 Well, I, the part of the reason that people call the site sexist is because they sort of, there's things like the smoke shows, half naked college women who are, are posted in bikinis. 0.99

00:26:47.900 I gather they send the pictures into you guys.

00:26:50.240 But I just look, some, I'm sure some of the criticism is okay.

00:26:54.800 But to me, women wanting to celebrate their own bodies by posting bikini photos or having you guys recognize them as hot. 0.95

00:27:02.040 That's not misogynistic.

00:27:03.500 We've sort of crossed over in feminism to the point where women aren't allowed to celebrate their own bodies or be or enjoy their sex appeal and being desired by men. 1.00

00:27:11.640 And that to me is not feminism and being on the other side of that is not being a misogynist.

00:27:16.540 Yeah, so I agree with that.

00:27:18.600 And that's been a long-standing debate with us.

00:27:21.340 We'll have women who identify themselves as feminists be like, this site's sexist. 1.00

00:27:26.480 And then we'll have women who love our site will be like, well, we consider ourselves feminists. 1.00

00:27:32.280 And we think that definition is who are you to tell us what we think is funny or how we should live our lives.

00:27:38.080 So we've had that debate, and I obviously side with the women who are like, we're smart enough, intelligent enough to make decisions for ourselves without needing a different person to say, hey, you can't do this or do that. 1.00

00:27:53.120 And in regards to the smoke show, yes, they are submitted, and then we get their approval.

00:27:57.960 And we don't do it without, and I agree with you, I don't think if a guy says that girl is pretty, that to me is nothing.

00:28:06.160 And it's ironic because the sites, some of the sites, when we talk about the criticisms of Barstool, they were Sports Illustrated.

00:28:13.520 It was a Sports Illustrated website.

00:28:15.640 It was one of the all-time.

00:28:17.300 And it's like they're doing the swimsuit issue.

00:28:20.900 They invented it.

00:28:22.220 Exactly.

00:28:22.880 And they're sitting calling us, and it's like, what world are we in?

00:28:25.900 Like, I don't, the hypocrisy is probably the number one thing that drives me insane.

00:28:31.440 And there's a lot of it, but that's a clear example where Sports Illustrated write hit pieces on us about our smoke show of the day when they were doing literally the same exact thing.

00:28:41.680 And this is where I want to bring in Erica. 0.60

00:28:42.900 So you hired, you sold half of Barstool, as you pointed out, to the churning group in 2016.

00:28:48.480 You guys hired Erica as your CEO.

00:28:50.900 And Erica, the first thing they start saying about you is, oh, she's a fig leaf.

00:28:55.920 They hired her because she's a woman. 1.00

00:28:57.700 You know, she's the one who's supposed to cover for these guys, which is totally, I mean, now that, that is sexist.

00:29:03.720 Totally sexist.

00:29:05.180 Yeah.

00:29:05.400 I mean, they still say that about me today.

00:29:07.620 And we've grown this business from, let's say, $5 million in revenue to close to $150 in five years.

00:29:16.480 So, yeah, it's insulting and it's sexist.

00:29:19.740 And it's convenient.

00:29:21.280 And it's also just wildly inaccurate, as both Erica and I know, in the chain of events and how she got hired, it was by accident that we met.

00:29:30.340 So, it wasn't, like, churning guys hired a recruiting firm and that's the first time we had it.

00:29:37.580 We probably interviewed 70 people, all men.

00:29:40.180 None of them made it to the second round.

00:29:42.620 And then we had an advisor, Betsy Morgan, the old CEO of Huffington Post, who was from my neck of the woods.

00:29:51.200 And we became friendly and she happened to be at a coffee shop around the corner.

00:29:55.840 She's like, hey, want to meet for a couple of minutes?

00:29:57.300 And Erica was friends with Betsy and happened to be there. 0.65

00:29:59.860 And that's how we met.

00:30:01.020 And we hit it off right away and started the chain of events of her becoming a CEO.

00:30:05.600 But there wasn't some grand plan.

00:30:07.980 I didn't even, I did not want you to defend yourself on this.

00:30:11.480 I think it's absurd.

00:30:12.460 I've seen this kind of thing.

00:30:13.900 And it's like, if the shoe were on a different foot, people would not dare say such a thing. 0.60

00:30:18.300 Like, if you were a company that was all white and you hired a black CEO, no one would dare say, oh, they just hired him or her because she's black. 0.88

00:30:26.740 But somehow women moving up to these CEO roles always get this. 1.00

00:30:31.000 And it's bullshit. 0.99

00:30:32.460 And I do think your success is sort of, you know, the ultimate revenge. 0.99

00:30:36.040 But one of the things I read you said, Erica, about the company that which, of course, does take these hits.

00:30:40.200 It's whatever.

00:30:41.220 I mean, if you're going to be a comedy site, if you're going to go to the places that make people uncomfortable, you're going to get this sort of blowback, even though it comes to, you know, overall, it's a hugely successful company.

00:30:51.660 Is it you said it's courageous to say what you think?

00:30:56.120 Sadly, that's true.

00:30:57.760 Yeah, I think it's really true.

00:30:59.200 I think we are a very courageous company.

00:31:01.760 I think it's courageous right now to be authentic.

00:31:05.520 I think it's courageous to have a history.

00:31:08.280 I think it's courageous to actually say what you mean publicly.

00:31:13.000 Making jokes now is courageous.

00:31:17.120 And, you know, you talk to any entertainer, you talk to any comedian, you talk to any public persona, you know this.

00:31:24.900 There is such pressure for conformity and such pressure for a unanimous opinion.

00:31:31.000 Part of what has made Dave and I and Barstool so successful is that we have been so true to the spirit of the brand that he created in 2004.

00:31:42.400 We have been absolutely fearless.

00:31:45.140 We've been very blunt and authentic.

00:31:47.360 And we've stayed committed to our fans.

00:31:52.140 My executive producer was saying one of the things that makes Barstool special is its transparency.

00:31:56.540 And he was saying one example is that you guys literally renegotiated your contract with Sirius in public, revealing what you're being paid, what Sirius offered as a renewal, how off base it was compared to what you'd agreed to.

00:32:09.980 And like, that's amazing and also kind of scary.

00:32:14.700 And I wonder if it's that kind of transparency is ever scary to you guys.

00:32:19.140 I'll let Erica take that one. 0.99

00:32:20.880 Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, Dave's always called it like it is.

00:32:24.100 And the funny thing I think that's been amazing about Dave and I working together is we see the same vision for Barstool and we've kind of treated things the same way.

00:32:33.400 So, you know, I don't see any reason why we should hide where we are in our negotiation with Sirius.

00:32:40.180 We were very honest about it.

00:32:41.800 We've been honest really about everything.

00:32:44.020 And the thing that is so different, I think, about us is that in a world that wants constant perfection and consensus, the idea of a media platform and a brand and a bunch of personalities and business people being forthright about what's working, what's not working, where we're winning, where we're losing.

00:33:07.400 And honestly, where things are, I think that's part of what makes people root for Barstool because they understand the process and they're bought into that journey with us.

00:33:19.600 You know, we we have an expression that's to the moon.

00:33:23.120 You know, the first time we were on television, we're like, this is our first moon shot.

00:33:26.700 Everything we've done.

00:33:27.620 And we we have this we have this desire to be bigger and better and bolder.

00:33:33.280 And because we're so transparent about the moves we're making to get there, both good ones and bad ones, the more our fans feel part of what we're doing.

00:33:44.240 And that's that's by design.

00:33:46.260 And and we mean it.

00:33:48.400 That does remind me of Howard Stern.

00:33:49.800 You know, he's he was very open about the fact that he was at risk for being fired and would talk about his bosses, you know, in a very open, probably too open way.

00:33:59.400 But you guys, I mean, I what I've heard is you're funny, you're offensive, you're smart, you're wild.

00:34:06.280 You're you make people feel uncomfortable.

00:34:07.720 You're unpredictable.

00:34:09.760 Naughty.

00:34:10.260 I think it's fair to say unapologetic.

00:34:12.140 And I wonder, Dave, like, how does that exist in this era of cancel culture, in this woke world where you're not allowed to say anything?

00:34:24.480 Yeah.

00:34:24.740 So we have the benefit of, you know, a two decade year old story.

00:34:30.440 And what that has built is in very stern, like an incredible, passionate, loyal fan base who knows who we are, who knows who I am now.

00:34:41.600 They know who Erica is.

00:34:42.680 They know everybody.

00:34:43.480 They know our life stories.

00:34:44.640 They know how many kids our employees have.

00:34:46.260 They know everything.

00:34:47.620 And we've never, as a result of that, been beholden to advertising.

00:34:52.200 So we don't just sway whichever way the wind blows because we got to save an advertiser.

00:34:57.880 And if you can do that, if you can be true to yourselves and be willing to say to an advertiser, okay, you don't like this, you can walk.

00:35:06.140 We'll just go.

00:35:07.360 That has allowed us to maintain our identity and our authenticity.

00:35:12.200 It's a story I told.

00:35:13.180 Like someone said ESPN, they had a meeting, you know, all these execs in a room.

00:35:17.660 How do we be authentic?

00:35:19.320 That was the meeting.

00:35:21.160 It's like, well, I think you already lost.

00:35:23.560 If you're in that meeting, you're not being authentic.

00:35:26.760 We've never really planned it out.

00:35:29.300 We don't know what the future holds.

00:35:31.780 But overall, we trust each other and our moral compass and we're just ourselves.

00:35:36.080 And if people want to be part of it, great.

00:35:38.420 If they don't, great.

00:35:39.780 But we'll continue to do what we've done for the last two decades.

00:35:43.980 You once spoke unapologetically about a colleague who at one point had worn blackface on Halloween.

00:35:49.200 And I read that you said this in 2018, which is when I made my comments on NBC.

00:35:53.120 So I wonder whether it was pivoting off of that whole thing.

00:35:56.420 But they came after you just just for talking about it.

00:36:00.580 The fact that a colleague had done it and you you were aggressive in responding, saying memo to the cancel cops.

00:36:06.280 I knew this was coming before you did.

00:36:07.700 And I'm ready.

00:36:08.580 You don't cancel me.

00:36:09.760 I cancel you.

00:36:11.280 I'm uncancellable.

00:36:13.060 I'm big.

00:36:13.680 You're little.

00:36:14.620 I cancel you.

00:36:15.900 I was like, yes.

00:36:17.580 Right.

00:36:17.920 So, yes.

00:36:18.720 Of course, I wasn't in that same position, but it did make me want to stand up and cheer.

00:36:22.880 And it made me ask, how can we all become uncancellable?

00:36:26.360 How can Joe Smith at home become uncancellable?

00:36:29.640 Yeah, well, that's hard.

00:36:30.380 That's hard because Joe Smith probably has a boss and that boss has a boss and most people have bosses.

00:36:35.880 And the easier thing to do is to just say, you know what, we're going to get rid of this headache or you're going to apologize.

00:36:43.140 And like that example, we're not proud of that.

00:36:46.600 We wish it was a Halloween party that an employee of mine who's a good friend of mine was there with two friends who were African-American.

00:36:55.000 They're trying to be the big three of the Celtics, three black guys, and they were being that for Halloween. 0.99

00:36:59.660 It was a different era.

00:37:01.080 And he apologized.

00:37:02.060 He felt awful.

00:37:03.120 But if you're going to dig up photos from 20 years ago and try to say that's a reflection of his entire character and mentality, it's unfair.

00:37:11.400 It's dishonest.

00:37:11.600 You didn't give the context.

00:37:13.720 And I'm not just going to roll over for that.

00:37:17.160 You know, people make mistakes.

00:37:18.940 And sometimes those mistakes are out of just not knowing better.

00:37:22.940 And that was one of them.

00:37:23.900 But, you know, so it's situations like that where we just won't do what everybody else does because it's the easy way out.

00:37:33.280 Well, I think it's consistent, Erica.

00:37:34.620 You tell me with the culture of the company, which is there's no subject that's off limits.

00:37:40.580 We're not going to put the same sort of corral around ourselves that most modern media or other companies do.

00:37:48.780 And if you could just like I think a great example of this is the podcast you guys were mentioning a minute ago, Call Her Daddy by Alex Cooper, which I confess I had never listened to it.

00:38:00.380 I had heard the buzz, but I have now listened to Alex.

00:38:04.100 I learned some things.

00:38:05.920 And this woman is the modern day Dr. Ruth.

00:38:09.320 Right?

00:38:09.800 She is.

00:38:10.820 Look, I think it's very convenient right now to put things into boxes.

00:38:14.400 I think people and the prevailing majority want things tied into convenient boxes where it's, you know, a culture of identity.

00:38:24.500 You either are or aren't something.

00:38:26.600 I think one of the best things about us is that we've really denied and defied being put into a box.

00:38:32.680 It's true in terms of how we think about our content, how we think about our personalities, how we think about the formats that we create, the audiences that we nurture.

00:38:43.200 Alex is a superstar.

00:38:44.740 I mean, she is a unicorn. 0.78

00:38:45.740 She is an incredible powerhouse. 0.72

00:38:48.740 We have a lot of female powerhouses here. 1.00

00:38:51.480 Do we get credit for that?

00:38:53.200 No.

00:38:53.620 Do people care?

00:38:54.700 No.

00:38:55.300 Will people still try to put Alex, us, call her daddy, Barstool Sports, you name it, in a box?

00:39:00.580 Yes.

00:39:01.440 But the reality is, you know, I used to say this all the time to advertisers and partners, is that advertisers and brands don't come to Barstool to look for the people who don't like Barstool.

00:39:11.960 And the reality is, we're reaching, you know, 100 million people every month.

00:39:18.060 We are the most influential brand, I would say, for an 18 to 34-year-old audience in this country.

00:39:24.380 And people want audience.

00:39:27.380 And what's happening to mainstream media is people are tuning out, people are dismissive, or even worse, they just outright don't care.

00:39:35.280 Coming up, I'm going to ask Dave about his policy of contrition not being an option.

00:39:44.040 If you go after him or Barstool in any way, he will fight.

00:39:48.780 But before we get to that, let's talk about running a business.

00:39:51.700 He's got a $500 million business.

00:39:54.080 You might just be starting one.

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00:41:23.340 You'll be glad you did.

00:41:24.440 And before we get back to Dave and Erica, this is a feature we have on the show called

00:41:27.840 You Can't Say That or Be That or Do That.

00:41:31.100 Oh, wait.

00:41:31.600 This is America.

00:41:33.120 It's kind of consistent with what we've been talking about with Dave, right?

00:41:35.940 Like, yes, it could be offensive.

00:41:38.040 No, that doesn't mean it has to go away.

00:41:40.040 Not everything that causes you offense has to cease existing.

00:41:43.200 Well, tell that to the stars of our next feature.

00:41:46.180 This time, it's basically you can't read that because there is a campaign underway, which,

00:41:51.380 like most terrible things, started off on Twitter.

00:41:53.040 It's called Hashtag Disrupt Texts, and it was started, according to its website, to advocate

00:41:59.520 for curriculum and instructional practices that are culturally responsive and anti-racist,

00:42:07.200 right?

00:42:07.420 The buzzword anti-racist.

00:42:08.840 When you look at what they actually mean by that, they basically mean racism the other

00:42:12.340 way.

00:42:12.920 And if you don't sign on to it, then you're racist, even though what they're asking you

00:42:16.120 to do is be divisive by skin color over which you have no control.

00:42:19.060 In other words, this campaign basically ends up leading to books that were previously taught

00:42:24.140 in elementary, middle, and high schools getting booted out of the curriculum.

00:42:27.560 It's a modern day book banning site, book burning site.

00:42:30.780 What kinds of books?

00:42:31.660 Take a guess.

00:42:32.240 Pretty much everything.

00:42:33.220 The Great Gatsby, that's got to go.

00:42:35.220 The Scarlet Letter, even Dr. Seuss.

00:42:37.460 Dr. Seuss has to go.

00:42:38.760 Of Shakespeare, this site, the Disrupt Texts advocate writes, quote, absolving Shakespeare of

00:42:45.840 responsibility by mentioning that he lived at a time when hate-ridden sentiments prevailed

00:42:50.580 risks sending a subliminal message that academic excellence outweighs hateful rhetoric.

00:42:57.600 OMG.

00:42:58.960 I don't even know what to say.

00:43:01.260 I don't.

00:43:01.900 I, right?

00:43:02.580 I don't.

00:43:03.580 One high school teacher in Massachusetts bragged last year that she got Homer's The Odyssey

00:43:07.560 ban from her school.

00:43:09.120 Didn't we all read that?

00:43:10.840 Now, I know everyone says it's brilliant, but it is long and boring, so they may have done

00:43:14.060 us a favor there, but still, it seems like important that kids read it, even if there's

00:43:18.260 some reason not to.

00:43:19.940 So what's the end game, right?

00:43:21.700 What's the end game here?

00:43:22.520 And think about what we're losing.

00:43:23.600 Pretty soon, our kids are only going to be allowed to read Ibram X.

00:43:26.040 Kendi and Robin DiAngelo.

00:43:27.540 Oh, my God, heaven forbid.

00:43:28.880 But Hamlet, forget about it.

00:43:30.480 You can't read that.

00:43:32.060 Let us know if you have anything that's been banned in your culture or your school because

00:43:37.160 somebody decided that nothing written from a time prior to right now is readable or anything

00:43:43.760 written by a white man is considered unreadable in some circles.

00:43:47.100 And you can do that at questions at devilmaycaremedia.com.

00:43:52.920 Back to Barstool.

00:43:57.140 Question for you, Dave.

00:43:58.420 When I was reading about some of the, you know, sort of back and forths you've had with

00:44:03.080 people online and so on, I felt torn because I love free speech and I hate dishonest media.

00:44:09.140 And my husband in particular was like, I love him for fighting back against cancel culture 1.00

00:44:15.520 and the people who are targeting him.

00:44:17.340 Doug, my husband, always wants to fight the dishonest journalists who come after me.

00:44:21.360 And I'm always like, oh, honey, you know, it's pointless.

00:44:24.100 Like, let's not, as I said earlier, get into this die.

00:44:26.660 But on the other hand, I definitely have been targeted online from, you know, a lot of powerful

00:44:32.380 people.

00:44:32.760 And I also understand how awful that can be, right?

00:44:35.580 So how do you decide when like someone just deserves the Barstool wrath and when enough

00:44:43.580 is enough?

00:44:45.260 Yeah, it, you know, I think I've built tolerance a little bit.

00:44:49.580 One of the things, and I don't, obviously everyone's situation is different.

00:44:54.060 We never throw the first punch.

00:44:55.980 So if people are coming after you, Megan, like, I'd be curious, like what the genesis, the people

00:45:01.720 that I generally respond to, and by the way, like respond, let's take, we're in Detroit

00:45:07.160 right now.

00:45:07.700 We're launching our sports book in Detroit and it's been overwhelmingly positive. 1.00

00:45:13.400 And I saw a blue checkmark girl just say, get the fuck out of Detroit. 1.00

00:45:18.540 Like that. 1.00

00:45:19.300 She tweeted at me. 0.96

00:45:20.540 Hey, Presidente, that's my school handle, my Twitter handle. 1.00

00:45:23.600 Get the fuck out of Detroit. 1.00

00:45:25.500 I quote tweeted and said, this is my city more than yours. 1.00

00:45:29.280 Is that attacking somebody who takes like an unprovoked shot at me, telling me to get the 1.00

00:45:34.500 fuck out of Detroit? 0.99

00:45:35.520 To me, it's not. 1.00

00:45:36.380 It's like you just entered the arena.

00:45:38.720 Now the people who don't like me are going to say I attacked her.

00:45:42.520 That's literally the only thing I said about this woman was it's more my city than yours. 1.00

00:45:49.880 And it is because they're welcoming me here.

00:45:52.420 I went to school here.

00:45:53.360 I'm a Michigan grad and she doesn't even live here.

00:45:56.020 But so that's the fine line.

00:45:57.760 And I never, ever will just pull somebody out of the clouds and be like, oh, I'm going

00:46:03.320 after you.

00:46:03.940 And most of the time that I'm being credited or accused of sicking the mob, it's a response.

00:46:11.860 It's like, who are you?

00:46:12.940 And so for me, I never have a problem with that.

00:46:15.980 I tell our people now don't attack.

00:46:18.020 But I don't have to draw flesh blood.

00:46:20.640 Like, yeah, right.

00:46:22.160 And I don't have much patience or compassion for like, in this case, this woman who you 1.00

00:46:29.600 took a shot on a public forum at me aggressively.

00:46:34.580 Yeah.

00:46:34.740 And it wasn't even shots.

00:46:35.880 Like, I don't.

00:46:37.320 And weirdly, and we're talking, obviously, I know you guys are both.

00:46:40.900 I attack everybody, literally everybody.

00:46:44.120 I'd say if you looked at who I go after or who I'm in disputes with at this point, they're

00:46:50.460 probably 90% men, 10% women, because I'm very aware of if I do engage with a female, people 0.98

00:46:58.640 are going to say I'm only doing it because she's a woman.

00:47:01.180 It's just not true.

00:47:02.340 There's just no basis to that.

00:47:04.440 Women don't get some special protection when it comes to fights, online fights. 1.00

00:47:08.760 That, again, is not equality.

00:47:11.560 But I understand that.

00:47:14.040 I mean, certainly I could say that as a woman, the sort of spigot gets released of misogynistic 1.00

00:47:20.520 attacks on Twitter and elsewhere.

00:47:22.780 And then it's tough to turn off.

00:47:24.840 Correct.

00:47:25.340 There's different.

00:47:25.940 And they take a different tone.

00:47:27.900 They'll go more to looks and things like that if it's a female. 1.00

00:47:30.560 But you have to escalate to me, for me, if you're a female, I will let you hit me 10 1.00

00:47:38.640 times before I come back, whereas a guy like Clay Travis, you mentioned, I go after him 0.75

00:47:42.820 every two seconds.

00:47:43.880 So it really isn't.

00:47:46.740 But how I decide on whether I, if somebody is well-known or has a blue checkmark or a

00:47:53.760 following or I think is being viewed as someone who's legitimate, not just some crackpot, and

00:47:59.580 you keep coming after me, I will eventually respond.

00:48:02.680 It won't be vicious, but all I have to do is call attention to you and the people who

00:48:07.700 support Barstool will generally respond.

00:48:09.600 But I have no compassion.

00:48:11.000 I don't feel bad about that.

00:48:12.020 And the interesting thing and what makes Barstool Barstool, not everybody agrees with

00:48:18.200 me in our company.

00:48:18.860 There's some people who absolutely hate when I do that and think it's a bad look and they're

00:48:22.660 like, just let it go.

00:48:23.660 But we let people do what they want.

00:48:25.540 We don't tell people in that regard how to conduct themselves.

00:48:29.640 For me, I'm a petty, vindictive person.

00:48:34.040 That's my nature.

00:48:34.980 It's always been that way.

00:48:36.640 I have bottles of champagne engraved with my enemy's names on my desk waiting for them

00:48:41.520 to fail.

00:48:42.420 So that drives me.

00:48:44.080 And if you catch me in the right moment, I will respond.

00:48:47.180 I am a petty, vindictive person.

00:48:50.440 I appreciate you're owning it.

00:48:52.660 And then people can decide whether that's that's for them or not.

00:48:56.060 You know, the answer is not you get canceled or you get shut down or you can't have a program

00:49:01.120 on, let's say, ESPN.

00:49:02.920 The answer is you decide, let the consumer decide whether they're going to they're going

00:49:06.960 to pay for this product.

00:49:08.240 And I mean, I think what you're doing is the future because people miss, even if it can

00:49:13.660 be offensive, they miss authentic talk, you know, especially when it comes to comedy.

00:49:18.860 You know, that's why Dave Chappelle is getting paid 20 million dollars of comedy routine

00:49:22.340 right now on Netflix, because he says incredibly offensive stuff.

00:49:26.880 I mean, he touches every third reel you could touch and people are desperate for it, Dave.

00:49:32.340 Yeah.

00:49:32.900 And, you know, it's crazy.

00:49:34.000 Some of the jokes, lots of them like it.

00:49:37.100 I wish I could almost point it out.

00:49:38.760 The people a lot of the people who hate me tend to also be like a Larry David fan.

00:49:45.640 And Larry David, you can go look at Curb Your Enthusiasm and there'll be jokes that are

00:49:51.320 literally identical to what I've made.

00:49:53.900 They laugh at his and try to throw me in jail.

00:49:56.140 It's like, what what are you doing?

00:49:57.680 Where's the double standard here?

00:49:59.300 But they've decided they don't like me.

00:50:01.380 And it doesn't matter what we say, how many times we say it's comedy.

00:50:05.120 It they do not care.

00:50:06.980 They just don't care.

00:50:08.040 Now, but how are how, if at all, are things changing, given the incredible thing you've

00:50:14.840 done with the Barstool Fund?

00:50:16.440 And just so the audience knows, so just December, it's like a month ago, you launched this thing

00:50:22.100 called the Barstool Fund, which is basically a GoFundMe for local business owners who've

00:50:26.260 been devastated by COVID-19 and the shutdown, the endless, merciless shutdowns.

00:50:31.920 And how much money have you raised now to help these businesses?

00:50:34.780 30 million, I think, probably closer to 32 at this point.

00:50:40.040 It's a month.

00:50:41.260 You've done this in a month.

00:50:43.680 So let me just start with that question.

00:50:45.980 And then I want to get into what you're actually doing.

00:50:47.440 But have you have you noticed a shift in how people are talking about you and treating you

00:50:51.580 and looking at the whole you?

00:50:53.940 There's a lot more positive comments.

00:50:56.080 And I've seen a lot of say what you want about Barstool or say what you want about Dave

00:51:00.000 Fortnite, but this is good.

00:51:01.300 But the people still hate me are still somehow turning this into.

00:51:04.780 It's a bad thing.

00:51:08.100 Most, you know, the biggest change, I said this, our audience, I'm almost happy for our

00:51:13.080 audience and I'm happy for our employees in a way because I feel like they've always

00:51:17.700 known who we are.

00:51:18.620 And to be honest, we've done a ton of, I keep hearing, oh, they did this one act.

00:51:22.360 It's like, well, you've just been out to lunch for the last 20 years because we've been doing

00:51:25.720 charity and have raised multi millions of dollars for all sorts of causes.

00:51:30.320 You name it.

00:51:31.060 We've been there and people just choose to ignore it.

00:51:34.540 And this is getting widespread notoriety and publicity.

00:51:39.560 And for our readers who sometimes are shamed, it's like, oh, you like Barstool? 0.99

00:51:43.380 What are you a loser? 0.97

00:51:44.180 It's a sense of, you know what? 0.98

00:51:46.300 This company, Dave, Erica, these are the people we've always known them to be.

00:51:51.620 It's you know why we were able to raise 30 million?

00:51:53.960 Because they're real people and they know like when it's time to stop joking and try

00:51:57.900 to help and things like that.

00:51:59.420 So it's just kind of like for our fan base, which is large.

00:52:03.640 I think it's nice to be like, told you, told you so.

00:52:07.400 This is who they are.

00:52:09.140 Erica, how many applications for help have you guys received?

00:52:14.480 Oh, it's like it's heartbreaking.

00:52:16.380 Tens of thousands, tens of thousands.

00:52:19.020 I think, you know, one of the most impressive things about this fund is we started it on

00:52:26.160 December 20th or 21st.

00:52:29.100 We've raised obviously $30 million.

00:52:32.040 We are paying companies. 0.89

00:52:34.600 We've cut through all the bullshit of the application process. 0.94

00:52:38.160 If you talk to a small business owner, it is nearly impossible to get relief or to get 0.79

00:52:43.700 support right now.

00:52:44.720 Uh, we, we've gotten rid of everything arduous in the process.

00:52:49.560 We've built this whole infrastructure in the last three and a half weeks.

00:52:53.680 We've worked 24 seven on it.

00:52:55.940 Uh, we've done it in addition to our day jobs and we're having a pretty profound impact of,

00:53:02.300 of companies who've maxed out, you know, business owners who've maxed out their credit cards,

00:53:06.480 who dipped into their 401ks, who have asked, you know, for money from family members just

00:53:12.620 to keep people employed.

00:53:13.760 So, uh, I, I think we've done, you know, what we always do, which is to just figure out how

00:53:19.960 to make impact, how to do it in the fastest, most simple, most streamlined way possible.

00:53:25.900 Um, it's heartbreaking because we can't help as many companies as we want to.

00:53:30.800 And that's the hardest part of this, which is there's just so much need.

00:53:35.160 Um, and then kind of to Dave's point, it's frustrating when people criticize us for,

00:53:41.360 for this being a PR play.

00:53:43.360 Oh, you can't listen to that.

00:53:44.780 Even if it were just a PR play, who cares?

00:53:47.240 The other people getting the money, is it doing good? 0.99

00:53:49.200 Like who gives a shit? 0.98

00:53:49.940 Talk about focusing on the wrong thing. 0.99

00:53:51.760 We pulled a soundbite cause I want the audience to hear.

00:53:53.820 Oh, it's, it's, it's sweet.

00:53:56.840 It's like, it's emotional.

00:53:59.080 Um, but one business owner, her name is Elizabeth Thompson.

00:54:02.020 She owns Chick and Bernie's Red Rooster Inn in Philly, uh, took the business over when

00:54:07.800 her dad died of cancer.

00:54:08.860 And here she is, uh, talking to you, Dave.

00:54:12.100 Listen.

00:54:12.500 Oh my God.

00:54:15.640 My kids are here. 0.96

00:54:16.920 I'm miserable. 0.59

00:54:17.680 I was freaking out.

00:54:18.560 I don't know how to work this thing.

00:54:20.080 Is this for real?

00:54:21.340 This is for real.

00:54:22.520 This is very much for real.

00:54:24.220 Oh my God.

00:54:25.960 Just like, you don't even know.

00:54:27.600 I don't know.

00:54:28.640 Just when you feel like you're at your lowest point.

00:54:32.020 You're amazing.

00:54:33.620 You're, I never thought in a million years.

00:54:35.240 And we obviously, I'm calling because we want to help and make sure that we're there

00:54:38.940 for you to get through this thing.

00:54:40.360 Oh my God.

00:54:40.980 You have no idea.

00:54:42.000 Like my parents have had this business since 1983.

00:54:46.240 I was four years old.

00:54:48.120 This is my life.

00:54:49.860 I grew up in this business.

00:54:51.720 And if I lost this business by my own fault, like if I had done something or, you know,

00:54:56.700 I put my heart and soul into this and I just want to keep it going for my kids.

00:55:00.560 Wow.

00:55:00.680 So she goes on from there.

00:55:02.160 I mean, Dave, you're personally speaking with each of these business owners, right?

00:55:06.000 And what's, what's the one condition in order to get the money?

00:55:11.180 So we tried to put two out and they're not always hard and fast, but I'd say for the majority,

00:55:16.500 number one, we were looking for businesses that had a proven track record of success,

00:55:20.880 whether that be five years, 10 years, 20 years.

00:55:23.620 And the only thing that changed is the pandemic, because then we assume once the pandemic's

00:55:27.780 over, you'll go back to doing what you do.

00:55:30.380 And then number two, we're looking for companies that, or owners that did the best possible

00:55:36.040 job to keep their payroll and their employees paid.

00:55:39.420 I think Erica alluded to earlier.

00:55:41.380 So a lot of these people had put a second mortgage into the house, sold their car, doing whatever

00:55:45.680 they can.

00:55:46.680 So we want to help not only the business owner, but the employees of the business as well.

00:55:51.340 So outside of that, those are the only two real requirements.

00:55:55.820 Sometimes the payroll one can get a little iffy because it's like, this thing's been going

00:56:00.340 on for 10 months.

00:56:01.860 So if you paid people for seven and then it's, you're just out of money, what do you do there?

00:56:06.140 Um, but those are the two general ones that we look for.

00:56:10.480 And is it true you put your own money in this thing too?

00:56:13.980 Yeah.

00:56:14.480 So I started with 500,000 of my own money.

00:56:17.840 Um, and then we just solicited the rest from our readers or, uh, friends of mine who have

00:56:24.160 met along the way who may be more successful.

00:56:26.700 But I think at this point we're 200,000 individual donors, which is really remarkable and just kind

00:56:34.300 of speaks to, despite small businesses, you know, being so obviously a part of America,

00:56:40.760 we put a face to it and everybody wants to help. 0.98

00:56:43.500 I think one of the beauties of this, I've said it a bunch, there's so much crap in the 0.92

00:56:47.100 world right now with politics and everything else.

00:56:49.760 This is a universally sounds sappy, but pure cause it.

00:56:55.060 We don't care.

00:56:55.620 Democrat, Republican, black, white, blue, purple.

00:56:58.100 We're just trying to help small businesses.

00:56:59.840 And there really should be nobody in the world who is against what we're trying to do.

00:57:04.740 It should be something everyone can rally behind.

00:57:06.680 And that's a message we've heard from the business owners time and time again.

00:57:10.500 It's like, this is kind of what America should be about.

00:57:14.500 It's people helping people for no other reason than they need help and they deserve help.

00:57:21.340 This is how it used to be.

00:57:22.840 I remember a listener, Ron Paul, when he was running for president, libertarian, really

00:57:26.620 didn't want a lot of government intervention in our problems or otherwise creating them

00:57:30.760 or solving them.

00:57:32.480 And he talked about how, you know, we used to have sort of citizens helping citizens, even

00:57:37.420 with medical bills, even, you know, the church would raise the money or the neighbors

00:57:41.060 would help raise the money.

00:57:42.120 And I think as our government demonstrates more and more its incompetence, its inability

00:57:47.000 to get anything meaningful done, we got to do an end around.

00:57:50.340 This is what I consider a massive, really successful end around.

00:57:55.580 And I think it, you know, to the, to where we began, it probably takes a man of the people,

00:58:00.340 a common man to think of a solution for the common man and you're doing it.

00:58:05.080 So I tip my hat to you.

00:58:06.680 I think it's wonderful.

00:58:07.820 Good for you.

00:58:09.180 Thank you.

00:58:09.860 I'm glad we can help.

00:58:10.700 I mean, it, I'm almost embarrassed at times when people thank me because it really is

00:58:15.320 just, we have the platform and it's all the readers who are submitting it.

00:58:18.900 Like without them, we wouldn't have the money, but I do appreciate being the conduit.

00:58:22.260 That's for sure.

00:58:23.600 Thanks for coming on you guys and all the best with, with the fund, the Barstool Fund.

00:58:27.380 And how can people contribute to it?

00:58:28.700 So if you go to barstoolfund.com, that has both things you'll need there.

00:58:33.760 That's if people want to donate, you can donate there.

00:58:35.860 And if you're struggling business, you can apply, submit an application there.

00:58:40.260 So everything is at barstoolfund.com.

00:58:43.380 Amazing.

00:58:44.260 All the best.

00:58:45.180 Take care.

00:58:46.040 And we'll talk again soon.

00:58:47.160 Thank you.

00:58:48.340 We'll be right back.

00:59:18.340 We're actually going to be joined by Alex Berenson too.

00:59:21.420 He's been a thorn in the side of the COVID porn lovers.

00:59:26.700 You know, he's, he basically just cast doubt on a lot of the, the narratives that are being

00:59:30.780 pushed.

00:59:31.300 And of course, for that, everybody wants to ban him.

00:59:34.300 Well, welcome to the Megyn Kelly show where we don't ban people. 1.00

00:59:37.500 We talk and we question, we probe, and we might even learn.

00:59:40.980 Ah, we might even learn.

00:59:43.040 We're also going to have a small business owner on to talk to us about exactly what it's

00:59:46.860 like to have things shut down as these, you know, sort of lockdowns continue and actually

00:59:51.340 get more and more severe.

00:59:52.460 Can you imagine living in California right now?

00:59:54.360 Can you imagine living in LA and New York's not much better?

00:59:57.040 So we're going to take a hard look at all of those things, including the vaccine and whether

01:00:00.900 you should take it on Friday.

01:00:03.240 That great Barrington show we did before that on COVID was one of our highest rated programs.

01:00:06.640 People are obviously seeking information and we're going to do our best to provide truth,

01:00:11.480 honesty, and skeptical reporting to you that Friday.

01:00:14.980 In the meantime, go ahead and subscribe to the show before I let you go so that you make

01:00:18.560 sure you, you get it in your inbox and rate the show and give me a review.

01:00:22.280 Will you?

01:00:22.660 I've been loving reading them.

01:00:24.320 So many good guest ideas and such lovely feedback.

01:00:27.320 I really do appreciate it.

01:00:28.600 I try to stay off of Twitter, which is pretty much a liberal bastion.

01:00:31.540 And so it's not really my place, but I haven't left it yet because it's just a good way

01:00:35.760 of reaching out to people.

01:00:36.960 And I do like to reach out to people who are on the left side of the aisle too.

01:00:40.520 I feel like most of them are where I am on a lot of these issues.

01:00:44.580 Not all of them, but a lot of them.

01:00:46.260 So anyway, the reviews are a good place for me to talk directly with the people who love

01:00:50.160 the podcast and find out what's working, what's not working and all that.

01:00:53.600 So go ahead and subscribe.

01:00:54.680 And in the meantime, we'll talk soon.

01:00:57.040 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. 0.94

01:00:59.100 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

01:01:02.160 The Megyn Kelly Show is a Devil May Care media production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures.

01:01:08.200 The Megyn Kelly Show is a Devil May Care media production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures.

The Megyn Kelly Show - January 27, 2021

Dave Portnoy and Erika Nardini on Barstool's Success, Authenticity, and Helping Small Businesses ｜ Ep. 56

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