Dave Portnoy and Erica Nardini are the geniuses behind Barstool Sports, a sports culture comedy brand that is just multimedia in its approach. They ve got podcasts and online sites, and there s no telling where the company now is valued at about a half billion dollars or more.
00:06:50.320I mean, I think I'm a good example of it, for sure, has become more jaded.
00:06:53.560Because 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.
00:07:02.020Like, if I read it, I'd be like, oh, this guy's the worst.
00:07:05.500But they're so pulled out of context and twisted and taken.
00:07:09.780And the people, a lot of them who write them, I would qualify as, like, nut jobs.
00:07:13.720And, 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.
00:07:22.740Like, you know, Trump asked me to interview him.
00:07:58.800I 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.
00:08:09.360And it doesn't paint a nice picture, but I've been the subject of so many nasty articles in the Daily Beast.
00:08:17.100They decide whether they like you or they don't like you.
00:08:19.900And 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.
00:08:29.060You know, like and then the public is left thinking, as you said, Hitler, it's it's incredibly frustrating.
00:09:48.560It's like that's what social media is.
00:09:50.400Social media is basically an echo chamber for people.
00:09:53.060And they just like to hear each other talk.
00:09:55.160But 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.
00:10:04.560And we've been around for two decades because of that.
00:10:09.660You 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.
00:10:19.260But I do have to give you props for offering to go through allegation by allegation.
00:10:24.120I 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.
00:10:32.960And the people who want to believe the bad things about you want to believe them and they're not really going to be disabused.
00:10:39.460You know, it's like they're not winnable.
00:11:10.820And even so, it's like, how else would we raise money if we didn't publicize it?
00:11:14.720But people, people have broken brains and maybe it'll go away because I do think it ramped up with Trump.
00:11:20.480He 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.
00:11:32.640It 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.
00:11:38.700But 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.
00:11:49.100We it doesn't matter what world we're in.
00:11:51.900We sell merch and that's part of our business and whatever is hot in the streets we try to make money on.
00:11:56.960And 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.
00:12:11.400Of course, they see it the way they want to see it.
00:12:12.980I 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.
00:12:22.900So I gave the win to Biden because Trump needed a win.
00:12:42.500It's really hard to to let them get to you.
00:12:44.760And 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.
00:12:51.420But 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.
00:12:58.280What 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.
00:13:07.900So people didn't think it was just you.
00:17:52.520So were you, you know, you're watching that.
00:17:54.560Were you happy he made it to the Super Bowl again while not wearing a Patriots uniform?
00:17:58.120Uh, 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.
00:18:09.100He's actually been like joining me on some of these calls to the small businesses.
00:18:12.640He donated half a million of his own money.
00:18:15.180So I started becoming friendly with him and I rolled with him.
00:18:18.700Uh, I should have stayed with my old love.
00:18:21.360I, 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?
00:18:31.260You know, they, uh, giving it over on that last down, even though I could follow that much.
00:18:53.960Well, 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.
00:19:08.320Uh, Roger Goodell is basically like, uh, he's like Musa Mussolini of Stalin or something.
00:19:14.100So he, he, he basically didn't have due process.
00:19:17.460He convicted Brady with no evidence, kept changing the rules.
00:19:20.940And 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.
00:19:32.900We spent a night in jail and that essentially began a long ongoing feud with the NFL commissioner and the NFL office.
00:19:43.220I've been dragged out of the Superbowl in handcuffs.
00:19:47.780Um, 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.
00:20:01.180All the money went to frontline workers.
00:20:09.440I don't think they ever gave that money as charity, to be honest.
00:20:12.360Um, 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.
00:20:21.380So he's just, uh, he's somebody who doesn't see eye to eye with us.
00:20:26.420The 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.
00:20:37.720He'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.
00:20:53.300I think that the PR advice he's been given is absolutely objectively awful.
00:20:57.240His PR person, I believe is married to, uh, Savannah Guthrie.
00:21:01.680Um, 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?
00:21:11.440And you said, no, stood looking at each other.
00:21:21.040Well, that, that's kind of back to the media agenda.
00:21:24.600Like 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.
00:21:34.720And it proved to be wildly inaccurate after the fact and they would never answer it.
00:21:40.360Like I was just trying to get somebody told just lies.
00:21:44.840Somebody leaked lies to ESPN that began the deflategate saga.
00:21:49.000And when the facts came out, everything that was said in the beginning of that was just wildly wrong.
00:22:01.640I 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.
00:22:14.160And it took months and months for him to actually take down the tweet, but it had already gone viral.
00:22:18.520So people believed that there was a specific deflation on each football and therefore it couldn't be accidental.
00:22:24.220And 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.
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00:26:13.700It was just the female version of Barstool.
00:26:16.420And while we would post a hot girl at the end of every day, a local girl, she was posting a hot guy.
00:26:22.460So it was, we were doing it like equally.
00:26:25.000Now, Jenna went on to become a gigantic star.
00:26:28.220She moved to L.A. and we couldn't find anyone to like replace it.
00:26:32.280But that part of our history is just never mentioned.
00:26:35.240Well, 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.
00:26:47.900I gather they send the pictures into you guys.
00:26:50.240But I just look, some, I'm sure some of the criticism is okay.
00:26:54.800But to me, women wanting to celebrate their own bodies by posting bikini photos or having you guys recognize them as hot.
00:27:03.500We'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.
00:27:11.640And that to me is not feminism and being on the other side of that is not being a misogynist.
00:27:18.600And that's been a long-standing debate with us.
00:27:21.340We'll have women who identify themselves as feminists be like, this site's sexist.
00:27:26.480And then we'll have women who love our site will be like, well, we consider ourselves feminists.
00:27:32.280And we think that definition is who are you to tell us what we think is funny or how we should live our lives.
00:27:38.080So 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.
00:27:53.120And in regards to the smoke show, yes, they are submitted, and then we get their approval.
00:27:57.960And 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.
00:28:06.160And it's ironic because the sites, some of the sites, when we talk about the criticisms of Barstool, they were Sports Illustrated.
00:28:22.880And they're sitting calling us, and it's like, what world are we in?
00:28:25.900Like, I don't, the hypocrisy is probably the number one thing that drives me insane.
00:28:31.440And 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.
00:28:41.680And this is where I want to bring in Erica.
00:28:42.900So you hired, you sold half of Barstool, as you pointed out, to the churning group in 2016.
00:29:21.280And 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.
00:29:30.340So, it wasn't, like, churning guys hired a recruiting firm and that's the first time we had it.
00:29:37.580We probably interviewed 70 people, all men.
00:29:40.180None of them made it to the second round.
00:29:42.620And then we had an advisor, Betsy Morgan, the old CEO of Huffington Post, who was from my neck of the woods.
00:29:51.200And we became friendly and she happened to be at a coffee shop around the corner.
00:29:55.840She's like, hey, want to meet for a couple of minutes?
00:29:57.300And Erica was friends with Betsy and happened to be there.
00:30:13.900And it's like, if the shoe were on a different foot, people would not dare say such a thing.
00:30:18.300Like, 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.
00:30:26.740But somehow women moving up to these CEO roles always get this.
00:30:41.220I 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.
00:30:51.660Is it you said it's courageous to say what you think?
00:31:17.120And, you know, you talk to any entertainer, you talk to any comedian, you talk to any public persona, you know this.
00:31:24.900There is such pressure for conformity and such pressure for a unanimous opinion.
00:31:31.000Part 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.
00:31:47.360And we've stayed committed to our fans.
00:31:52.140My executive producer was saying one of the things that makes Barstool special is its transparency.
00:31:56.540And 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.
00:32:09.980And like, that's amazing and also kind of scary.
00:32:14.700And I wonder if it's that kind of transparency is ever scary to you guys.
00:32:20.880Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, Dave's always called it like it is.
00:32:24.100And 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.
00:32:33.400So, you know, I don't see any reason why we should hide where we are in our negotiation with Sirius.
00:32:41.800We've been honest really about everything.
00:32:44.020And 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.
00:33:07.400And 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.
00:33:19.600You know, we we have an expression that's to the moon.
00:33:23.120You know, the first time we were on television, we're like, this is our first moon shot.
00:33:27.620And we we have this we have this desire to be bigger and better and bolder.
00:33:33.280And 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.
00:33:49.800You 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.
00:33:59.400But you guys, I mean, I what I've heard is you're funny, you're offensive, you're smart, you're wild.
00:34:06.280You're you make people feel uncomfortable.
00:36:30.380That's hard because Joe Smith probably has a boss and that boss has a boss and most people have bosses.
00:36:35.880And 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.
00:36:43.140And like that example, we're not proud of that.
00:36:46.600We 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.
00:36:55.000They're trying to be the big three of the Celtics, three black guys, and they were being that for Halloween.
00:37:03.120But 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.
00:37:34.620You tell me with the culture of the company, which is there's no subject that's off limits.
00:37:40.580We're not going to put the same sort of corral around ourselves that most modern media or other companies do.
00:37:48.780And 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.
00:38:00.380I had heard the buzz, but I have now listened to Alex.
00:38:26.600I think one of the best things about us is that we've really denied and defied being put into a box.
00:38:32.680It'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.
00:39:01.440But 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.
00:39:11.960And the reality is, we're reaching, you know, 100 million people every month.
00:39:18.060We are the most influential brand, I would say, for an 18 to 34-year-old audience in this country.