| Time | Text |
|---|---|
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Kix Beauty Special Offer
00:03:47
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|
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| Welcome to The Megan Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. | |
| Hey, everybody. | |
| I'm Megan Kelly. | |
| Welcome to The Megan Kelly Show. | |
| Today on the program, we've got Dave Portnoy and Erica Nardini. | |
| These are the geniuses behind Barstool Sports. | |
| This is way more than sports. | |
| It's a sports, culture, comedy brand, really, that is just multimedia in its approach. | |
| You've got podcasts and you've got online sites. | |
| I mean, there's no telling where they're going to go because the company now is valued at about a half a billion dollars or more. | |
| But this guy Dave started it years and years ago as a one-man newspaper, which he wrote himself, which he got advertising for himself, which he stood in the subways of Boston handing out morning and night himself. | |
| And now he's turning some of that goodness around and helping people with his money and with donations from others to help businesses who have been crippled by these interminable lockdowns. | |
| Dave is the one who founded the company. | |
| Eric is now the CEO as of a few years ago, and they've made a very powerful combo. | |
| We're psyched to talk to them because they really, I would say if they had a brand logo, it'd probably be a big middle finger, which ruffles feathers. | |
| I get that, but also is a little refreshing, right? | |
| After all the constant, I don't know, censorship and judgment and you'll make up your own minds. | |
| But we just had a great conversation and we're going to get to it in one second. | |
| But first, before we do that, I want to talk to you about Jan Marini skincare research. | |
| Are you struggling to find a good skincare brand? | |
| I have to tell you, I have over the years, I've definitely struggled. | |
| Try different products. | |
| It doesn't work. | |
| These guys have it figured out. | |
| It is a five-step daily system that cleanses, rejuvenates, resurfaces, hydrates, and protects. | |
| It's been awarded 10 consecutive years by New Beauty magazine as the best skincare system for aging skin. | |
| It's one of the fastest growing professional skincare brands there is in recent years. | |
| In fact, Jan Marini Skin Research has earned more beauty awards from New Beauty than any other skincare company because it's got an excellent range. | |
| Of proven and award winning solutions to reduce the appearance of your fine lines and wrinkles, reduce discoloration, gets rid of your adult acne, and more. | |
| You can go ahead and check it out for yourself. | |
| Don't take my word for it. | |
| Go to janmarini.com and look at the before and after images right there. | |
| And you can take their online consultation while you're there to find the best solutions for you. | |
| The products are beautiful. | |
| They smell, there's no smell, which is what I like. | |
| Nice, sleek design on the packaging. | |
| So, you know, you like a little elegance in what you're going to put on your face. | |
| They've got it. | |
| And all the research. | |
| Was done numerous clinical studies by leading dermatologists. | |
| You can get it at spas, med spas, aesthetic physicians' offices throughout the country. | |
| Or you can just go to janmarini.com to find locations near you or buy from the website. | |
| So, right now, they're giving you a special offer. | |
| If you order from janmarini.com and use code MEGAN, you will receive a free cosmetic bag with your order. | |
| That's janmarini.com, code M E G Y N. | |
| And now, Dave Portnoy and Erica Nardini. | |
|
Dave Portnoy and Erica Nardini
00:12:32
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|
| I'm so happy to have you both here. | |
| Just so our audience knows, Dave founded the company, he's the president of the company. | |
| And Erica is now CEO of the company. | |
| So, Dave, she's kind of your boss now. | |
| Yeah, you can look at it that way. | |
| That is how I choose to look at it. | |
| So I knew about Barstool Sports. | |
| I had heard how popular it was. | |
| I'm not really into sports. | |
| So it's like this stuff sort of only crosses into my world when sports news comes into the news world. | |
| But I loved the fact that you got an interview with Donald Trump. | |
| And I watched your interview and really enjoyed it. | |
| It was your very first interview ever. | |
| Is that true? | |
| Yeah, that is true. | |
| It's the only interview I've really conducted. | |
| So, you started with the president of the United States. | |
| Were you nervous going into that? | |
| Yeah. | |
| I mean, how could he not be? | |
| I'd never been to the White House. | |
| And, you know, we had like Eric was there, a couple of other people from our team were there, but they really weren't allowed in the interview area. | |
| It was all his team kind of surrounding us. | |
| So, it's hard not to be a little bit intimidated in that environment, especially like I said, it was the first interview that I'd ever done. | |
| So, yeah, it was a little nerve wracking. | |
| And you made news. | |
| You got him to say that sometimes he regrets. | |
| His tweets after he sends them and the retweets in particular are the ones that get him in trouble. | |
| Yeah, I think I was one of the only people who ever got him to admit that he made a mistake or regretted something. | |
| But yeah, I'm pretty good at making news one way or the other. | |
| So I've realized in preparing for this. | |
| Now, I read that you've called yourself a Trump guy, though you're not partisan. | |
| You're not really a partisan person. | |
| So, what do you make of Trump now in the wake of the past few months and the Capitol riot and the beating yet again that the media has given him? | |
| Yeah, well, and I'd have to. | |
| A lot of things that are said about me are probably taken out of context. | |
| I don't even know when, like, that you just said I called myself a Trump guy. | |
| That may have been like previous to his first election. | |
| You know, I think he was an entertainer as president. | |
| There's some things he did that I agree with, there's some I didn't. | |
| I think both the left and the right kind of suck. | |
| You know, I think he definitely is to blame for a lot of what happened at the Capitol. | |
| 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. | |
| And maybe the left is like, no. | |
| And then when they wanted law and order, he was nowhere to be found. | |
| So I don't know. | |
| Everything with politics drives me kind of crazy. | |
| So I wouldn't identify myself and haven't for a long time as a Trump guy, neither negative or positive. | |
| I just think the extreme left and the extreme right and politics in general suck. | |
| There was a poll out this week. | |
| I just tweeted it out that only 18% of Republicans trust the media. | |
| So, as somebody who doesn't consider himself partisan, I wonder how you feel about it? | |
| Because you kind of got your start as a newspaper man. | |
| Do you trust them? | |
| No, no, I wouldn't. | |
| I think there's very few impartial. | |
| I mean, I think I'm a good example of it for sure, has become more jaded. | |
| 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 think I'm Hitler. | |
| Like if I read it, I'd be like, oh, this guy's the worst. | |
| But they're so. | |
| Pulled out of context and twisted and taken. | |
| And the people, a lot of them who write them, I would qualify as like nut jobs. | |
| 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. | |
| Like, you know, Trump asked me to interview him. | |
| We didn't reach out to him. | |
| Like, that was a request they put to me. | |
| And so we did it. | |
| And, you know, I know just by affiliation, some people like, oh, this guy's, you know, Again, a Nazi hates this, he hates that. | |
| They don't listen to anything that's even said. | |
| They don't listen to the interview. | |
| They don't care that we asked Biden to do an interview so we could get both sides. | |
| 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. | |
| So, no, in general, I do not trust the media. | |
| Well, I know. | |
| 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. | |
| And it doesn't paint a nice picture, but I've been the subject of so many nasty articles in the Daily Beast. | |
| I know exactly what you mean. | |
| They decide whether they like you or they don't like you. | |
| 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, you know, like, and then the public is left thinking, as you said, Hitler. | |
| It's incredibly frustrating. | |
| Yeah. | |
| And that's something we've come to deal with. | |
| And the Daily Beast is one of those examples. | |
| It's a group of writers who really don't care for me. | |
| And I can almost pinpoint anything in all these examples, like any hit piece that's written on me. | |
| I know the five to six things that are going to be in it before they're written. | |
| And I've offered a thousand times do you want to talk about it? | |
| Go point by point. | |
| And I'll detail every accusation. | |
| 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. | |
| But they've never taken me up on that. | |
| They've never, you know, taken because they have an agenda. | |
| So it is what it is. | |
| And we've just come to deal with it. | |
| I always say so we were bought by a casino company. | |
| I'm sure we'll get into this. | |
| Casino companies regulated every state by, you know, the government and whatnot. | |
| It's as conservative an industry as there is. | |
| They did. | |
| When I say, you know, weeks, months of back research on everything, and they came to the same conclusion at the end. | |
| There's nothing to it. | |
| There's just, they could never do business with us if the things that the people who say who hate us were true. | |
| And also, it's a small group. | |
| It's like that's what social media is. | |
| Social media is basically an echo chamber for people, and they just like to hear each other talk. | |
| 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 school sports, and we've been around for two decades because of that. | |
| So, Online is not real life. | |
| It really isn't. | |
| You get that slowly but surely as the acrimony against you ramps up online and then you go out and you lead a beautiful life. | |
| You start to realize the disconnect. | |
| But I do have to give you props for offering to go through allegation by allegation. | |
| I have never done that and have never really considered that a useful tool because I think the people who write those articles are dishonest brokers and the people who want to believe the bad things about you, who want to believe them and they're not really. | |
| Going to be disabused. | |
| You know, it's like they're not winnable. | |
| So why bother? | |
| Why get in the stye and roll around? | |
| Yeah, no, that I agree with. | |
| I've always said, you know, the people don't like me. | |
| I could give them $100 for free. | |
| They'd say, why didn't you give me $1,000? | |
| Like that, that's kind of their mentality. | |
| And I agree. | |
| There's nothing that you can do to change it. | |
| I mean, we have people, we're doing the Barstool Fund now, helping small business. | |
| We're having people change that into somehow, you know, it's just a PR stunt for us, which is bananas, if you know how it started. | |
| And even so, it's like, How else would we raise money if we didn't publicize it? | |
| But people have broken brains, and maybe it'll go away because I do think it ramped up with Trump. | |
| He just was so divisive and such a lightning rod that almost every single person who had an issue with me or Barcelona, if you look at their Twitter, the 10 comments below it would be political. | |
| It was they couldn't get it out of their own world, and we're a comedy site, and we weren't in that world, but we somehow got dragged into it. | |
| Great hats again, right when Trump was running. | |
| And we sold a lot of them, and that's what we do. | |
| It doesn't matter what world we're in, we sell merch, and that's part of our business. | |
| And whatever's hot in the streets, we try to make money on. | |
| And somehow, just because we did that, like before anyone even was really that polarized by him, people just the fact we sold those hats, people like, oh, again, these guys must be racist or whatever. | |
| It's like, what are you talking about? | |
| It's just a different world. | |
| Of course, they see it the way they want to see it. | |
| I mean, I've told the story before, but in analyzing the presidential debates this go round, there were only two, as you know. | |
| The first one I said, I thought it was close to a draw. | |
| So I gave the win to Biden because Trump needed a win. | |
| He was behind in the polls. | |
| And the second one, I thought Trump won. | |
| And as soon as I sent out the tweet, I thought Trump won the second debate. | |
| He's like, how could you? | |
| You're a Trump lover. | |
| F you. | |
| He's like, well, does anyone care? | |
| I thought Biden won the first one. | |
| Does that F me for that too? | |
| Like they're just so dishonest. | |
| It's really hard to let them get to you. | |
| And 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. | |
| But wait, before we get to that, can we just start a little bit on the early beginnings of Barstool? | |
| Because I think it's a great story. | |
| 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. | |
| So people didn't think it was just you. | |
| Right. | |
| So that's accurate. | |
| So, yeah, it was a four page black and white newsletter. | |
| I did everything. | |
| I mean, I woke up at the subway station, it was like 5 a.m., handed them out. | |
| I'd go home, write articles, call for advertisers. | |
| Then later in the day, I'd go catch the subway rush again, hand out newspapers. | |
| I delivered them all. | |
| I printed them all. | |
| I did everything. | |
| It was a one man show. | |
| And to give the illusion that we were bigger, I would have fake aliases, fake ads. | |
| You name it, I tried it. | |
| You know, it really was meant to be a business that I could run and slowly grew. | |
| And every penny that I had, I just poured back into it. | |
| And employee by employee and really fan by fan, we just organically grew. | |
| Okay. | |
| So what was the goal of the newspaper? | |
| It wasn't always a comedy site. | |
| No, it started as like sports and gambling fantasy, like. | |
| Football type newsletter. | |
| I was very interested in gambling. | |
| I knew I wanted to try or get involved in something that I enjoyed. | |
| I want to not hate my job. | |
| So I flew out to Vegas, met with all the casinos to try to get in the marketing side of what they did. | |
| It didn't work out. | |
| They're basically, I had already had a real job for about five years, and they said I had to start as a dealer. | |
| So I didn't want to do that. | |
| So that's where the newspaper started. | |
| I created this gambling newsletter and had like offshore casinos, party poker, gambling companies advertising in it. | |
| But it started really, I wanted to start my own business. | |
| It wasn't like, hey, I'm only going to do the gambling. | |
| I had three or four business ideas and I knew I wanted to try to start my own thing. | |
| I kind of had that entrepreneurial spirit. | |
| I wanted to work for myself. | |
| This is the one I landed on that I thought I could accomplish the easiest. | |
| Were you making any money at all back then? | |
| Like, how are you paying your bills? | |
| So I basically had a pretty decent paying job out of college because the economy was gangbusters then. | |
| It was like the dot com boom. | |
| I graduated in Michigan in 99. | |
| So I worked for five years, saved money. | |
| And then I quit and for about six months to a year, I cold called for advertising for the newspaper. | |
| So I pre sold the newspaper for a year before the first issue launched. | |
| So it wasn't making money, but it wasn't losing really money. | |
| I was just about, you know, staying above. | |
| 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. | |
| But I remember the first $20,000 ad that I sold, it was to a company called Party Poker. | |
| Right during the poker explosion, I was in Vegas with the people who developed the actual software, like the Indians who wrote the software. | |
| And, you know, I just did everything myself. | |
| I didn't, I had no real expenses except the printing bill. | |
| For the newspaper, and I offset that with the ads that I had pre sold for the year. | |
| So I was able to kind of get my sea legs for a year, and it grew word of mouth in Boston, and I continued to just sell. | |
| And so I always had kind of the break even, but my costs were almost negligible in the beginning. | |
|
Roger Goodell and Deflate Gate
00:07:11
|
|
| I want our audience to know that this is now over a hundred million dollar company. | |
| So just the thought of you having to make up your staff names and doing it all yourself is pretty fun to think about. | |
| It's an American success story. | |
| Yeah. | |
| I mean, Penn, who bought A minority interest in us, the valuation was 450 million. | |
| And that probably is far greater now than it was when we did the sale. | |
| So we're closing on, I think, a billion dollar company at this point. | |
| Holy moly. | |
| That's amazing. | |
| It's a good story. | |
| Now, listen, back in the day when I first graduated from law school, I was dating a guy from Boston and I learned a little bit about Bostonians. | |
| They love their sports, their backwards baseball caps, they love being from Boston, and they love. | |
| The Patriots. | |
| And I've learned enough about you to know that you are very pro Patriots, pro Tom Brady. | |
| And I have to ask you how you feel about him now, even though he's a Buccaneer. | |
| Yeah, it's certainly different. | |
| You know, I had a little back and forth with him before the season saying he looked old and orange. | |
| And he basically was like, come talk to me in January. | |
| So he was proven right. | |
| I reposted that and he reposted it on his Instagram. | |
| So it is different. | |
| It's, you know, I'm Patriot first, Tom Brady second. | |
| I don't know. | |
| It's a little awkward seeing it happen, but whatever. | |
| He's the greatest of all time. | |
| Were you, I know, I actually watched, I don't really know much about sports, as I say, but I did watch that game last night with them against, I don't remember who the other team was. | |
| Packers. | |
| Other Packers, right. | |
| So were you, you know, you're watching that. | |
| Were you happy he made it to the Super Bowl again while not wearing a Patriots uniform? | |
| 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. | |
| He's actually been like joining me on some of these calls to the small businesses. | |
| He donated half a million of his own money. | |
| So I started becoming friendly with him and I rolled with him. | |
| I should have stayed with my old love. | |
| Yeah. | |
| I follow Clay Travis of Outkick Sports and he was tweeting out comments about why would the Packers have given the ball to the best quarterback in the league with just a few minutes to go, you know, giving it over on that last down. | |
| Even I could follow that much. | |
| But I don't know. | |
| I think there's a lot of hate for Tom Brady because he's incredibly good looking. | |
| He's married to a supermodel. | |
| He's got a. | |
| Ton of money. | |
| 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. | |
| And you loathe Roger Goodell. | |
| Loathe Roger Goodell. | |
| Why? | |
| Well, I mean, Roger Goodell is a clown, but it started really way back when there was a huge scandal with Brady, Deflate Gate, where he was basically accused of deflating footballs. | |
| I'm a Patriot fan. | |
| Roger Goodell is basically like he's like Mussolini of Stalin or something. | |
| So he basically didn't have due process. | |
| He convicted Brady with no evidence, kept changing the rules. | |
| And as a Brady fan, and this was kind of tongue in cheek where it caught me, myself and three other Patriot fans handcuffed ourselves to each other at NFL headquarters in protest of Brady being suspended. | |
| We spent a night in jail, and that essentially began a long, ongoing feud with the NFL commissioner and the NFL office. | |
| I've been dragged out of the Super Bowl in handcuffs, I've been kicked out of media days. | |
| 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. | |
| All the money went to frontline workers. | |
| I won that. | |
| I put 250 grand. | |
| I won that charity. | |
| He denied it. | |
| He refused to take the money. | |
| I don't think they ever gave that money as charity, to be honest. | |
| 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. | |
| He didn't do that. | |
| So he's just, he's somebody who doesn't see eye to eye with us. | |
| 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. | |
| 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 dragging me out of the Super Bowl in handcuffs. | |
| I don't think he's getting anywhere near the appropriate PR advice. | |
| I think that the PR advice he's been given is absolutely objectively awful. | |
| His PR person, I believe, is married to Savannah Guthrie. | |
| 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 in your face and said, Can you please just stand to the side? | |
| And you said, No. | |
| And then you just stood looking at each other. | |
| You go, What is this, a standoff now? | |
| Maybe not. | |
| Yeah, well, that's kind of back to the media agenda. | |
| Like during the deflate gate thing, ESPN was basically the mouthpiece for the NFL commissioner, and they were leaking information that was just wildly inaccurate. | |
| And it proved to be wildly inaccurate after the fact. | |
| And they would never answer it. | |
| Like, I was just trying to get somebody told just lies. | |
| Somebody leaked lies to ESPN that began the deflate gate saga. | |
| And when the facts came out, everything that was said in the beginning of that was just wildly wrong. | |
| There was no truth to any of it. | |
| So I wanted to know where the information came from. | |
| And they just refused to answer it. | |
| I saw you going after some guy, some reporter who had initially tweeted out, you went and 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. | |
| And it took months and months for him to actually take down the tweet, but it had already gone viral. | |
| So people believed that there was a specific deflation on each football, and therefore it couldn't be accidental. | |
| 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, it wasn't true. | |
| It wasn't true. | |
| Right. | |
| And the alternate reality of what I was trying to put became facts. | |
| Like when everything came out, Everything I said was correct, and everything that was leaked was incorrect. | |
| And now we're talking about deflate football. | |
| So it's not life and death. | |
| But when you look at the larger subject, that's how the media works. | |
| It doesn't matter if it's right or wrong. | |
| Once it's out there and it catches steam, it's done. | |
| And the retraction or the correction is never, ever the same remote size as the initial story. | |
| So it doesn't even matter. | |
| Damage was done. | |
| More with Dave and Erica in just one second. | |
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Hiring Erica as CEO
00:16:10
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| That's getsuperbeats.comslash MK. | |
| Check them out. | |
| 2008, you guys went digital, and over time, the Barstool Sports of Today was born. | |
| So now it's more of a comedy site, it's like a lifestyle site. | |
| It was described to me as content by the common man for the common man, sports bars, drinking pizza, sex, and women. | |
| 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. | |
| I mean, is that fair? | |
| Do you think it's sort of irreverent in the way those two programs used to be? | |
| Yeah, I certainly get the Howard Stern comparisons. | |
| I often say like National Lampoon and Saturday Night Live. | |
| Yeah. | |
| But yes, it's fair. | |
| It's a site that doesn't take ourselves too seriously. | |
| But, you know, it's from both sides at this point, I would say. | |
| And it's been that way for a while. | |
| So when we say man show or, you know, something like that, I think people would say that's always guys talking about girls, but the raunchiest thing we have is Call Her Daddy, which is a female podcast. | |
| It's like the number one female podcast, girls talking about guys. | |
| And people, and sometimes they don't go back in our history. | |
| It's always been like one of the complaints I have when they're like, well, but it's so sexist. | |
| It does this, it does that. | |
| There's a girl, Jenna Marbles, who is one of the biggest YouTube stars there is. | |
| She's been around for a long time. | |
| I hired her out of a tanning salon and she started. | |
| This is back before anybody knew who we were. | |
| And we had a site called Stool Allah. | |
| It was just the female version of Barstool. | |
| And while we would post a hut girl at the end of every day, a local girl, she was posting a hut guy. | |
| So it was, we were doing it like equally. | |
| Now, Jenna went on to become a gigantic star. | |
| She moved to LA and we couldn't find anyone to like replace it. | |
| But that part of our history is just never mentioned. | |
| Well, 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 posted in bikinis. | |
| I gather they send the pictures in to you guys. | |
| But I just look, I'm sure some of the criticism is okay. | |
| But to me, women wanting to celebrate their own bodies by posting bikini photos or having you guys recognize them as hot, that's not misogynistic. | |
| 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. | |
| And that to me is not feminism. | |
| And being on the other side of that is not being a misogynist. | |
| Yeah. | |
| So I agree with that. | |
| And that's been a long standing debate with us. | |
| We'll have women who identify themselves as feminists be like, this site's sexist. | |
| And then we'll have women who love our site be like, well, we consider ourselves feminists. | |
| And we think that definition is who are you to tell us what we think is funny or how we should live our lives? | |
| 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. | |
| And in regards to the smoke show, yes, they are submitted and then we get their approval. | |
| 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. | |
| And it's ironic because the sites, some of the sites, when we talk about criticism of Barstool, they were Sports Illustrated. | |
| It was a Sports Illustrated website, it was one of the all time. | |
| And it's like they're doing the swimsuit issue. | |
| They invented it. | |
| Exactly. | |
| And they're sitting calling us. | |
| And it's like, what world are we in? | |
| Like, I don't, the hypocrisy is probably. | |
| The number one thing that drives me insane. | |
| And there's a lot of it, but that's a clear example where Sports Illustrated would write hit pieces on us about our smoke show of the day when they were doing literally the same exact thing. | |
| And this is where I want to bring in Erica. | |
| So you hired, you sold half of Barstool, as you pointed out, to the Cherning Group in 2016. | |
| You guys hired Erica as your CEO. | |
| And Erica, the first thing they start saying about you is, oh, she's a fig leaf. | |
| They hired her because she's a woman. | |
| You know, she's the one who's supposed to cover for these guys, which is totally. | |
| I mean, now that is sexist. | |
| Totally sexist. | |
| Yeah. | |
| I mean, they still say that about me today. | |
| And we've grown this business from, let's say, $5 million in revenue to close to $150 in five years. | |
| So, yeah, it's insulting and it's sexist and it's convenient. | |
| And it's also just wildly inaccurate, as both Erica and I know, on the chain of events and how she got hired. | |
| It was by accident that we met. | |
| So it wasn't, Like the turning guys hired a recruiting firm, and that's the first time we had it. | |
| We probably interviewed 70 people, all men. | |
| None of them made it to the second round. | |
| And then we had an advisor, Betsy Morgan, the old CEO of Huffington Post, who was from my neck of the woods. | |
| And we became friendly, and she happened to be at a coffee shop around the corner. | |
| She's like, Hey, want to meet for a couple of minutes? | |
| And Erica was friends with Betsy and happened to be there. | |
| And that's how we met. | |
| And we hit it off right away and started the chain of events of her becoming the CEO. | |
| But there wasn't some grand plan. | |
| I didn't even, I did not want you to defend yourself on this. | |
| I think it's absurd. | |
| I've seen this kind of thing. | |
| And it's like, if a shoe were on a different foot, people would not dare say such a thing. | |
| 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. | |
| But somehow women moving up to these CEO roles always get this and it's bullshit. | |
| And I do think your success is sort of the ultimate revenge. | |
| But one of the things I read you said, Erica, about the company, which of course does take these hits, it's whatever. | |
| 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 at a, you know, overall, it's a hugely successful company. | |
| Is that you said it's courageous to say what you think. | |
| Sadly, that's true. | |
| Yeah, I think it's really true. | |
| I think we are a very courageous company. | |
| I think it's courageous right now to be authentic, I think it's courageous to have a history. | |
| I think it's courageous to actually say what you mean publicly. | |
| Making jokes now is courageous. | |
| And, you know, you talk to any entertainer, you talk to any comedian, you talk to any public persona, you know this. | |
| There is such pressure for conformity and such pressure for a unanimous opinion. | |
| 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, we have been absolutely fearless. | |
| We've been very blunt and authentic, and we've stayed committed to our fans. | |
| My executive producer was saying one of the things that makes Barstool special is its transparency. | |
| And he was saying, one example is that you guys literally renegotiated your contract with Sirius in public, revealing what you were being paid, what Sirius offered as a renewal, how off base it was compared to what you'd agreed to. | |
| And, like, that's amazing and also kind of scary. | |
| And I wonder if it's that kind of transparency is ever scary to you guys. | |
| I'll let Erica take that one. | |
| Yeah. | |
| I mean, I think, you know, Dave's always called it like it is. | |
| 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. | |
| So, you know, I don't see any reason why we should hide where we are in our negotiation with Sirius. | |
| We were very honest about it. | |
| We've been honest really about everything. | |
| 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, 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. | |
| We have an expression that's to the moon. | |
| The first time we were on television, we're like, this is our first moonshot. | |
| Everything we've done, we have this desire to be bigger and better and bolder. | |
| 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. | |
| And that's by design, and we mean it. | |
| That does remind me of Howard Stern. | |
| He was very open about the fact that he was at risk for being fired and would talk about his bosses in a very open, probably too open way. | |
| But you guys, I mean, what I've heard is you're funny. | |
| You're offensive. | |
| You're smart. | |
| You're wild. | |
| You make people feel uncomfortable. | |
| You're unpredictable, naughty. | |
| I think it's fair to say, unapologetic. | |
| And I wonder, Dave, how does that exist in this era of cancel culture, in this woke world where you're not allowed to say anything? | |
| Yeah. | |
| So we have the benefit of a two decade year old story. | |
| And what that has built is, and very Stern like, an incredible, passionate, Loyal fan base who knows who we are, who knows who I am. | |
| Now they know who Erica is. | |
| They know everybody. | |
| They know our life stories. | |
| They know how many kids our employees have. | |
| They know everything. | |
| And we've never, as a result of that, been beholden to advertising. | |
| So we don't just sway whichever way the wind blows because we got to save an advertiser. | |
| 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. | |
| We'll just go. | |
| That has allowed us to maintain our identity and our. | |
| In our authenticity. | |
| It's a story I told like someone said, ESPN, they had a meeting, you know, and all these execs in a room. | |
| How do we be authentic? | |
| That was the meeting. | |
| It's like, well, I think you already lost. | |
| If you're in that meeting, you're not being authentic. | |
| We've never really planned it out. | |
| We don't know what the future holds. | |
| But overall, we trust each other and our moral compass, and we're just ourselves. | |
| And if people want to be part of it, great. | |
| If they don't, great. | |
| But we'll continue to do what we've done for the last two decades. | |
| You once spoke unapologetically about a colleague who at one point had worn blackface on Halloween. | |
| And I read that you said this in 2018, which is when I made my comments on NBC. | |
| So I wonder whether it was pivoting off of that whole thing. | |
| They came after you. | |
| Just for talking about it, the fact that a colleague had done it and you were aggressive in responding, saying, Memo to the cancel cops. | |
| I knew this was coming before you did, and I'm ready. | |
| You don't cancel me. | |
| I cancel you. | |
| I'm uncancelable. | |
| I'm big. | |
| You're little. | |
| I cancel you. | |
| I was like, Yes. | |
| Right. | |
| So, yes. | |
| Of course, I wasn't in that same position, but it did make me want to stand up and cheer. | |
| And it made me ask, How can we all become uncancelable? | |
| Joe Smith at home becomes uncancelable. | |
| Yeah, well, that's hard. | |
| That's hard because Joe Smith probably has a boss, and that boss has a boss. | |
| And most people have bosses. | |
| 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. | |
| And like that example, we're not proud of that. | |
| 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 are African American. | |
| They're trying to be the big three of the Celtics, three black guys, and they were being that for Halloween. | |
| It was a different era and he apologized. | |
| He felt awful. | |
| 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. | |
| It's dishonest. | |
| You didn't give the context. | |
| And I'm not just going to roll over for that. | |
| You know, people make mistakes and sometimes those mistakes are out of just not knowing better. | |
| And that was one of them. | |
| 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. | |
| Well, I think it's consistent, Erica. | |
| You tell me with the culture of the company, which is there's no subject that's off limits. | |
| We're not going to put the same sort of corral around ourselves that most modern media or other companies do. | |
| And if you could just like, I think a great example of this is the podcast you guys were mentioning a minute ago, Caller Daddy by Alex Cooper, which I confess I had never listened to it. | |
| I had heard the buzz, but I have now listened to Alex. | |
| I learned some things. | |
| And this woman is the modern day Dr. Ruth, right? | |
| She is. | |
| Look, I think it's very convenient right now to put things into boxes. | |
| I think people and the prevailing majority want things tied into convenient boxes where it's a culture of identity. | |
| You either are or aren't something. | |
| I think one of the best things about us is that we've really denied and defied being put into a box. | |
| 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. | |
| Alex is a superstar. | |
| I mean, she is a unicorn. | |
| She is an incredible powerhouse. | |
| We have a lot of female powerhouses here. | |
| Do we get credit for that? | |
| No. | |
| Do people care? | |
| No. | |
| Will people still try to put Alex, us, call her daddy, Barstool Sports, you name it, in a box? | |
| Yes. | |
| 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. | |
| And the reality is, We're reaching, you know, 100 million people every month. | |
| We are the most influential brand, I would say, for an 18 to 34 year old audience in this country. | |
| And people want audience. | |
| And what's happening to mainstream media is people are tuning out, people are dismissive, or even worse, they just outright don't care. | |
|
HR Issues and PR Plays
00:17:05
|
|
| Coming up, I'm going to ask Dave about his policy of contrition not being an option. | |
| If you go after him or Barstool in any way, he will fight. | |
| But before we get to that, let's talk about running a business. | |
| He's got a $500 million business. | |
| You might just be starting one and the HR issues. can be so distracting, overwhelming, they can kill you. | |
| Wrongful termination suits, minimum wage requirements, labor regulations. | |
| And by the way, HR manager salaries are not cheap, an average of $70,000 a year. | |
| That's where Bambi comes in. | |
| B-A-M-B-E-E. | |
| This company was created specifically for small businesses. | |
| You can get a dedicated HR manager, craft HR policy, and maintain your compliance. | |
| All forget this, $99 a month. | |
| Think about that. | |
| A lot better than $70,000 a year. | |
| With Bambi, you can change HR from your biggest liability to your biggest strength. | |
| Your dedicated HR manager is available by phone, email, or real time chat. | |
| And look, from onboarding, hiring, to terminations, firing, they will customize your policies to fit your business and help you manage your employees day to day, all for just $99 a month. | |
| This can be helpful. | |
| If somebody does cross an HR line, sometimes it's not so pleasant to have to raise it yourself if you're the boss. | |
| That's where HR comes in. | |
| This is literally their business. | |
| It's month to month, no hidden fees. | |
| You can cancel any time. | |
| You know, you didn't start your business because you wanted to spend time on HR, right? | |
| So let Bambi help you. | |
| Get your free HR audit today. | |
| Go to bambi.comslash MK right now to schedule your free HR audit. | |
| That's bambi.comslash MK, spelled BAM to the B E E. | |
| I love that.comslash MK. | |
| Check it out. | |
| You'll be glad you did. | |
| And before we get back to Dave and Erica, this is a feature we have on the show called You Can't Say That or Be That or Do That. | |
| Oh, wait, this is America. | |
| It's kind of consistent with what we've been talking about with Dave, right? | |
| It was like, yes, it could be offensive. | |
| No, that doesn't mean it has to go away. | |
| Not everything that causes you offense has to cease existing. | |
| Well, tell that to the stars of our next feature. | |
| This time, it's basically you can't read that because there is a campaign underway, which like most terrible things started off on Twitter. | |
| It's called hashtag disrupt texts. | |
| And it was started, according to its website, to advocate for curriculum and instructional practices. that are culturally responsive and anti-racist, right? | |
| The buzzword anti-racist. | |
| When you look at what they actually mean by that, they basically mean racism the other way. | |
| And if you don't sign on to it, then you're racist, even though what they're asking you to do is be divisive by skin color over which you have no control. | |
| In other words, this campaign basically ends up leading to books that were previously taught in elementary, middle, and high schools getting booted out of the curriculum. | |
| It's a modern-day book banning site, book burning site. | |
| What kinds of books? | |
| Take a guess. | |
| Pretty much everything. | |
| The Great Gatsby, that's got to go. | |
| The Scarlet Letter, even Dr. Seuss, Dr. Seuss has to go. | |
| Of Shakespeare, this site, the disrupt texts advocate writes, quote, absolving Shakespeare of responsibility by mentioning that he lived at a time when hate-ridden sentiments prevailed risks sending a subliminal message that academic excellence outweighs hateful rhetoric. | |
| OMG. | |
| I don't even know what to, I don't, I, right, I don't. | |
| One high school teacher in Massachusetts bragged last year that she got Homer's The Odyssey. banned from her school. | |
| Didn't we all read that? | |
| Now, I know everyone says it's brilliant, but it is long and boring. | |
| So they may have done us a favor there. | |
| But still, it seems like important that kids read it, even if there's some reason not to. | |
| So what's the end game, right? | |
| What's the end game here? | |
| And think about what we're losing. | |
| Pretty soon our kids are only going to be allowed to read Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo. | |
| Oh my God, heaven forbid. | |
| But Hamlet, forget about it. | |
| You can't read that. | |
| Let us know if you have anything that's been banned in your culture or your school because somebody decided that Nothing written from a time prior to right now is readable, or anything written by a white man is considered unreadable in some circles. | |
| And you can do that at questions at devilmaycarermedia.com. | |
| Back to Barstool. | |
| Question for you, Dave. | |
| When I was reading about some of the, you know, sort of back and forths you've had with people online and so on, I felt torn because I love free speech and I hate dishonest media. | |
| And my husband in particular was like, I love him for fighting back against cancel culture and the people who are targeting him. | |
| Doug, my husband, always wants to fight the dishonest journalists who come after me. | |
| And I'm always like, oh, honey, you know, it's pointless. | |
| Like, let's not, as I said earlier, get into the stye. | |
| But on the other hand, I definitely have been targeted online from a lot of powerful people. | |
| And I also understand how awful that can be. | |
| Right. | |
| So, how do you decide when someone just deserves the bar stool wrath and when enough is enough? | |
| Yeah. | |
| You know, I think I've built tolerance a little bit. | |
| One of the things, and I don't, obviously, everyone's situation is different. | |
| We never throw the first punch. | |
| So, if people are coming after you, Megan, like, I'd be curious, like, what the genesis, the people that I generally respond to. | |
| And by the way, like, respond. | |
| Let's take we're in Detroit right now. | |
| We're launching our sports book in Detroit, and it's been overwhelmingly positive. | |
| And I saw a blue check mark girl just say, Get the fuck out of Detroit. | |
| Like that. | |
| She tweeted at me, Hey, Presidente, that's my stool handle, my Twitter handle. | |
| Get the fuck out of Detroit. | |
| I quote tweeted and said, This is my city more than yours. | |
| Is that attacking somebody who takes like an unprovoked shot at me, telling me to get the fuck out of Detroit? | |
| To me, it's not. | |
| It's like you just entered the arena. | |
| Now, the people who don't like me are going to say, I attacked her. | |
| That's literally the only thing I said about this woman it's more my city than yours. | |
| And it is because they're welcoming me here. | |
| I went to school here. | |
| I'm a Michigan grad and she doesn't even live here. | |
| But so that's the fine line. | |
| I never, ever will just pull somebody out of the clouds and be like, oh, I'm going after you. | |
| And most of the time that I'm being credited or accused of sicking the mob, it's a response. | |
| It's like, who are you? | |
| And so for me, I never have a problem with that. | |
| I tell our people now, don't attack, but I don't have. | |
| You don't want to draw fierce blood. | |
| Yeah, right. | |
| And I don't have much patience or compassion for, like, in this case, this woman who you took a shot on a public forum at me aggressively. | |
| Yeah, and it wasn't even a shot. | |
| It's like, I don't. | |
| And weirdly, and we're talking, obviously, I know you guys are both. | |
| I attack everybody, literally everybody. | |
| I'd say if you looked at who I go after or who I'm in disputes with at this point, they're probably 90% men, 10% women, because I'm very aware of if I do engage with a female, people are going to say I'm only doing it because she's a woman. | |
| It's just not true. | |
| There's just no basis. | |
| Women don't get some special protection when it comes to. | |
| Fights online fight that that again is not equality, you know, but I but I understand that. | |
| Oh, I mean, certainly I could say that as a woman, the uh, the sort of spigot gets released of misogynistic attacks on Twitter and elsewhere, and then it's it's tough to turn off, correct? | |
| There's different in there, they take a different tone, they'll go more to looks and things like that if it's a female, but I like you have to escalate to me for me to if you're a female, like I will let you hit me 10 times before I come back, where it's a guy like. | |
| Clay Travis, you mentioned, I go after him every two seconds. | |
| So it really isn't. | |
| But how I decide on whether I, if somebody is well known or has a blue check mark or a following, or I think is. | |
| Being viewed as someone who's legitimate, not just some crackpot, and you keep coming after me, I will eventually respond. | |
| It won't be vicious, but all I have to do is call attention to you. | |
| And the people who support Barstool will generally respond. | |
| But I have no compassion. | |
| I don't feel bad about that. | |
| And the interesting thing, and what makes Barstool Barstool, not everybody agrees with me in our company. | |
| There's some people who absolutely hate when I do that and think it's a bad look, and they're like, just let it go. | |
| But we let people do what they want in this company. | |
| We don't tell people in that regard how to conduct themselves. | |
| For me, I'm a petty, vindictive person. | |
| That's my nature. | |
| It's always been that way. | |
| I have bottles of champagne engraved with my enemies' names on my desk, waiting for them to fail. | |
| So, like, that drives me. | |
| And if you catch me in the right moment, I will respond. | |
| I am a petty, vindictive person. | |
| I appreciate your owning it. | |
| And then people can just decide whether that's for them or not. | |
| You know, the answer is not you get canceled or you get shut down or you can't have a program on, let's say, ESPN. | |
| The answer is you decide, let the consumer decide whether they're going to pay for this product. | |
| And I mean, I think what you're doing is the future because people miss, even if it can be offensive, they miss authentic talk, especially when it comes to comedy. | |
| That's why Dave Chappelle is getting paid $20 million of comedy routine right now on Netflix because he says incredibly offensive stuff. | |
| I mean, he touches every third rail you could touch. | |
| And people are desperate for it, Dave. | |
| Yeah. | |
| And you know what's crazy? | |
| Some of the jokes, lots of them. | |
| Like it, I wish I could almost point it out. | |
| The people a lot of the people who hate me tend to also be like a Larry David fan. | |
| And Larry David, you can go look at Curb Your Enthusiasm, and there'll be jokes that are literally identical to what I've made. | |
| They laugh at his and try to throw me in jail. | |
| It's like, what are you doing? | |
| Where's the double standard here? | |
| But they've decided they don't like me, and it doesn't matter what we say, how many times we say it's comedy, they do not care. | |
| They just don't care. | |
| Now, how, but how are, how, if at all, are things changing given the incredible thing you've done with the Barstool Fund? | |
| And just so the audience knows so, just December, it's like a month ago, you launched this thing called the Barstool Fund, which is basically a GoFundMe for local business owners who've been devastated by COVID 19 and the shutdown, the endless, merciless shutdowns. | |
| And how much money have you raised now to help these businesses? | |
| 30 million, I think, probably closer to 32 at this point. | |
| It's a month. | |
| You've done this in a month. | |
| So let me just start with that question, and then I want to get into what you're actually doing. | |
| But have you noticed a shift in how people are talking about you and treating you and looking at the whole you? | |
| There's a lot more positive comments, and I've seen a lot of say what you want about Barcelona, say what you want about Dave Fortnite, but this is good. | |
| But the people still hate me or still somehow turning this into a bad thing. | |
| Most, you know, the biggest change, I said this. | |
| Our audience, I'm almost happy for our audience and I'm happy for our employees in a way because I feel like they've always known who we are. | |
| And to be honest, we've done a ton of charity. | |
| I keep hearing, well, they did this one act. | |
| It's like, well, you've just been out to lunch for the last 20 years because we've been doing charity and have raised multi millions of dollars for all sorts of causes. | |
| You name it, we've been there. | |
| And people just choose to ignore it. | |
| And this is getting widespread notoriety and publicity. | |
| And for our readers who sometimes are shamed, it's like, oh, you like Barstow? | |
| What are you a loser? | |
| It's a sense of, You know what? | |
| This company, Dave, Erica, these are the people we've always known them to be. | |
| You know why we were able to raise $30 million? | |
| Because they're real people. | |
| And they know like when it's time to stop joking and try to help and things like that. | |
| So it's just kind of like for our fan base, which is large, I think it's nice to be like, told you, told you so. | |
| This is who they are. | |
| Erica, how many applications for help have you guys received? | |
| Oh, it's like, it's heartbreaking. | |
| Tens of thousands, tens of thousands. | |
| I think, you know, one of the most impressive things about this fund is we started it on December 20th or 21st. | |
| We've raised obviously $30 million. | |
| We are paying companies. | |
| We've cut through all the bullshit of the application process. | |
| If you talk to a small business owner, it is nearly impossible to get relief or to get support right now. | |
| We've gotten rid of everything arduous in the process. | |
| We've built this whole infrastructure in the last three and a half weeks. | |
| We've worked 24 7 on it. | |
| We've done it in addition to our day jobs. | |
| And we're having a pretty profound impact of companies who've maxed out, you know, business owners who've maxed out their credit cards, who've dipped into their 401ks, who have asked, you know, for money from family members just to keep people employed. | |
| So I think we've done, you know, what we always do, which is to just figure out how to make impact, how to do it in the fastest, most simple, most streamlined way possible. | |
| It's heartbreaking because we can't help as many companies as we want to. | |
| I mean, that's the hardest part. | |
| Of this, which is there's just so much need. | |
| And then, kind of to Dave's point, it's frustrating when people criticize us for this being a PR play. | |
| Oh, you can't listen to that. | |
| Even if it were just a PR play, who cares? | |
| Are the people getting the money? | |
| Is it doing good? | |
| Like, who gives a shit? | |
| Talk about focusing on the wrong thing. | |
| We pulled a soundbite because I want the audience to hear. | |
| Oh, it's sweet. | |
| It's like, it's emotional. | |
| But one business owner, her name is Elizabeth Thompson. | |
| She owns. | |
| Chick and Bernie's Red Rooster Inn in Philly took the business over when her dad died of cancer, and here she is talking to you, Dave. | |
| Listen, oh my god, my kids are here. | |
| I'm in the circle. | |
| I was freaking out. | |
| I don't know how to work this thing. | |
| Is this for real? | |
| This is for real. | |
| This is very much for real. | |
| Oh my god, just like you don't even know. | |
| I don't know. | |
| Just when you feel like you're at your lowest point, you're amazing. | |
| I never thought in a million years, and we obviously, I'm calling because we want to help and make. | |
| sure that we're there for you to get through this thing. | |
| Wow. | |
| She goes on from there. | |
| I mean, Dave, you're personally speaking with each of these business owners, right? | |
| And what's the one condition? | |
| In order to get the money? | |
| So we tried to put two out, and they're not always hard and fast, but I'd say for the majority. | |
| Number one, we were looking for businesses that had a proven track record of success, whether that be five years, 10 years, 20 years. | |
| And the only thing that changed is the pandemic, because then we assume once the pandemic's over, you'll go back to doing what you do. | |
| And then number two, we're looking for companies or owners that did the best possible job to keep their payroll and their employees paid. | |
| I think Erica alluded to earlier. | |
| So, a lot of these people had put a second mortgage in their house, sold their car, doing whatever they can. | |
| So, we want to help not only the business owner, but the employees of the business as well. | |
| So, outside of that, those are the only two. | |
| Real requirements. | |
| Sometimes the payroll one can get a little iffy because it's like this thing's been going on for 10 months. | |
| So if you paid people for seven and then it's you're just out of money, what do you do there? | |
| But those are the two general ones that we look for. | |
| And is it true you put your own money in this thing too? | |
| Yeah. | |
| So I started with 500,000 of my own money. | |
| And then we just solicited the rest from our readers or friends of mine who I've met along the way who may be more successful. | |
| But I think at this point, Point, we're 200,000 individual donors, which is really remarkable and just kind of speaks to despite small businesses, you know, being so obviously a part of America, we put a face to it and everybody wants to help. | |
|
Raising Funds for the Cause
00:04:43
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|
| I think one of the beauties of this, I've said it a bunch, there's so much crap in the world right now with politics and everything else. | |
| This isn't universally sound sappy, but pure cause. | |
| We don't care, Democrat, Republican, black, white, blue, purple. | |
| We're just trying to help small businesses and there really should be nobody. | |
| In the world, who is against what we're trying to do? | |
| It should be something everyone can rally behind. | |
| And that's a message we've heard from the business owners time and time again. | |
| It's like, this is kind of what America should be about people helping people for no other reason than they need help and they deserve help. | |
| This is how it used to be. | |
| I remember a listener, Ron Paul, when he was running for president, libertarian, really didn't want a lot of government intervention in our problems or otherwise creating them or solving them. | |
| And he talked about how we used to have sort of citizens helping citizens, even with medical bills, even the church would raise the money or the neighbors would help raise the money. | |
| And I think as our government demonstrates more and more its incompetence, its inability to get anything meaningful done, we got to do an end around. | |
| This is what I consider a massive, really successful end around. | |
| And I think to where we began, it probably takes a man of the people, a common man to think of A solution for the common man, and you're doing it. | |
| So I tip my hat to you. | |
| I think it's wonderful. | |
| Good for you. | |
| Thank you. | |
| I'm glad we can help. | |
| I mean, I'm almost embarrassed at times when people thank me because it really is just we have the platform and it's all the readers who are submitting it. | |
| Like without them, we wouldn't have the money. | |
| But I do appreciate being the conduit. | |
| That's for sure. | |
| Thanks for coming on, you guys, and all the best with the fund, the Barstool Fund. | |
| And how can people contribute to it? | |
| So if you go to barstoolfund.com, that has Both things you'll need there. | |
| That's if people want to donate, you can donate there. | |
| If you're struggling business, you can apply, submit an application there. | |
| So everything is at barstoolfund.com. | |
| Amazing. | |
| All the best. | |
| Take care. | |
| And we'll talk again soon. | |
| Thank you. | |
| Today's episode was brought to you in part by Super Beats Soft Chews. | |
| Take two delicious chews a day for the health support and energy you need. | |
| Get yours today. | |
| Get it right now at superbeats.comslash MK. | |
| And don't forget to tune into the show on Friday, because we're going to be taking another hard look at COVID shutdowns and the vaccine. | |
| We've got one of the great Barrington Declaration doctors back again by popular demand. | |
| We're actually going to be joined by Alex Berenson, too. | |
| He's been a thorn in the side of the COVID porn lovers. | |
| And, you know, he's, he basically just cast doubt on a lot of the narratives that are being pushed. | |
| And of course, for that, everybody wants to ban him. | |
| Well, welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show, where we don't ban people. | |
| We talk. | |
| and we question, we probe, and we might even learn. | |
| We might even learn. | |
| We're also going to have a small business owner on to talk to us about exactly what it's like to have things shut down as these sort of lockdowns continue and actually get more and more severe. | |
| Can you imagine living in California right now? | |
| Can you imagine living in LA? | |
| And New York's not much better. | |
| So we're going to take a hard look at all of those things, including the vaccine and whether you should take it on Friday. | |
| That great Barrington show we did before on COVID was one of our highest rated programs. | |
| People are obviously seeking information. | |
| And we're going to do our best to provide truth, honesty, and skeptical reporting to you that Friday. | |
| In the meantime, go ahead and subscribe to the show before I let you go so that you make sure you get it in your inbox and rate the show and give me a review, will you? | |
| I've been loving reading them. | |
| So many good guest ideas. | |
| Such lovely feedback. | |
| I really do appreciate it. | |
| I try to stay off of Twitter, which is pretty much a liberal bastion. | |
| And so it's not really my place, but I haven't left it yet because it's just a good way of reaching out to people. | |
| And I do like to reach out to people who are on the left side of the aisle too. | |
| I feel like most of them are where I am on a lot of these issues. | |
| Not all of them, but a lot of them. | |
| So anyway, the reviews are a good place for me to talk directly with the people who love the podcast and find out what's working, what's not working and all that. | |
| So go ahead and subscribe. | |
| And in the meantime, we'll talk soon. | |
| Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. | |
| No BS, no agenda, and no fear. | |
| The Megyn Kelly Show is a devil-may-care media production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures. | |
|
Reaching Out to Everyone
00:01:30
|
|
| You can send them to the Alente. | |
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| Now, you have a great idea for the world to be able to do a good series. | |
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| For the best, you can use this to play a full TV channel with two play bases of reclam, via play films and two extra streaming tenants to play a full TV. | |
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| For the mobile, the net-bretty biel, is to make Chromecast a hotel at a stranded place. | |
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| If you want to go to the city, you can get a lot of money to live in the city. | |
| The price of the summer is for a summertime trip. | |
| 30 GB of about 200 PNK. | |
| I want to get a lot of money. | |