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April 25, 2021 - The Ben Shapiro Show
01:00:37
Dave Portnoy | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 113
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I'll talk to anybody.
If you have a problem with me, I'll talk to you anytime, anyplace, anywhere.
You can bring a hundred people and I'll debate you by myself.
Now, are there jokes I've made that I wish I didn't and are perceived differently now?
Of course, but I've been doing this for 20 years.
Some, maybe I wish I didn't do that, but I know my character and our intent has always been to make people laugh.
Period.
Dave Portnoy, founder, president, or rather, El Presidente, as he calls himself, of Barstool Sports, the digital brand and news site for all things sports and pop culture, brought to you by The Common Fan, for The Common Fan.
Dave is chief of all content, but his candid, emergency press conferences, his very public opinions on past employees, and his unpredictable business moves make him a fascinating character for the job, and unlike anybody else.
Scrappy beginnings built a following around Barstool, not online, but actually in good old-fashioned print, which included Dave himself driving all around Boston delivering the publication.
That was back in 2003.
Dave's approach, aside from the sheer power of will, was appealing to sports fans in ways that major publications and networks simply weren't, making Barstool a mainstay in the market.
Fast forward nearly 20 years, and Barstool is on the bleeding edge of digital content.
They boast over 50 podcasts, with several top performers on podcast charts.
Last time I checked, Barstool's Caller Daddy was number one on Apple Podcasts.
One of their newest achievements is the Barstool Sportsbook mobile app, creating an easy-to-use sports gambling experience in the palm of your hand.
We'll discuss what the process has been like getting mobile sports gambling available countrywide over the last year.
We'll also discuss how Dave's pizza reviews became a thing, his fundraising of $37 million to save small business, the story behind interviewing President Trump, and a whole lot more.
Hey, hey, and welcome to the Daily News.
This is the Ben Shapiro Show Sundays special.
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Just a reminder, we'll be doing some bonus questions at the end with Dave.
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Head on over to dailywire.com, become a member, you'll have access to all of the full conversations with everyone.
of our awesome guest, Dave Portnoy.
Thanks so much for stopping by.
Thanks for having me.
All right, so let's start with your business philosophy, since I think that you're one of the more unique guys in business today.
You have this big crossover audience.
A lot of conservatives love you, a lot of people on the left love you, but it seems like your business philosophy is generally I don't give a crap, but you run this incredibly successful business.
So what exactly is your business philosophy?
If I had to narrow it down into a quick sentence, probably follow my gut.
That's what I've been doing since I started it, and it's worked so far.
So I hear a lot of times people like, what are you doing this for?
Why are you doing that?
We just follow our gut.
It's sometimes right, sometimes not.
But there isn't some grand business plan or philosophy that, you know, we're following.
We're quick to pivot when we think something, you know, needs to be changed or follow new trends.
But we just follow our guts.
That's really simple.
But that's kind of what it is.
I mean, that does take a fair bit of stones to be able to do that, because you've been in a bunch of situations, pretty obviously very focused on situations in which you've had to pivot super quickly, whether it is with you know, call me daddy, or whether it is with a particular business strategy or a controversy.
So what is the is that just you just wake up that morning like I'm making a call and we're doing it?
Yeah, I mean, things may be not as instantaneous as that.
But once we decide to do something, we really do it.
And it doesn't always work.
And obviously, you have to know when something's not working and probably, all right, maybe this isn't the right avenue, the right path or whatever it is.
But it's just believing in yourself.
And I also grow.
That's my personality.
Even to start a business like this, you kind of have to be a risk taker.
and willing to put yourself out there.
And then over the years, you know, Barstool's been wildly successful.
You know, I didn't start it to get it where it is.
Like, I just wanted to do my own thing.
And then at some point, when you have enough success and people are chirping you in or being like, don't do this, don't do that.
It's like, what does this person know from the cheap seats?
I'm the one who got us here, so I'm going to continue just to follow what I think is the right thing to do.
So for folks who don't know the Barstool story, how did this company get started in the first place?
Because I had been aware of it for a while, but it was around a long time before I was aware of it, actually.
I would say it's gained a lot of its popularity in what, the last seven to ten years, maybe?
Yeah, we go through cycles.
So we've been around, I think, 17 years now.
It started as a newspaper.
It was a sports gambling and fantasy sports newspaper that I would hand out outside subway stations in Boston.
And again, I never even, at the time, I never thought we would be online or anything like that.
So it isn't like this is what I thought the company would be.
But it was a four-page gambling rag and it slowly morphed over the years from More gambling and fantasy to more men's lifestyle, and now I would say it's you know both We have a lot of female content as well, but it's looking at life.
Not too seriously.
That's the goal From both a male and female perspective, okay So how did you decide that you were going to?
Start just doing a newspaper that you printed out and then handed out at subway stations in Boston So I I want to start a business so I always knew I didn't want to work for somebody else I had a sales job out of college, and I had I don't know three Possible, I guess, business ideas that I came up with.
One was this sports gambling newspaper.
The other one was a scouting company for high school athletes who were getting recruited and maybe aren't Division I athletes, but looking for a place to play and a software that could connect scouts.
And the third was used furniture.
As crazy as that sounds, I was always like, hey, college kids throw all their furniture away.
Maybe if I had a huge warehouse, drive around, get the furniture for free.
And this is like a different era.
The internet was just kind of getting going.
So let people buy this furniture that I'm getting for free online.
So it was always a business perspective.
It's just like, which one did I think was most realistic and easiest to get started?
And for whatever reason, I landed on Barstool.
That is hysterical, because I do remember being in law school and having the exact same idea.
Because every year, at the end of the year, you'd see these people taking furniture and just tossing it directly out on the curb.
That's free stuff, right?
Free stuff.
Warehouse it.
Let people buy it online.
You have something.
So yeah, what I graduated was kind of the dot-com boom.
The economy was going great, and ideas like that were coming out everywhere.
So those are the things I looked at.
Okay, and then you take this newspaper, and how does it morph online and become bigger?
So I used to hand out the newspaper outside subway stations, wake up like, I don't know, 4 a.m., hand it out, go back, work, do sales, I was doing it all.
One day I handed it to a guy at South Station, Boston Financial District, and this is probably, we started in 2004, this may be 2007, and he was moving to New York City.
He's like, I love this newspaper.
If I move to New York, I want to be able to read it.
So if I build you a website, will you put the newspaper on the website?
If you want to do it for free, knock yourself out.
This guy, his name was Ian White, ended up being the CTO for Business Insider.
I got super lucky.
So he built the website.
I started putting articles and things.
Like, very quickly, that became obvious that would be the future of the business.
I could scale it a lot faster.
It was growing a lot faster.
And that's where, you know, the internet side of what we did came from.
But at that point, if you said we're a blog, people would have looked at you like 10 heads.
They'd be like, what is a blog?
Never heard of it.
So in a second, I want to ask you about the sports side of the business and kind of your passion personally about sports.
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All right, so let's talk about your interest in sports.
So two of the three businesses you mentioned off the top were both sports oriented.
One was a scouting business and the other was what eventually became known as Barstool.
So what was your interest in sports going all the way back?
I mean, you're from New England.
Right.
So, I mean, I was a diehard everything Boston sports fan, played my whole life.
I lived in Nara growing up in Boston.
Like, Dan Shaughnessy's a local sports writer, and they, and WEI was the local radio station, and they had a hammerlock, I mean a hammerlock, on how sports fans got their information.
And to be honest, like a Dan Shaughnessy hates the Red Sox.
He covers them, he hates them.
Ron Board just covered the Patriots, he hates them.
So everything was lecturing, and a lot of fans didn't like it.
I was a huge Bill Simmons fan, and he kind of modernized, or changed, The way the game worked, like, and the internet allowed him to have a voice.
But, like, the Boston Globe didn't hire Bill Simmons.
Like, nope, not right.
Shows you how crazy they are.
So, there was this opening, there was this window, basically, for a different type of voice to reach sports fans, and I thought maybe we could fill it with Barstool Sports.
That's a really interesting take because I hadn't really thought about the fact that there has always been this sort of gap between how many in the elite culture want to cover sports and what the fan actually wants to see from sports.
I remember reading Simmons in the early days and reading his blog.
And forget politics, he's a terrific writer and a really talented guy.
And the way he covered the Celtics, I'm a Celtics fan too, growing up in LA.
And the way he covered the Celtics, I was like, this is the way I want to hear people talk about sports.
He was revolutionary in that regard.
I still think the best, probably, pure writer when he was on his own.
He was on, I think, Digital City Boston and just letting it, you know, fly.
Oh, yeah.
And it was excellent.
We tried to get him involved in early Barstool, got nowhere with it, but it did.
There was an appetite for it.
When the established guard, whether it be EI or the Boston Globe, was so arrogant, almost in the way that they covered sports, they just, they weren't open to new ideas.
Eventually, you know, people like myself started eating them because they just didn't, they didn't pay attention to it.
I wonder if you feel like that gap is still there, because it feels like as Barstool grows and as alternative sports media grows, there's still this sort of ESPN out there that really is, you know, covering sports in a much more almost staid way.
You have to stay between these lines.
You're not allowed to talk about sports.
A fan would talk about sports.
You have to cover sports.
A journalist would cover sports.
And you get that also with regard to, you know, Sports Illustrated, which I subscribed to from the time I was a kid.
And then when I was in my mid-20s, I canceled it because I said, I'm not even reading about sports anymore.
I'm just reading about the kind of political takes of the particular sports writers.
I kind of want to just read about the sports.
Yeah, that's certainly been a huge issue lately, obviously.
You know, ESPN, I think, is trying to.
They go back and forth.
They're wavering on where they land, and it is a delicate dance that they're trying to do.
But there's more outlets like us.
Like, there's no doubt.
Our success has been because of the fact that the other companies were so stringent and didn't want to change.
But I think in a lot of ways, Barstool has forced some change with that because we've been able to capture such a huge market share.
But yeah, I'd agree with the overall premise.
People don't always want politics and sports together.
Yes, I was going to ask you a little bit more about that.
So obviously we've seen that the sports have gotten overtly political in a way that they weren't when I was a kid.
Sports figures who were political.
I mean, I remember Charles Barkley posing in slave garb on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
I remember Michael Jordan in the 90s saying, Republicans wear sneakers, too.
So there was always like a touch of, sure, athletes will talk politics.
But it never entered sort of the field of play until the last 10 years when you had people doing hands up, don't shoot, running onto a football field, or you had Kaepernick kneeling on the sidelines, whether you like it or you don't like it, or whether you have on in the NBA actual labeling of the sidelines or labeling of the jerseys.
It seems like politics, which started off as political, you know, Athletes are just like everybody else.
They can say what they want to say on politics.
They move from that to, no, we as leagues are overtly going to now push forward a certain number of agenda items.
And if you don't like those agenda items, then I guess the sport isn't for you.
I mean, it feels actively alienating to a lot of folks.
Yeah.
You know, my view on that, I don't, I have no problem at a point with politics being involved in sports because at some level, It's like, where do you draw the line?
Because you can look at, like, what was it?
The Berlin Olympics?
Where, you know, they put the hand up.
Like, that's great.
Like, that's Hitler.
So, they're making a statement that I agree with.
So, where is the line?
Now, the leagues, how I view the leagues, I don't think the leagues are looking at it as we're doing what we morally think is right.
I've never thought that.
They're doing it as, how can we make the most money, appease our fan base, or do whatever.
Like Goodell, who's been back and forth, who I don't care for.
There's not, there's nobody on earth who can convince me he makes any decision based on, you know, this is morally the right thing to do.
You can agree morally whether something is right or protest is right, but I just don't buy that with the leagues.
They're doing it on what they think is best for their bottom line.
And that, you know, they'll find out in the end, I guess, whether that was right or wrong.
I may as well ask you now.
What's the story with you and Goodell, obviously?
Oh, I hate him.
So, the Goodell story goes back.
I'm from Boston.
I'm a Patriot fan, diehard Patriot fan, diehard Tom Brady fan.
So, Deflategate, in which he was accused of cheating and deflating footballs, which they never proved or came close to proving.
We defended Tom, and we defended him at every step, and I had more information, I feel like Goodell had.
But when they suspended him for four games, we went and protested, and myself and three other Patriot fans who worked for me, handcuffed ourselves to each other at NFL headquarters and demanded to sit with Roger.
He did say he'd speak with the media at any point.
We got arrested, spent a night in jail for that.
That began what I would say is one of our true rivalries.
And now, if Roger Goodell had any self-awareness, he could have poked light at this and made a joke out of this.
But he didn't.
And it continued to escalate and continued to escalate.
I got dragged out of the Super Bowl.
It was Patriots-Rams Super Bowl.
I bought tickets.
And at halftime, they literally had about 10 security guards drag me out in handcuffs because they banned me from the Super Bowl.
It just continued.
For example, during COVID, they had a charity event, and they're like, hey, whoever bids the most will get to watch a game with Roger Goodell in his basement.
So I spent $250,000, I won the auction, and they nullified that.
So, I mean, it's just been one event after another with him.
We're banned from all NFL events, and we have a great relationship with the Patriots as well.
We sell this picture with his face, a clown, which actually, Trump stole from me.
They sell it.
It's like the clown knows.
So we had 70,000 towels the first time that Roger Goodell showed up at Gillette Stadium.
The entire stadium's holding them.
It's just been an ongoing rivalry that started with the Flakegate.
That's awesome.
So, Belichick or Brady?
Who's responsible for the success?
Damn, what a question.
Obviously, Brady just won the Super Bowl, so it's given him an advantage.
I don't think you can pick one or the other.
I think they're both the best to ever do it.
I've said and I maintain, if I could only have one I would take the coach.
I think head football coach in the NFL is the most important position anywhere.
Brady went to a great situation.
Like, I think if Belichick coached that team with that talent, they win every game.
So, they're both the best, but...
Gone to head I would take Belichick before Brady.
I think it's probably like 70-30 or 65-35 at this point.
What's the split in terms of the audience, in terms of male, female?
Like how does it break up?
I think it's probably like 70-30 or 65-35 at this point, male.
So do you think that's just because of the content or also just because of the attitude?
Because obviously you're just like a let it fly kind of dude and the site reflects that.
Yeah, well, I mean, it started as a men's site.
We were talking about it.
The idea behind Barstool Sports, the name of it was what guys would talk about a bar watching sports.
So that was entertainment, girls, sports, you name it.
So it was a bunch of guys doing it.
Now, We hired a girl early and actually had a sister site called Stoola La.
So we had Barstool Sports, Stoola La.
The problem with Stoola La was the girl we hired became a superstar.
She was like the first really YouTube internet sensation.
Her name is Jenna Marbles.
She has like a statue in Madame Tussauds.
Like that is how big she became and we couldn't find somebody good enough to replace her.
But that's why it started primarily as, you know, men.
There are a lot of conservatives who worry that there's an attempt to sort of water down what men ought to be or what men ought to do in our society.
There's an attempt to censor men, that men are sort of being told that they need to sit down and shut up in their interests, take a back seat, that there's a sort of generalized feminization of society.
What do you make of the critique?
I think that is true, but with all critiques like that, They're almost social media echo chambers to me.
Like, that is 100% true.
And one of the things with me that I always find fascinating is, if you ask most people off the street, like, what is Dave politically, they're going to be like, he's very conservative.
That's not true.
People listen to, like, what I actually say.
But that sentiment of what you said, people view Barstool and they just put me in a bucket.
Now, we've done events.
That we used to do these like raves, for lack of better words, and we have DJs, we have girls scantily dressed, they're wearing like booty shorts, and we have protesters come and scream at these girls.
Girls.
Feminists.
Girls who identify themselves as feminists, being like, you shouldn't go to that, they're sexist, they're this, that.
And then we'd have these same girls who say, you know what?
You're sexist because you're telling me how to think and what I can laugh at and what I can enjoy.
As a woman, I have the right to make that decision.
So, there is that element, but I think the majority, like, and I've said this many times, I hate both extremes.
I really do.
I hate the extreme left.
I hate the extreme right.
They should be thrown on a battlefield and let them just, like, kill each other to death.
Because I do, what Charles Barkley said the other day on TV, he's like, I think the majority of people get along.
I believe that.
I truly believe that.
You have these extremes.
But I do agree with what you're saying.
The watered down, the culture.
I firmly believe, and people have said this, I have no problem with saying a girl is hot or pretty or sexy.
To me, that, you know what?
That's Adam and Eve type stuff like that is something so I don't have a problem with that.
That doesn't mean that I don't think that person I just said that could be brilliant and the smartest person in the room but physical attributes and things like that you shouldn't just because you say something's pretty that to me isn't Objectifying somebody, that's kind of like science.
So in a second, I want to ask you about the kind of wave of cancellations that hits the culture, because this goes to, if you say perfectly obvious things, sometimes you do have to be worried that advertisers will pull.
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So I want to ask you about that in one second.
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So let's talk about the fact that if you say anything that is remotely edgy these days, there's this deep worry that you're going to get canceled, that people online are going to come after you, and then they'll come after your advertisers.
Now, as it happens to us on the show all the time, people are constantly beating us up.
I trend approximately once every three weeks, I think, as much as the algorithm will allow me to trend on Twitter.
But at the same time, the real fear is that eventually these folks will mobilize against advertisers, against paying customers.
And then it'll kill your business.
How do you navigate that minefield?
It's really hard.
You know, I'm proud that I don't think Parcel has ever really been beholden to which way the wind is blowing, the political climate.
If you have a real fan base, which we do and we've cultivated over almost two decades, it allows you to withstand that.
Because I know, and I've known this for a long time, if I went to our readers, who have been a lot of them for a long time, said, listen, we either have to cater to what the advertisers want, or we have to be us.
But you may have to pay more, and we may have to come up, maybe buy a t-shirt, pay a model.
I know what our crowd would say.
So it does not bother me that way, because our audience is real, and we just stay true to ourselves.
The second you let advertisers So one of the things that you've been doing is you're out there really helping out small businesses in a way that nobody else is, and that's been an initiative since COVID.
So what gave you the idea that you were just going to step into the breach and you were going to just help out these small businesses that have been destroyed by COVID?
It was towards, I think it was around December when I started this and basically New York City shut down indoor dining again.
And, you know, as somebody who started a business and can certainly identify with how much work it, I mean, Barstool was my work's life.
I spent 10 years before we made any money.
I just couldn't imagine not having that decision.
So, as I'm prone to do, I went on a rant and put it on Instagram.
And then somebody challenged me, like, hey, Big Mouth, instead of just talking about it, why don't you do something about it?
And that was the initiative.
I was like, all right.
We like to control when we do charity, which we've done a lot of, because I don't necessarily trust everybody that the money is getting directly to who it needs.
So we came up with the Barstool Fund.
I put $500,000 of my own money in, solicited donations from people I know who may be wealthy, whatever, Tom Brady's of the world, Aaron Rodgers, whoever I may have been lucky enough to form relationships.
And to our readers said, hey, we're doing this.
If you guys have money to donate, any amount helps.
And then we simultaneously said, if you're a business, and you just need to bridge this gap, because for a lot of the restaurants and bars, it was all small business, but a lot of the restaurant industry, they just needed warm weather.
They need to be able to open outside and get things going.
Solicit, send in a reason what you need and we'll try to help as many people as we can.
So I think we raised about $40 million and have helped countless businesses.
We started doing FaceTime videos by accident, basically the first company we helped.
The girl, Liz Gonzalez, who helps go through the emails and submissions, she's like, this person specifically said they're a huge fan of you, Dave.
Just surprise them with a call.
So I did.
And when we gave them the money, their reaction was so overwhelming that I knew we had to capture it moving forward because that would drive the donations.
And then it just kind of took off.
You know, it was one of those things, it's so obvious that small business was dying because of COVID and that nothing was being done to help them.
It was just common sense.
But once you actually see the people and just it's everyday like Americans and how much it meant to get, it could be $10,000.
Like that's what they need just to get over the hump.
It, that's what drove it.
And in a weird way, there's so much crap that was going on in the country and has been for a little bit.
This was something that everybody should have been behind no matter what, because it's just, it didn't matter if you were a Democrat, Republican, if it was a small business owner.
We're just helping you get through this thing.
So it was finally, I think, something that had a positive message.
And even though a lot of people don't like me, even the people who didn't like me got quiet for a little bit because they'd wait to come out.
How do you argue with that exactly?
Yeah, right.
I mean, you personally helped out one of my favorite kosher restaurants in Chicago, and I saw that online, and I was like, that's awesome.
The deli.
Yeah, Kenny Zeiner over there.
Excellent, excellent Italian beef.
I mean, it was cool to see, and I know, again, you couldn't find a single person who was anti it.
It did speak to, I think, Some broader trends with the treatment of small business in the country.
I mean, you started a business out of nothing.
We started a business out of nothing.
And it seemed like for a lot of people who were stumping in favor of we need to shut everything down and we need to keep it shut down forever.
There are people now who are saying we need to keep everything shut down forever.
But they just don't understand how small businesses operate or what it means to actually put your life's work into a small business.
So then it's like, OK, well, you lost your business.
You just go start a business next year.
It's like, well, that's not how businesses work.
Correct.
And I said in my rant, and I do believe this, obviously it's easier said than done, but if you told me after 10 years COVID is going to hit and I lose what I built, I would have been like, I'm going to risk my life trying to save this.
To me, this is, I don't want to go work for somebody else.
I can't really start over.
Like you said, it's not that easy.
This is my life's work.
I've poured everything into it.
I want the chance to save it.
And I said that from the beginning with COVID and I, you know, as it developed or whatnot, it's not taking anything away from how serious it is or isn't.
But I couldn't stand not letting a business owner decide how they want to handle their future.
And frankly, in like a restaurant...
I know COVID's there.
If I want to go into the restaurant, that's up to me.
That's how I felt about it.
But I just, to not give these people, let them control their own destiny after some of these businesses we helped were around for 40 years, grandfathers, it was insane to me and remains insane to me.
Well, unless you want to give them money, which we weren't doing.
It, you know, they weren't, nothing was being done.
So that combo, I just never understood.
So what you're talking about in terms of personal autonomy, you can see why conservatives might be a pawn.
100%.
100%.
I mean, this is a very conservative idea that basically, listen, you get to make your own choices in life.
You want to go into that restaurant and risk COVID because you feel like eating there?
Go ahead.
That's a you thing.
And if you want to keep your business running, then go for it.
So there is no doubt that there's things that I'll say that will be conservative.
Well, I'm super socially liberal.
So, like, anything on the social aspect of it, I'm generally in favor.
Like, you know, gay marriage and things like that.
All for it.
Let people, if it doesn't affect me, do whatever you want.
I am a libertarian.
That's exactly what I am.
Yeah, socially liberal, financially conservative.
So that's where I land.
Yeah, join the club, man.
Well, to be honest, that's what I'm saying.
I think normal people are like, that's how I look at it.
Our libertarians, there's a lot more commonalities.
And even like an issue which I don't like to wade into, like Black Lives Matter, for example.
I think there's a ton of credibility to how African Americans are treated in this country.
You look at the Capitol, I think if those were all black people who were rushing to the Capitol, they would have gotten shot.
Like, I believe that in my heart.
So there's racism here.
Now, do I think BLM?
Got taken advantage of, there's issues like, well, think we're going a little too far with it?
Yeah.
So nothing's as, like, black and white, no pun intended there, as it seems.
So, unfortunately, I think a lot gets politicized and, you know, things that we should be getting along on, we end up not.
But there's no doubt libertarian, if I identified, would be what it is.
So one aspect of that libertarianism is obviously you have an app now that's a sports gambling app.
Yep.
And it's getting approved what, state by state?
How does this process actually work?
So yeah, sports gambling exactly like weed, marijuana.
It used to be illegal everywhere except Vegas and they overturned whatever statute that was and said this is now a state issue.
So each state decides whether they want to allow it and how it will be handled and things of that nature.
It's getting passed quickly because the states need money because of COVID and all that.
So we are involved in this, and as somebody who grew up loving gambling, it's like my dream thing to be involved in.
So currently, if you went, we have the Barstool Sportsbook.
It's legal in Michigan, it's legal in Illinois, and it's legal in Pennsylvania, and soon probably like eight more states.
Okay, so you have all this stuff going on, and then you've got the entire podcast sphere, so run through how all these podcasts get bolted on, because how'd you get up in the podcast space?
So podcast is one of the things I missed on my brain.
We had a guy, Kevin Clancy, who was doing it years ago.
He was like, ooh, podcasting.
I was like, I don't know how you're gonna make money doing that, but good luck.
And then slowly, that became successful, and we started adding more podcasts.
We have the biggest sports podcast, Part of My Take, which is gigantic.
We have the biggest hockey podcast.
Okay, so now I have to ask you to walk me through the Call Her Daddy controversy because obviously that one blew up the world.
We'll get to that in just one second.
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All righty, so the Call Her Daddy controversy.
Walk me through that, because that obviously blew up the internet.
Yeah, so there were two girls we hired together, and they were no names.
They had no followings.
They had nothing.
And they just started this podcast called Call Her Daddy.
I knew who Alex Cooper was, one of the hosts, and I saw her sizzle reel basically.
It was like, oh, this is, I haven't seen anything quite like this.
Met her, and I basically was like, who made this for you?
She's like, I did.
It's like, what do you mean?
It was super slick.
She's, and I'm like, you did the editing?
You did all of it?
She's like, yeah, I taught myself and did all that.
Once she said that, I was like, okay, we wanna bring this over because this isn't just some, you know, idiot doing it.
It's somebody who has a plan and what she wants to do.
And the thing just blew up.
She made us hire her friend, basically, who did it with her, who was at, I think, Merrill Lynch or a finance company.
And the thing went enormously big.
Now, we hired them each for three-year contracts and paid them each, I think, $70,000.
It got so big, we renegotiated, gave them a new deal, and within a year they're each making about half a million.
They could have been making a ton more if they did this independently.
Would anybody have known what it is?
Who knows?
I look at it like a talent, like a sports contract.
Like, if we sign a rookie, or somebody who's, nobody knows who they are, and they hit 100 home runs at the all-star break, and you're playing for the Red Sox, you can't be like, guess what?
I'm gonna go play for the Yankees now.
You gotta wait until your contract's over.
They didn't necessarily feel that way, and they started a plan and hatch a plan to basically break the contract with us.
Go do their own thing.
There was this guy from HBO who was involved, who was the boyfriend of Not Alex, the other guy.
And it turned into a big, he said, she said.
It was they were telling their side, I was telling mine.
And eventually, the two of them, I offered them a sweetheart deal.
It was in the middle of COVID, and we needed them to work because they sell a ton of merch, make a lot of money for the company, and I didn't want to lay anybody off.
They got a deal that they could only be offered during COVID times.
They could keep the IP, which we owned, And I shortened their contract.
They couldn't agree on signing that, which is insane.
Alex wanted to sign it.
Sophia did not.
We cut a deal with Alex.
Sophia went her own way.
And that's where it is now.
Alex has been wildly successful.
But it made big news because it was so popular.
And I also hijacked the podcast.
So they stopped doing their work.
They weren't putting it out.
And I had enough.
And finally, I just went on their feed.
And I said, hey, this is Dave Portnoy.
A lot of their fans are like, who the heck is this guy?
And I just said exactly what was happening.
Now, my crowd and people who know me, for better or for worse, I'm very blunt and honest.
Like, if people who don't like me, they'll never be like, oh, he lied or he's dishonest.
They'll just be like, he's a jerk and he's too blunt.
So when I say something, people know I'm generally telling the truth.
That worked in that case as well.
So it's that kind of stuff where I asked you before, is it like you just make a split-second decision, you're like, you know what, I'm just taking over the podcast feed today, or?
It was a long time coming.
I mean, this controversy was months.
And it just got to the point, something has to be done, and I make the decision, and I do it.
So I want to ask you about the, you know, there was this recent controversy where there's a sex tape with you that was released.
Third one.
Third one, right.
So I feel like, and the stock price took a hit.
So first of all, I have to say you're a very confident person that you've made this many sex tapes.
It's something that I enjoy doing.
I'm much more careful.
They're all very old, so I never dreamed, like, hey, people are going to want to watch me have sex.
That was just not something that crossed my mind.
So is it just like, one day I'll break this up for the grandkids, or what was the... No, we do it for... It's like, you know, I spice it up in the bedroom a little bit, but it was meant for just the girl and I and nobody else.
Uh, obviously that's changed.
So, um, but yes, anyways, anyway, so the question was the, the stock price took a hit because of that.
Right.
And why?
I mean, again, as you said, this was the third sex tape that came out.
It's not like anybody gives a damn.
Yeah.
Who knows?
I don't know why that the only thing I think is maybe people are super smart on wall street, which I don't necessarily I think that's always the case, but they're like, oh, this could cause a buying opportunity, like people are going to see it, it'll go down, we'll rebuy when it goes down.
But other than that, I don't know.
It's, you know, it's two consensual adults.
Having sex, and as far as I know, unless you have evidence to the contrary, we wouldn't be here if people weren't having sex.
So it's not like everybody has sex, or else we wouldn't be here.
So who cares?
That's also the Dave Bourne, I don't give a crap about much.
I very much, and the girl didn't either.
I would care very much if the girl cared.
That's the only thing I care about.
Because whoever releases this on the internet, and we haven't been able to find, I'd like to make an example out of that person, so it stops.
They don't think of the, not about me, they're trying to get at me, but they don't think of the repercussions of the other person who's a nobody, and that can severely hurt somebody, a female, if she's like, oh my god, I don't want to be seen like this.
So that is the part that whoever releases this really doesn't think about at all.
You mentioned a second ago the dudes on Wall Street, and what did you make of the whole GameStop Robin Hood situation?
Because you're pretty vocal about that.
I am.
I was stunned by it.
I lost $700,000 on GameStop, or not GameStop, on AMC, but it was the same.
They stopped the trading.
I didn't even know you could do that.
I literally didn't know you could just say, hey, you can sell the stock, but you can't buy it.
They essentially tanked the stock price.
And nobody will ever convince me if the shoe was on the other foot and, you know, the hedge funds and the billionaires were making a ton of money in a volatile nature, that it would be stopped.
To be like, oh, you guys are making too much.
The little guy's getting killed.
But that's what happened here.
And do I think there are phone calls made and things behind closed doors?
And if you've seen the show Billions, Steve Cohen even is Tied into these companies.
I think there was shady stuff that went on and I think the little guy got screwed for the most part to save billionaires.
I mean, short squeeze has been going on for a very, very long time.
Correct.
This is essentially just a publicly created short squeeze against people who they thought were over leveraged in the market.
It is pretty amazing that they shut it down.
I interviewed Vlaad.
He came on.
I think he sees, and that's the CEO of Robinhood, I think he sees me as a conduit to their retail traders and they're trying to go public and all this.
So, as a way to build trust back up, he's like, let me talk to Dave.
And I'm no expert on a lot of the things he was talking about.
I at first thought he was a criminal.
I've changed to be he was inadequately prepared and borderline incompetent because it was bubbling.
Like what was going on with GameStop and AMC?
It wasn't something that just you snapped and it happened.
It was over the course of a couple days.
So to not be ready for it?
That to me is incompetence.
But he brought up a fair point.
It's like, if we folded, it would have been worse for our clients.
Right, there came a point where they were losing money on every single trade because they'd actually over-leveraged themselves in order to fulfill the contract.
Correct.
But I still, no one will ever convince me, if the rich guys are benefiting, nobody calls a timeout and says, hold on, we've got to make sure.
That I don't believe.
So along the same lines, you're a Bitcoin guy, not a Bitcoin guy?
I don't own any.
So I bought it at $11,000.
And then I sold it quickly at $11,000 because I just couldn't wrap my brain around it.
I had the Winklevoss twins explaining to me what it was.
They told me a story that sounded cockamamie to me.
It's like Elon Musk is mining gold from outer space.
It's going to rain down.
I'm like, I don't know what's going on here.
I'm going to stick with things I know.
The timing of me doing that, it went bananas.
I mean, within a month of me selling it is when this rocket ship happened.
It's interesting to me, the Bitcoin, the crypto people will taunt me every single day about not being in it.
I love the way they handle social media.
I think it's hilarious.
It's kind of my vein.
In a second I want to ask you about one of the other things that you do.
You go around eating pizza at different small shops.
I want to ask you about that in a second.
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Alrighty, so let's talk about the one-bite pizza.
Sure.
Sure.
So how did this begin?
So that began, I want to say about five years ago.
We had a debate in our office.
If you could eat one food the rest of your life, what would it be?
One of the guys who works for us said burritos.
I think his theory was like breakfast burritos.
I said pizza, and then we actually did it.
So for about a month, I only ate pizza every single meal.
I was eating it so much, I had grease coming out of my toes.
It was gross.
But I was eating it so much, people started being like, how is it?
And I'm like, alright, I'll just take one bite and give you a quick score.
And it just resonated.
It was obvious it resonated, so even after the contest ended, I continued to do it.
We're in Boston at the time, and when I moved to New York, I said, I'll just try every single pizza place in New York.
And it's one of those things, people still see me in the street, and they'll just think I'm the pizza guy.
Like, they don't even know I do anything else.
Like, oh, there goes the pizza guy.
So it is probably the single most popular thing I do.
Although, I have to say that I did get a kick out of my co-religionist spotting you on the street, knowing exactly who you were, in Fairfax, and one of them bar mitzvahing you.
Yeah, he bar mitzvahed me.
It was weird timing, because he... So that was filmed, like, weeks before.
My sex tape was released, and he was wrapping, like, leather around me, and I had a little joke.
I'm like, this looks like a fetish video.
It came out the same day, so it set me up for some bad, bad jokes.
Are you Jewish?
I am.
Oh, OK.
So what do your parents think of all this?
They haven't talked to me about the most recent sex tape.
The first sex tape.
Is that what you're asking?
The first one, they asked me, my dad, he's like, did you do this on purpose?
Are you trying to be like Kim Kardashian?
I'm like, are you crazy?
Of course not.
But, you know, they've come to roll with the punches, I think.
My dad was the type of guy, he'd send me, if he saw a story on the internet, he'd fax it to me.
So he was not necessarily the most savvy tech guy, but it took him a while to realize, hey, this thing is working, Barstool.
They're proud, but occasionally sex tape will be collateral damage to having you be successful, I guess.
So let's talk for a second about, you know, what does the future look like?
Not just for Barstool, but for you.
So we'll start with Barstool.
What do you think Barstool looks like 10 years from now?
Which ways are you looking to grow here?
Yeah, you know, I get asked that all the time and I'm always reluctant to answer because if you told me TikTok Was it around like six months ago?
You're crazy.
So there's so many trends and technology changes so quick.
I think one of the things that makes Barstool Barstool is we won't be set in our ways and we'll adapt quick.
So what does the world look like in 10 years?
I don't know.
I have no clue.
I know we want to continue to be on brand in the sense of trying to take life not too seriously.
And that's really what it's for and, you know, have some fun and make jokes and things of that nature.
For me personally, right now I'm super focused on getting Barstool and the gambling stuff going.
That is a big part of what was bought.
And just continuing to find talent and make Barstool relevant.
Compliment.
Someone can give Varsal.
We've been cutting edge, cool, and relevant for almost two decades.
There aren't too many brands who can maintain kind of that like, yeah, they're edgy vibe, but we have for two decades.
So are you concerned?
I mean, I sort of asked this earlier, but are you concerned that as the culture decides that jokes are forbidden, that that's going to be bad for your business?
Or you think it's going to provide an opportunity to open wider?
Well, I don't know that that's going to continue.
You know, Trump broke so many people's brains.
I'm curious to see what the next couple of years are like, because he just had people Like, everybody who complained about something we, a joke we made, and this isn't 99.9% of the time, this was 100% of the time.
If I looked at their Twitter profile, it was political.
Underneath what they said about me, it was politics 100% of the time.
So, maybe that goes away and opens up.
The flip side is...
There is an audience that appreciates, and it's not even left or right, it's kind of both, like, I like how these guys aren't backing down.
And our audience allows us to do that.
So people have always asked, why do you fight back?
Or why do you push back?
Or why don't you just shut up when someone takes a shot at you that you feel is unfair?
It's like, I'm not going to do that.
Like, I will never throw the first punch, but if you Throw a shot at me on Twitter out of the clouds.
It's not my responsibility to protect you.
I don't feel that way.
I haven't felt that way since day one and I don't feel it now.
But that's what all these people do.
They'll throw grenades and then they'll cry when you're like, well, we're shooting back now.
It's like, why'd you throw the grenade?
So, and I've offered this is, I know it's kind of cliche.
I'll talk to anybody.
If you have a problem with me, I'll talk to you anytime, any place, anywhere.
You can bring a hundred people and I'll debate you by myself because I'm confident Now, are there jokes I've made that I wish I didn't and are perceived differently now?
Of course!
But I've been doing this for 20 years, so I'll go through point by point by point everything I've ever said and done.
Some, maybe I wish I didn't do that, but I know my character and our intent has always been to make people laugh.
Period.
So you mentioned Trump, and obviously Trump has been the political 400-pound gorilla in the room, 800-pound gorilla in the room for a while here.
So what did you make of Trump, and what was it like interviewing him?
That was surreal, interviewing him, because I've never interviewed anybody before.
So I found out, they asked me to do it the day before.
I was like, all right, yeah, cool.
I'm going to go to the White House and do it.
Great.
He was super nice to me.
And I thought there was an element of, My personality.
And he gets attacked so much, probably, that his hackles go out.
And almost like what I just said, oh, you're going to attack me?
I'm going to be a real jerk back to you.
Now, is it always presidential?
Probably not.
There's things he did that I like, and I think he's so unusual.
And then there's things he did where it's like, ugh, that makes it hard for me to support him.
And like the Charlottesville riots, when he's like, there's bad people on both sides.
To me, it's like, that was like the KKK.
You gotta like say that and be more open to that.
I think the way he handled the Capitol was really bad.
So there's things he did that really bad.
But again, it's so two-sided on every, like the Democrats being like, let's all get along now.
And you got to support the president.
It's like, well, you didn't do that.
So why should they do that?
So it's just sucks.
Both sides suck.
But he's not a black and white guy.
That's for sure.
And I do think So you guys are still located in New York.
Is that going to be for the long haul considering which way New York is going right now?
into a state where he thinks he can say things that gets his base behind him.
He'll do it.
He's not dumb, he's doing it.
But does it help unity and things like that?
Probably not.
So you guys are still located in New York.
Is that going to be for the long haul, considering which way New York is going right now?
I don't know.
I mean, where are we gonna go?
Massachusetts, which isn't probably much better tax-wise.
So we're an East Coast company.
We're an East Coast grind.
Down here in Florida, man.
What are you doing?
No, I couldn't take my company here.
I'm going to be here, but I've got a young company.
And to see my guys strolling down South Beach at 4 a.m., we won't have to worry about taxes because we won't be making any money.
So we've got to find that balance.
On the personal level, how old are you now?
44.
Okay, so you're 44.
Recently turned.
Got it.
Okay, so I'm recently turned 37.
Okay.
I have three kids.
They're 7, 4, and a baby.
So, you got kids in your future?
Or like, I'm never going to be your parents.
What are you doing?
Yeah, no.
No kids right now in the future because I don't have a girlfriend.
So, I was married.
So, I was married for five years, dated for five years.
She's still actually my best friend.
You know, I take it day by day.
It's like, do I wake up and be like, damn, I need kids?
No.
If I met somebody that's like, oh, this person I want to have kids with, great.
But I don't lose sleep over it.
And then you mentioned that you were Jewish growing up.
What's your religious kind of thought now?
Do you ever think about it?
I mean, I'm still Jewish.
That doesn't change.
I grew up on Mitzvah.
But I'm not like a practicing Jew.
You know, religion, I think, is great if it's used the right way.
I think a lot of times over, you know, history, it's been used In a weird way, I like how politics, like for power and things like that, as basic as it sounds, it's like, be nice.
That is a religion I think everybody should just basically have.
I think the widespread perception of you is that, not total perception, but there is this kind of media-created perception that you're the guy who's out of control, that nobody You like that?
You don't like that?
Where do you feel?
It can benefit at times, but that's part of the reason we did the deal and sold, because you bring in people that bring credibility to it.
Yeah, I guess I don't mind.
I'm not nearly as wild as people think I am, but that's fine.
I don't give it much thought, I guess.
People are going to think what they think.
And to be honest, the people who don't like me, I give them a hundred dollars and they'll be like, why don't you give me a thousand?
Like, they're just never going to like me.
That's what I was going to ask, because your company has, you were telling me earlier, like 250 employees.
Companies that are running on the seat of their pants don't typically have 250 employees and do hundreds of millions of dollars here in business.
Yeah.
And maybe it's not as seat of our pants as I'm making it seem.
Like Eric Andradini, who our CEO is brilliant.
And we have a lot of really smart people working there.
But everyone just has a similar mindset.
Not afraid to take chances.
And, you know, we haven't changed what's worked.
And what's worked is us being truly authentic.
There's been so many stories now.
Authentic really, I feel like, became a huge buzzword.
In media the last couple years and I always hear stories like someone told me ESPN had a Meeting on how to be authentic.
It's like well, you already lost like having a meeting on how to be authentic.
We don't do that We're just ourselves.
We don't handle PR differently.
Like I mean We just do things in a different manner like we yet we do have PR people they don't even talk to me because when someone asked me about a sex tape or a controversy I I answer honestly, like, who cares?
I had sex, like, big deal.
So that's just who we are.
I feel like that is sort of the new wave in business, though, because I will say we have a very slim management structure at Daily Wire, too.
And one of the things we pride ourselves on is the fact that we can react incredibly quickly, whereas a lot of these bigger companies, it takes a while for them to turn the ship.
If they're headed in a particular direction, it's just going to take them forever to steer that ship.
And once they're committed to that course, it feels like They're kind of, they're kind of done.
Yeah.
And there's red tape and there's people who, you know, jobs may be the line if you make the wrong decision.
Like we dealt with that all the time, early Barstool.
I knew we were way bigger than people thought we were, but traditional advertisers, God forbid, something goes wrong.
Do you want to be the guy who says I chose them?
The reward wasn't worth the risk for somebody who's working a nine to five.
And you know, that's just something they're not interested in.
As a business owner, you obviously had a run-in with the NLRB.
We were talking about this a little bit earlier.
I have a similar experience with the NLRB where I made a joke about firing employees if they tried to run my company in terms of politics.
But you had the same experience and the NLRB went after you.
Yeah, yeah.
There's a company I hate.
There's a couple of them.
There's a bunch of them.
And that's probably why, by the way, people, because they identify as super left and they're the worst.
Absolutely no fun club.
And I made fun of them because they basically went bankrupt.
And all their writers lost their jobs.
And they had this great union.
And we don't have a union, and no one wants to leave our company.
And I made fun of them, like, hey, that union did great for you guys, huh?
You all got fired.
Total joke.
And it became an issue.
AOC, who sucks.
Jumped in on this without any knowledge.
She's just looking she used it I think as a fundraiser like I she put me in her fundraising letter the next day shocking.
She did fundraising I can't know no And I know she didn't know anything about what she was talking about it But it made it a much bigger issue, and then we have people coming at me.
It's like you you don't even know The analogy I use with us a lot of times is going to a comedy show that you don't know who the comedian is, you didn't buy a ticket, you walk in, you hear a joke, you walk out in the street, you're like, you never believe what this guy said without mentioning you were in a comedy club.
That's what I feel happens and that's kind of what AOC did.
So, you know, It wasn't even the, whatever they're called, like they didn't know what was going on either.
All these people issued complaints and once AOC makes it seem like it's a real thing, which it's not, it would be like taking a joke from American Pie and be like, oh my God.
So once it became that, they said, well, the end result of this was I had to send a letter, oh no, an email to my company saying I was kidding, which by the way, I was, so I didn't care doing it.
We're having the same issue and we're probably going to fight it all the way.
Because they basically, once I tweeted out that members of my company, I'd be happy to fire them if they wished to take the company in a different editorial direction.
Which is not, by the way, a unionizable issue.
I issued a tweet saying we follow all of the NLRA, we follow all of the applicable law.
NLRB still sent us a letter asking me to take down the original tweet and then apologize for ever having made a joke about this sort of stuff.
I'm never going to apologize for making a joke about this sort of stuff.
Are you kidding me?
Yeah, it's like what you said.
Like I, you know, I didn't take a vacation day for 10 years.
Like I worked my ass off for Barstool.
I really did.
And, you know, I hired people.
I put my own money back into it, risk it, hire people.
We have a great thing, but it's like now you're going to tell me what I have to do on a talent business, by the way.
I always said that we're talking about people who, if you don't think you're making enough money with me and you're talented, then you can just not re-sign with me.
And if you're as talented as you think you are and you're being underpaid, somebody else will pay you.
If somebody else won't pay you, you're probably getting what you deserve or maybe more with me.
So, like, you don't need a union for what we're doing.
But it was more I was just making fun of this company.
I hate it.
What do you think is the future of sports?
Because what we've seen over the past few years is the viewership on sports is just hitting the skids.
I mean, it's really, really bad, except for, you know, maybe MMA, which continues to do really, really well.
I think in part because Dana White runs his company kind of like you run your company or I run my company.
He's just like, you know, this is my company.
I'm doing exactly whatever the hell I want.
And if you don't like it, you can shove it.
But all these other big kind of sporting conglomerates, NFL, NBA, MLB, they seemed like they were in growth mode, some of them, NFL and NBA particularly, five years ago.
But it seems like now they are running into some real headwinds.
What do you think is the future of sports here?
It's hard to say, you know.
And it's hard to actually, in my mind, pull out necessarily what's happening.
Like e-gaming, for example.
People grow up.
The kids nowadays are doing different things.
Like, I used to go play wiffle ball and baseball every day.
Now people are playing video games.
And that's a world that is exploring TikTok and things like that.
The kids, they're making videos of dancing in front of mirrors.
They're not doing traditional things.
And I think that effect plays out on ratings and things like that.
I really don't know.
I mean, I think the sports will be around.
Football's got a little bit of probably an issue with like, not only whether it be political stuff, but actual like concussions and things of that nature and taking hitting out of the game.
I don't know.
I think it really varies sport to sport, but I couldn't imagine a world where they're not here.
Let's say you have a hundred bucks.
You got to put it on a sport.
And this is the sport that's the growth sport for the next 10, 15 years.
Which one do you put it on?
NBA.
I think they have the best commissioner.
And I think that's what's going on.
There's hype.
I mean hypocritical LeBron's like the old time with like they're in their stances on China and what's going on.
So I agree with that.
But I think they got the best commissioner.
And I think they're most internet savvy.
Okay.
That would be why I'd pick them.
What do you think the Celtics are going to do in the playoffs this year?
May as well ask you that.
I think they could get hot.
We looked before the show, you and I, there's about four or five teams cramped for that seven or eight.
I don't think there's any beast in the, like the Sixers are one.
Brooklyn could be a problem.
You don't know what happens if Durant's healthy and Kyrie, like, isn't having mental issues.
They'd probably be my favorite if they're healthy, but I think they can make a run.
So you're in the cultural space.
It seems like there's, oddly enough, this very culturally unifying figure we mentioned right at the very top.
There are a lot of people across the spectrum who love Barstool, who love what you're doing.
But it feels politically, from where I sit, because that's what I do every day, that the country's falling apart.
It feels like people are polarizing.
I think the center will hold.
I just think there's too many people who get along than don't.
There's more that unites us than doesn't.
Do you think it's going to be that the country falls apart, or do you think that there is this center that is going to hold, or are just people too apathetic?
I think the center will hold.
I just think there's too many people who get along, then don't.
There's more that unites us than doesn't.
And one of the things people always mention is, I don't know anyone else does it better.
I don't think so.
So it's very easy here to criticize, and there's no doubt there's problems.
There's problems in every country.
But then you're like, all right, go pick where you want to go.
Like, what other country do you want to go to that is this utopia that you think exists?
Because it doesn't.
So I think the center will hold.
I don't think it would be good if Trump ran for president again, because I think he is, like, I think the Republicans can find People who unite the country, if you're a Republican, you can get a lot of things you want done without somebody that, whether he's right or wrong, he's going to divide again.
So I hope that doesn't happen, to be totally honest.
I want to ask a few final questions here.
Starting with, you're giving advice to somebody who's about to start a business.
What are the key pieces of advice?
But if you'd like to hear Dave Portnoy's answers, you have to be a Daily Wire member.
Head on over to dailywire.com.
Click subscribe.
You can hear the rest of our conversation over there.
Everybody, go take a look at the Barstool shows.
There are a bunch.
There's bound to be one for you.
Plus, download that Barstool Sportsbook app.
Go check out the Barstool Fund.
They're supporting small businesses right now.
They're awesome.
Dave, thank you so much for stopping by.
Bye.
That was fun.
The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday special is produced by Mathis Glover.
Executive Producer Jeremy Boring.
Our technical director is Austin Stevens, and our assistant director is Pavel Lydowsky.
Our guests are booked by Caitlin Maynard.
Editing is by Jim Nickel.
Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.
Hair and makeup is by Fabiola Cristina.
Title graphics are by Cynthia Angulo.
The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special is a Daily Wire production.
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