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Feb. 7, 2023 - This Past Weekend - Theo Von
01:44:39
E429 Dave Portnoy

Dave Portnoy is an entrepreneur, media personality and the creator of Barstool Sports, one of the biggest publications for sports and pop culture content in the world.  Dave Portnoy joins Theo Von on This Past Weekend to talk about his humble beginnings in Boston, taking risks, getting arrested at a Patriots game, how to handle controversy, and what it took to turn a small newspaper into one of the biggest media companies in America.  ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com Podcastville mugs and prints available now at https://theovon.pixels.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit  https://www.amazon.com/stores/CELSIUS/ShopNow/page/95D581F4-E14E-4B01-91E7-6E2CA58A3C29 BetterHelp: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://betterhelp.com/theo and get on your way to being your best self. Save 10% off your first month.  Babbel: Go to https://babbel.com/theo to get 55% off your subscription. Babbel – Language for Life. ShipStation: Get a 60-day free trial at https://www.shipstation.com/theo. Thanks to ShipStation for sponsoring the show! DraftKings: Download the app NOW, use code THEO, new customers bet FIVE DOLLARS on UFC 284 and get TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS IN BONUS BETS INSTANTLY! This Saturday at DraftKings Sportsbook with code THEO. Minimum age and eligibility restrictions apply. Gambling Problem? Call 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY), If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (CO/IL/IN/LA/MD/MI/NJ/OH/PA/TN/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (KS/NH), 888-789-7777/visit ccpg.org (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), visit OPGR.org (OR), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA). 21+ (18+ NH/WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/KS/LA(select parishes)/MD/MI/NJ/NY/OH/PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. Void in ONT. Eligibility restrictions apply.   $200 in Bonus Bets: Valid 1 per new customer. Min. $5 deposit. Min $5 bet. Promo code req. $200 issued as bonus bets that expire 7 days (168 hours) after being awarded. Bonus bets must be wagered 1x and stake is not included in any returns or winnings. Promotional offer period ends 2/12/23 at 11:59 PM ET. See terms at sportsbook.draftkings.com/mmaterms ------------------------------------------------- Music:  "Shine" by Bishop Gunn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3A_coTcUek ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: tpwproducer@gmail.com Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers/ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner Producer: Ben https://www.instagram.com/benbeckermusic/  Producer: Alex https://www.instagram.com/mralexlagos/  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Time Text
I've got some new tour dates to announce right now.
April 25th at the Celebrity Theater in Phoenix, Arizona.
We're adding a date onto that week.
March 23rd, we've added in Houston, Texas.
That's a Thursday night at the Hobby Lobby Center for the Performing Arts.
May 10th, Newark, New Jersey, New Jersey Center for the Performing Arts.
May 11th, Westbury, New York at the New York CB Theater at Westbury.
June 9th, Austin.
We've added another Austin show.
And June 30th and July 2nd, Las Vegas at the Encore Theater.
Wow.
I can't believe it, man.
I just can't even believe that we're getting to do all this.
This is crazy.
Thank you.
It's at theovon.com slash T-O-U-R.
You have to go through those links to get accurately priced tickets.
If you're elsewhere, that's out of our control.
You know, there's already a lot of monsters there on the internet with these ticketing fees, and those are out of our control as well.
But I love you guys, and I hope to get to see you if you can come out.
We now have Be Good to Yourself Crew Necks available in light blue, maroon, and cement, that embankment gang color.
You know it.
Check these out along with the new windbreaker at theovonstore.com and thank you for your support.
Today's guest is the founder of Barstool and Barstool Sports.
He's a, I mean, he's a media legend.
He's kind of a revolutionary in a way.
He's kind of a dang Paul Revere for a lot of people.
He has a unique ability.
He makes you feel like anything is possible.
And I'm grateful to have him here today.
Today's guest is Dave Portnaway.
Shine that light on me I'll sit and tell you my stories Shine on me And I will find a song I've been singing I'm going to stay Shine on me
We hire, I mean, I hired a guy strictly because he's legally blind.
But it was like, yeah, it was like in the like he interviewed, and it was a tea, it was a wallpaper.
I mean, he was so boring, but he knew me.
He's like, I have one thing that may sway you in my favor.
It's like, what?
He's like, well, I'm legally blind.
I'm like, well, like, can I make fun of you for it?
Like, is it open game?
He's like, yeah.
So we hired him.
Wow.
He's still like, so he's still with us in a way.
Like to the point we thought he was faking it because like he knew that would get me.
So one day we just, and a bunch of people thought he was faking it.
So we called him up.
I'm like, I'm just going to like toss my wallet to him to see if he reacts, smacked him right in the face.
It's the only time I felt bad.
So he was literally, literally blind, but he'd sit at his computer like what you were saying with this huge magnifying glass.
You tell him to do something.
It took him four hours.
Yeah.
So it was kind of a gimmick, but not the most productive guy to ever come down the street.
Yeah, we interviewed a blind woman one time, and it was pretty fascinating.
She said she almost feels like a computer sometimes, like how she would remember the way she would walk to school and stuff like that.
So she lost her sight?
Yeah, she had some sight when she was young and it wasn't a lot and then she lost it completely.
Yeah.
And so then she had to like, she said she started to feel like a computer.
And the only animal she didn't like, she said, was a snake.
She said a snake doesn't give any feedback.
She's like, it just feels like just like a piece of Satan, I guess.
Maybe I was born to be blind.
I don't like snakes either.
Yeah.
That's really the age-old question.
Like, would you rather, would you rather, like, if you were blind, would you rather have been able to see or never been able to see?
I think I would like to, if I'm been to be blind, I'm going all in.
I'm saying never see.
Right, because then you don't know what you're missing.
Yeah.
And then you can yell stuff.
You could use like, I don't want to say slurs, but you could probably say things that are other people are going to be like, oh, he shouldn't say anything.
Like, oh, he's blind, you know?
Dave Porter, thanks for coming in, man.
Yep.
We don't know each other that great.
Definitely not.
Yeah.
Definitely not.
I feel like maybe we're...
I think it was the US.
No.
When was the first time we met?
Was it at the LSU Tailgate, I think?
Yeah.
And then we saw each other a couple times after that.
Yeah.
Yeah, man.
We're kind of like just sort of getting to know each other.
And you are, you grew up in New York.
Wrong.
See, we don't know each other that well.
Boston.
Oh, yeah.
But does Boston always have such a chip on their shoulder about New York?
It's almost like, it almost seems like there's more like, it seemed like New York, but with more like kind of spousal abuse kind of a little bit low-key, you know?
Yeah, I don't know.
I'd have to look up the stats on that one.
There's definitely animosity.
I don't know if it stems from like spousal abuse, but it's the, you know, New York.
So I grew up in Boston and everybody in New York is always like Boston is a little town.
Yeah.
Basically, it's not a city.
It's a town.
You know, as a Boston guy, you kind of take offense to that.
Then we moved to New York.
And New York's, it is compared to Boston.
It's a small little city, but it's so close.
The sports rivalry reminds me, I was in Milwaukee, right?
And I did a pizza review, which I do, and I thought I was in Milwaukee.
It's actually in racing.
Oh, yeah.
The racine bails from League of Leadership.
League of their own.
I was actually, I didn't realize it till after, and I was mad.
I didn't know that.
I would have worked it in.
But racine people were very upset that I was calling it Milwaukee.
Like, you're in Racine, you're not Milwaukee.
It's kind of that vibe, Boston, you know?
Yeah.
Like the underdog.
When you were growing up, what kind of like school did you go to?
Like, what was it like when you were growing up?
Traditionalized middle class.
Went to all public.
Like Swamp Scott, just I grew up, the town I grew up was called Swamp Scott.
So I just went to the normal high school, normal middle school, normal everything.
Like my friends that I grew up with are still like really my best friends.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah.
And what was it like at your house?
Like, was your dad pretty cool or what was he like?
No, he's definitely, I went to that.
cool, is not the word I would ever describe my dad as.
He's like, my parents are like the Seinfelds.
That's a better way to like Morty, you know, Morty.
And he takes, by the way, great offense to that.
Oh, he loves it?
No, no, he, if you're like, you're like Morty Seinfeld, when Morty Seinfeld does something weird on something, he's like, no, I'm not.
What are you talking about?
But he is exactly like them.
They're kind of maybe the traditional, like, over-protective, like, Jewish, like, family parents.
Kind of, that's what they are.
Is it fun?
So you've been Jewish your whole life.
I mean, you, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Is it fun being Jewish?
Like, what is it like?
Like, no, I want to say it's fun.
It's nothing.
Like, I wasn't overly religious.
Right.
So, but it, no, I wouldn't say it's fun.
You got to battle, you know?
I, I, I always, like, Jews, you know, there's more, everyone celebrates Christmas.
Like far fewer do Hanukkah.
So, like, in the early days of Barstool, we had this guy, Kevin Clancy, gets the big ass tree, you know.
It's like, well, if we're going to do a big ass tree, I'm going to get a big ass menorah.
We had the biggest menure like ever made.
It had to be like put together in the office just so we weren't getting like short shifted on it.
But yeah, no, I don't really give a fuck.
I'm not overly religious.
I mean, you know, I'll stick up for Jews if we're getting, like, if Kanye is like, you know, Hitler wasn't that bad of a dude.
I'll be able to hold on there.
Like, he kind of was.
Like, I don't, I like, well, he did rail.
He did the highway system.
I'm like, yeah, but he used it wrong.
Yeah, he killed a lot of us too.
So I don't know that one plus one equals two or whatever.
So, but I'm not, you know, I'm not overly.
But like shit like that, I will get involved.
Like when people are defending him, it's like, the guys out here are like basically pro-Hitler.
How can anyone defend him?
So that shit I'll speak up on, but I'm not, you know, I'm not overly like a lot of the holidays I don't follow and stuff like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I just always wonder like probably half of my closest friends are Jewish, especially once you get to like LA or New York, you meet a lot more Jewish people.
They didn't have like a lot of Jewish people when I was growing up.
So we're running the media.
Yeah.
That's what they say.
I mean, yeah, I don't, I mean, there's so many Jewish people that work in the media.
I don't know.
I have no idea.
You know, it's like, I don't know who's I don't know who's if somebody's really running something.
I don't know.
No, well, I mean, it's like anything.
You can look, I run Barcelon Sports.
That's a media company.
I work my ass for it.
I mean, whatever.
Listen, there's bad people or scumbags in every race, religion, creed, whatever.
Oh, yeah.
Jews get a bad rap, but a lot of people get bad reps.
Yeah, I was just wondering, what is it like?
I wonder if it feels different being Jewish.
Does it feel like...
I'm like, damn, I'm a Jew?
Or like, yeah, I don't know.
I guess I don't even know what I'm asking.
I guess I just, I guess someone's wondering what it feels like.
Yeah, I guess like.
The thing about it, though, which I've always said.
So.
Because Jewish people are very determined.
Jewish people like to create value in.
Yeah, well, I think it's kind of like a family thing.
Like they're very, very education, very hardworking, and put a premium on that.
And then it shows.
But the thing about being Jewish, which I've always pointed out, we're getting deep, but it's like people say, you'll hear this a lot.
Like, what are you?
And someone will be like, I'm Italian.
I'm fucking, you know, Russian.
I'm Jewish.
But Jewish, like, if I want to change being Jewish tomorrow, I could.
It's not like a blood thing.
Jewish is a religion that you choose.
If someone wants to be Catholic, they can choose it in a second.
You can't change being like Italian.
That's what you are.
Like if you're born from there.
So Jewish, it's kind of one of those things over time, I think it's probably out of prejudice.
People make it sound like it's your blood.
It's fucking not your blood.
It's your religion that somewhere along the way, somebody chose to believe, but you can change it.
Like I'm Russian.
My family is from Russia.
Oh, you are.
I could see that a little bit now.
Yeah.
And we don't, and my family, to be honest, we don't talk like, I don't even know that much about the history.
I'm sure bad shit happened.
Like most people don't leave their country just because you're Russian?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Russian.
Dang.
Yep.
Marusi.
Wow, man.
That's great, man.
I don't know.
I knew this one Russian girl and she was so sexy, man.
And God, she invited me over one time and like she was sick or something.
I brought her some soup and she like was so aggressively trying to fuck that I got she didn't feel well?
Yeah.
And so that turned, I was like, oh, what do you do here?
You know, like.
See, I'm such a hypochondriac.
I would, I'd be like, not like, you got to get healthy.
Well, that's kind of how I was.
I was so scared.
It was like, you know, I kept trying to lead her back to the soup and she kept coming for me.
And I got so scared because she was sick, but she was so like aggressive and determined.
It's wild.
Yeah, it was interesting, man.
And she actually went to jail.
She went to jail.
I remember she hit me up like years later to come testify for her in something and I couldn't make it.
I just wanted to sleep in, honestly.
Yeah, that's tough.
Like if you're being asked to testify and you're like, sorry, I slept.
You must not have really been that close with her to skip the, you know, skip the trial or whatever she was going down for.
She's like, I need somebody to show up.
Yeah, I guess my question is like, does it feel, do you feel a lot of pressure being Jewish to be successful?
No.
No.
Oh, that's interesting.
No.
I don't feel pressure to be successful at all, but no, nothing to do with, if anything, like I feel like there, no, there's a lot of successful Jews.
Yeah.
My parents weren't like, hey, you're Jewish.
You better be successful.
No.
Oh, maybe that's what it is.
Maybe I thought a lot of friends of my, a lot of my Jewish friends are successful, you know?
And so it's like, yeah, I guess I wonder, do I feel like that there's a pressure?
And then all my Jewish friends are always saying that their moms are always driving them nuts.
And so I guess I started doing that.
I started to put those things together.
I love my mother.
She's coming to the Super Bowl with me just to like probably get away from my dad for a couple of days.
But like my mother's the type of woman, and again, this is a typical I do.
Like I go home, I'll go back to wherever I'm going.
And, you know, I open my like suitcase and there'll be like, geez, it's hidden in there and like all sorts of gadgets.
Like she's just overprotective.
Like she doesn't, anything I say, I don't want that, I don't do this, she'll do it.
Like she's always, you know, if I could walk around a giant bubble, like that's what they do.
Like my grandmother, I remember one time, I was looking at colleges and there was a plane crash.
We were driving.
Yeah.
And she called worries.
She's like, the plane crash, you're all right.
Like, we weren't, we weren't flying.
She's like, well, the plane could have landed on you.
Like, that's the type of, like, thing, you know, just a little bit overly protective.
Okay, interesting.
But no pressure, no pressure in that.
I mean, I originally wanted to be like a gym teacher.
Like, that was what I graduated actually college with, and they would have been fine with it.
They've been supportive, no pressure at all.
They're just, I think the Jewish thing, from my, it's just most, it's just super intense on like education, like do good in school.
Like, if you, if you were fucking off on school, my parents would be like, what are you doing?
Right.
And I did fuck off a little bit at school, but that, they'd be in your grill about that.
Yeah.
That's it.
Were you, um, yeah, because I'm just curious, you know, I'm just curious.
And so do you, like, did in high school, were you like kind of like a funny guy?
Were you like, kind of like the guy who was like the student council leader?
Like, what kind of, like, what was some of your vibe in high school?
So, yeah, I, I played sports, hung out with like your Riz, actually, which I learned what it means from you and your TikTok.
I didn't know.
Yeah, I didn't know that either until you put those fucking kids up on game.
Fuck them.
Yeah, right.
Sorry.
I mean, they're good kids.
So this should give you insight into, like, I, I, and this is, again, my parents being like, you got to get your resume right for like going to college.
So I was the vice president of my class, and that was like calculated because I didn't want to do the work.
So I was like, I'm not going to run for president because then you got to do shit.
Vice president, you kind of skate, but put it on the resume.
So that's what I did.
And then I played sports.
So I was just, again, I'd say I ran in like the popular crowd, but I was friends with everybody.
Yeah.
A little bit funny.
Yeah.
You know, I couldn't get buying looks.
So if you don't go looks, you go funny.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Trust me, dude.
I feel you.
I'm like an eight.
I've always been kind of like an eight.
And you got to fucking, you got to.
An eight.
You got to come up with some jokes.
Yeah.
On looks, I think.
Out of a 10?
Yeah.
That's a fucking super high score.
I don't think.
You think it's that high?
Yeah.
Eight?
Eight.
So who's a 10?
Like, what's Matthew McConaughey?
I think he was a 10. I think he's coming down a touch.
All right.
Let's go somebody who's.
I mean, look, the kid you work with, John Richards.
Okay.
Yeah.
I mean, the guy is beautiful.
Yeah.
I mean, he's an attractive woman.
I mean, he's.
Yeah, no, he's a good-looking guy.
He's like, he's the fucking.
I saw he actually turned 21 yesterday, but he's like the Calvin Klein's mom.
Is he?
Yeah.
He's doing Calvin Klein's like.
Oh, my God.
God, I'd put tits on him, phoned him.
I know that.
I know he's a good-looking kid.
He always is when I walked in with that original TikTok crew.
He's definitely a good-looking guy.
Smart kid, too.
He looks like a mannequin.
There's a good picture of you guys together right there impersonating each other.
Yeah, that was like the first time we met.
So that's when we watched everybody.
What did you guys meet at, dude?
So do you know, you probably do know this guy because he knows fucking everybody.
Do you know Michael Gruin?
Michael Gruin?
No, he's Bruin?
Gruin.
Gruin.
No.
That's surprising because I feel like this dude knows everybody.
So there he is.
No, but he looks like kind of like a.
So basically, I was on Twitter one day and Dixie D'Amello.
Yeah, she broke up with her boyfriend at the time.
You may not, these are huge.
Yeah, I know who she is.
Yeah, so she was like the original kind of it girl on TikTok.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it broke into Twitter.
Okay.
And they broke up and everyone was talking about Twitter.
And I was like, who the fuck are these people?
Gruen, who is Josh Richards' manager, reached out.
He's like, hey, he'll explain it to you.
Want to do a Instagram live with him?
So I was like, sure, we did it.
And I was surprised.
We kind of like had some chemistry.
Like, who is this kid?
Snapchat reached out after we did that.
Like, would you guys do a show on Snapchat?
I had no interest because I wasn't like Snapchat just wasn't where I want to be.
TikTok, I knew was something.
It's like, I'm sure you view the world at times like, all right, I got to get my name.
Like, who are these kids on TikTok?
Because Barstool had been around for a while, but nobody knew us on TikTok as a younger demo.
So to me, partnering with him, who was big on TikTok, is like, all right, that's going to get me, Barstool, maybe this new audience.
And that's where it came from.
He wanted to get maybe a little more credible with like an older crowd who had been around.
I wanted to get the TikTok crowd to know who we were.
And that's where it came from.
It's great.
Yeah, I came on that show.
So Michael Gruen is his manager.
He was.
He was.
Okay.
And he just connected people.
Yeah.
You know, I still hear him.
Yeah.
When I first met him, no joke to Gruen, the first thing I said to him was he was the most obnoxious human I ever met.
Is he really?
He grew on me, but he can come across as sandpaper when you meet him.
But I do like him now.
He's grewing on people, huh?
Yeah.
Well played.
Oh, wow.
And yeah, I would like to maybe meet that guy.
But then, yeah, it's interesting if people kind of get onto your nerves, you know?
I had this dude that used to kind of would always kind of bite the air a little bit.
He had a little bit of a just a little hitch in him, you know?
Like Val Kilmer, like Iceman.
Like that, like he was eating a berry off a tree or something, you know?
And he would do that just every now and then.
And like, you can deal with it for a while.
But after about that 50th berry, you got to fucking shut him down or you got to leave the room.
Do you know the part I'm talking about with Iceman and Top Gun?
He just, he's like, that's right, Iceman.
I am dangerous.
I just bites the does the party.
Oh, he does that?
Yeah, he bites the classic.
So in high school, so yeah, I could see that, man.
I could see you.
Did you feel like you had kind of like that?
So obviously you knew that you could kind of relate to everybody then a little bit.
Because sometimes as you get older, you start to learn just some of your skills.
You're like, oh, I kind of can fit in wherever.
Yeah.
I was pretty good at that.
Did you have a lady in high school or no?
No, no.
No.
No, I wasn't good looking.
I didn't really do great with the girls at all in high school.
What about like for dances or anything?
Did you ask a lady out ever?
Like, do you remember like the first date you ever went on or anything like that?
The first date?
No, I don't.
I mean, I remember obviously going to like proms.
I know who I went to proms with and shit like that.
But no, I didn't really, I had very little, if any, success in high school.
Yeah.
Blue eye.
You're handsome guy.
Yeah, I don't know.
No.
well, first of all, I went through it, like there's a whole fat day stage.
That wasn't in high school, but I mean, I, and I'm getting back to it because I'm getting old.
But yeah, no, it's the truth.
I tell you.
You always hear like, you know, good-looking people being like, no, I didn't do anything.
Like, I was ugly in like high school.
No, I was.
Like, I'm not like those, I don't believe the good people like John Hamm.
Like, oh, I have it rough.
My dick's too big.
You know, like, no, that, I really didn't do well in high school.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I have to wear like an 80-gauge underpant just to hold them up.
Yeah.
Like that kind of shit.
Yeah.
I hate that.
Yeah.
Do you remember like even just like, what about your first kiss in high school?
It had to have happened, huh?
Yeah, I'm trying to think, who did I kiss first?
I don't even know if I remember.
It couldn't have been anything.
What do you mean, dude?
You were a documentor of.
No, I don't know.
It couldn't have been that memorable.
I'm honestly trying to think.
I don't know if that's like sad or what, but I honestly can't remember.
Wow.
Yeah.
Some people remember locked us in this room and they had this girl and she had like a chip tooth.
She had that kind of that Lloyd Christmas on her, you know?
Or at least the Christmas.
Was this going to be your first guess?
It was.
Like, were you playing like spinning the ball?
Are you locked in a room or are you just locked in a room?
No, somebody.
Just angry, like kind of pervy older kids.
They're like, you better get in there and fucking kiss.
You know what I'm saying?
Or we're going to jerk off out here.
And we're like, Jesus Christ.
All right.
I took a target.
And so, but she had that Lloyd Christmas, or at least she had the Lloyd, she had like that Lloyd Christmas Eve.
It was like a less of a chip.
But she had that thing.
And I remember, God, she was also, she was like the first girl I ever remember really like seeing with my eyes.
And she was, her name was Chrissy.
And she was beautiful, I thought.
Despite the teeth.
Yeah.
And so we had to sit next to each other and just kiss.
What about the first time you had sex?
Do you remember it?
That I do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now we're talking.
That's a little different than like a kiss.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it wasn't great.
It's still probably not fucking great, you know?
Oh, yeah, dude.
Yeah.
Yeah.
When did it happen?
College, freshman.
Yeah, boy, big Dave get out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Upgrading.
It was a girlfriend.
Yeah, okay.
Was it at a party or was it like kind of a no?
It was actually at so it it was at my house.
It was actually summer going into college.
Okay.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, dude.
I love thinking about like those kind of, like, just like times when we're young and stuff.
Like, yeah, there was nothing like that time getting ready for college.
And then I almost feel like that was a time you feel like you had to like, you had to get sex act if you were going into college and you don't really know what you expect.
Yeah.
No, I mean.
And was it like a romantic thing?
Did y'all go to like?
Yeah, no, it was romantic.
It was definitely romantic.
She was my girlfriend, so it was romantic.
That's cool.
That's cool, man.
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Yeah, dude, I ended up, the first time I ever hooked up was actually behind a bowling alley in our town.
Yeah, mine was, sounds more romantic than that.
Yeah.
Potentially.
Yeah.
Oh, it was.
Mine, people were throwing rocks at us, dude.
And it was like, yeah, it was like trying to fuck on the Gaza Strip or something.
I mean, people were fucking, there was like, it was hard.
So were people like watching?
If they're throwing rocks at you?
I wouldn't say they were watching, but they were checking in a lot.
Yeah.
No, mine was not like that.
Yeah.
Mine was probably pretty traditional.
Yeah.
Yeah, dude.
I remember one time I got so nervous.
Some girl and I tried to have sex and I just couldn't.
I just like, I remember just, I ended up ejaculating and then she left and she was embarrassed.
She climbed out of my window in my room too.
I remember she was afraid to even like leave through the living room, I think.
It was fucking embarrassing.
Because why?
I think she.
why did she go through the window?
I think she was maybe just, I don't know.
I think it was just the whole thing was a lot for everybody.
I think everybody was kind of didn't know their way around the world right after it.
It was just, it was like, we planned on it.
We were excited.
And then I just, and so then you're sitting there with all, and you literally have your shame is right there, like in a liquid.
Yeah.
You know, it's like, hey, here's it.
You're talking if you, if you bust, you're not fast.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, I ejaculated immediately in my hair.
Well, guys.
Yeah.
And that scientifically means you're like good, right?
The faster, the better.
That's how we're programmed.
That's true.
If we were like in the jungle days or something, we would be.
Do it, move on onto the next.
That's how it goes.
That's efficiency.
I'd be Elon bust.
Yeah.
I'd be fucking.
But yeah, I think at that point, everybody was so just confused.
People weren't even using the doorway anymore.
Like it was just that kind of thing, you know.
Actually, if you pull up, look up bowling in St. Tammany Parish.
This place looks like it's the fucking bowling capital of the world.
A lot of bowling alleys in a very short area.
Yeah, if you look on that one, Tiffany Lane's at 3.4 stars.
Just click on that one.
If you, oh man, there's a review somewhere and somebody wrote.
So you can go to the first review on there.
Oh, it's closed down.
Yeah.
Somebody sent me the other day.
It says like, sometimes there's like.
Oh, there you go.
Oh, this was like the top question on there.
I'm here because of, oh, Theovan became a man behind this building.
It was just the craziest thing.
One of my friends said, hey, I'm looking for a place to bowl locally.
And this came up.
And the top thing says that Theovan became a man.
So it's like a known fact.
This is where you lost your Virginia.
Picking up splits, homie, in there, cuz.
Love it.
Interesting, man.
Yeah, I was just kind of wondering, like, what maybe you were like when you were younger, you know?
Yeah, like I said, traditional.
I don't very, very forgettable.
Probably a lot of people like me.
Normal grown, played sports, ran with like the popular crowd in school, but just one of the guys.
Yeah.
You love sports now.
It seems to be like something you really love.
Do you really, really love it?
Do you love just the gambling?
Do you love sports?
Yeah.
So I always love sports.
I love gambling.
And obviously it's what we do now.
So that worked out.
Like before I started Barcelona, I was trying, I wanted to get into that industry.
Right.
Yeah.
I flew out to Vegas, tried to do all the stuff.
So it's worked out perfectly for me.
I'm probably like one of the few guys who's made money through gambling.
Most people get wiped out.
So yeah, no, I'm a big sports fan.
And obviously it's been a core part of what we do.
So it makes me like I'm not, maybe I'm not getting arrested and going to jail if we're not doing Barcelona.
I'm not like that crazy if I was just sitting around as a normal fan.
Okay.
But I love sports.
Boston sports guy through and through.
Yeah.
Do you think that they should have legal gambling like everywhere?
Because I know you guys work with, your gambling site is.
Barcelon Sports.
Barcelon Sportsbook.
Okay.
Barcelona Sportsbook.
Yeah.
And they even have bars like I was in Baton Rouge and they have like a Barcelona Sportsbook bar.
In the casino.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because so we were bought by a company called Penn and they have La Berge.
We also have like standalone.
So we're actually getting one here in Nashville.
Yeah, there'll be a Barcelona Sports Bar.
It's where like the old Joe's Crab Shack used to be.
So it's a good spot.
So I think it will eventually go most states, but it so gambling became legal to bet on sports outside of Vegas maybe two years ago, two and a half, something like that.
They repealed some federal law, and now it's up to the states.
So they just decide state by state.
So I think we're live in like maybe 11 or 12 states.
And do you lobby for that somehow?
Or are you just that's just let the world do that?
Our parent company lobbies for it and all the different companies that are involved in it lobby for it.
And then there's people who lobby against it.
So I have nothing to do with it.
But yeah, there's a lot of politicking going around with that.
Do you get more joy out of making like a big wager on one thing or hitting like a crazy parlay?
I don't do as much as parlays.
So like bet on one thing, winning it.
I mean, I've bet my whole life.
So it's just, but yeah, no, I love it.
I love gambling.
Yeah, you like to gamble?
Like, do you feel like that that's just like a thing you like to do just with sports or even like kind of with everything, like you kind of like to go kind of like the alternate route a little bit?
Yeah, it's, I definitely, even barstool.
Like I think being an entrepreneur kind of is like gambling, different, different respect, but I saw a barstool with nothing really.
And everything we made, we put back into it.
For the most part, work, but, you know, we did concert.
I thought we were going out of business at one point because I put all our money into like a concert tour and it kind of fucked.
What was it?
Like Third Eye Blind or something?
No, believe it or not.
So we did this thing.
We had never left downtown Boston ever.
And I was like, all right, we got to see if we're big outside of Boston.
And we had liquor sponsors at the time.
And they were like, well, you know, we can't sponsor you if you're going to colleges.
And we're like, well, what if we make it a music tour?
Could you?
They said, yeah.
So we had this kid, Sam Adams.
He kind of blew up.
And he's got some big songs.
We did it.
We did six stops and it went really well, bigger than we ever thought.
And I looked at it.
So we originally thought we were going like frats.
And we go to UMass and the actual school calls are like, hey, we're getting all these requests for tickets.
What is this?
So we went from the frat to the actual like Mullen Center, which is the gymnasium, sold out in a second.
My brain's going the business side.
It's like, hey, if I can recreate this with like big talent, I may be onto something.
So we had a music tour.
It was headlined by Mike Posner.
Do you remember like cooler than me at the time?
I saw Mike two weeks ago.
Yeah.
So that song just came out.
He was the headliner.
It was him, Wale, and Mac Miller for $1,500.
That's how much we were paying him to play.
So he was the third guy coming up on it.
And nobody fucking bought.
Well, people bought tickets same amount as the first time we went around.
It turned out our crowd, they weren't coming necessarily for who we were booking.
They're coming because Barstool was on it.
Oh, wow.
We got fucking wiped out.
I actually hated Bozner.
He didn't promote this shit.
He didn't promote it at all.
Not his fault, his agent's fault.
So that was a disaster.
And then we moved from that because it was kind of like, all right, if people are coming for barstool, not the talent, does it really matter?
And we went into EDM.
So you lost your butt on that?
Smoked.
Because you had to pay the act so much?
Pay the accent.
I rented the buildings.
So we were going, I was paying like $100,000 or something a night, and we weren't doing it.
I thought I was going to have to pay the full thing.
We had to cancel a lot of the shows.
So that was a disaster.
And then we came up with something called the Blackout Tour, which essentially was a DJ playing EDM music.
This is at the infancy of EDM, and it exploded.
Like to the point we had, I bought all our own production.
You could go to an EDM show.
It looked like ours.
We had a full crew doing it.
I thought.
And were you into it?
Were you like doing the pills and everything?
Were you like partying?
No, we had, we did three shows a week throughout the country.
Like we had a whole crew driving around, setting up the lights, renting venues.
I thought I was going to become so rich that I'd be like Bezos and retire.
We were clearing like $250,000 a show.
It was nuts.
And we weren't paying for talent.
So we were charging $50 a ticket, selling out literally.
And it was just like an EDM party show?
Yes.
So this crew, so you guys are just in Boston and this crew is now traveling doing shows for you.
Correct.
Like, have you ever heard of there's a festival like Bamboozle?
It's a big festival in New Jersey.
So the Bonro Bamboozle is like one of those type things.
And we were on a call with Live Nation.
I'll never forget this call.
Like, we want you to close the last music they had was Bon Jovi.
They're like, we want you to come on after Bon Jovi and close it.
They're like, we'll pay you 250 grand just to show up.
And before we could say anything, they're like, we know it's not a lot of money.
It's cheap.
But you'll introduce your music to so many new people.
And I was like, wait, wait, we don't have music.
What are you talking about?
There's no one to like, what do you mean you have no music?
The only thing they saw was our ticket sales in their system.
Whenever we put tickets, they were gone in 10 seconds.
So we like did that, turned into a phone thing.
But that was because of the barstool name again.
So you're still like, we're just selling EDM.
Yeah, dude, because where I'm from, if somebody showed up with damn two laser lights and a fucking flood beam, dude, people would pay $50 nuts for it.
And it was fucking the woods outside of it.
Like we had a Vici like playing our thing for like no money.
It was before the DJ thing took off.
Okay, so you did actually have talent coming to the.
Yeah, we rotate, but we wouldn't pay a lot.
Like we paid maybe two grand for a Vici.
It was before the DJ boom.
Right.
Then the DJ boom started happening and a couple things happened.
We had our name and we're always sort of controversial, but if somebody OD'd at EDM Vegas, we would be mentioned.
It'd be like Barcelona Blackout or part of this and people would be calling me.
Insurance went through the roof and news crews were following like our production around just looking for controversy.
So the whole thing, as quick as it came, it disappeared.
Because of insurance, really?
Insurance, EDM.
It went from there'd be one EDM show at a college a month to there were three a week.
And we were playing Avici's music and Avici was going to be there tomorrow.
So a whole host of factors.
And I was investing.
This is the gambling part.
Every cent I made, I'm like, let's get the next biggest laser.
Let's get this.
Let's get that.
So we put it all back in.
At the end of the day, we're probably net even.
Like we didn't make money.
We didn't lose money.
When it comes to a business sense, was that a tough thing to realize?
Like even just as my own business and world has grown, like it's tough sometimes to realize, especially if you don't come from a lot, to reinvest in stuff.
Has that always, I mean, obviously in that instance, it kind of evened out.
But do you, has that like been a tough thing for you to realize?
Or is that like, what?
No, for me, that's been like, that's just something I think that's in my like blood.
That goes back to the gambling.
Like I've made money.
I don't think I need money.
Like I didn't have any for a long time.
Not that I was like living like I could eat, but no, I did have a risk taker personality.
So I never, I'm always like pushing things into the middle.
Now, I'm at a different stage in my life.
Right.
So would I risk it all now?
I've been doing this for 20 years.
Be like, if I thought there was a huge opportunity, I'm going to put everything back.
Probably not.
But at that point, we were still pushing.
Yeah.
That's so cool, man, because you kind of became like this guy who's like, I'll fucking put it on the table right now.
Even throughout like the pandemic and stuff, like the way you were like kind of, you know, you were championing like keeping small businesses open and what the, what are we doing here?
Not afraid to interview Trump or to talk about, you know, conservative like views or even look at them, you know, when a lot of the world was like mainstream media was like kind of shunning them.
Do you get, is that kind of a little bit of the high?
Because I'm just wondering, like, because gambling is kind of a high, but there's a little bit of high in fucking gambling with yourself as well.
Yeah, that's always, you know, we never look for fights with that stuff.
I'm pretty, I'm pretty much a free speaker.
I have had to tone it down, which is, I got a lot of haters out there.
And I always say that probably the number one benefit they have that they don't realize is that Penn, the gambling company, bought us because we are regulated.
So it's, it's for the first time since I've been doing barstool, people can sort of get at me through a side door.
Like, I don't care what you fucking say about me.
I really don't.
And I have thick skin.
And if you're going to come at me, I'll come at you.
Like, I've done things that not, like, I've staked out fucking a New York Times reporter, like, who was, I know, digging through my fucking past and life and trying to like really write a nasty hit piece about me.
It's like, if you want to fucking talk to me, let's fucking talk.
And I wait, I did like a 48 hours.
Like I was, I literally parked my car with my camera guy outside the house for like six hours and just waited for them to come out, ran out and like confronted them.
I like doing that.
I like, I just, I, it's like I'm a confrontational person by nature.
So that, that part of me has always been there.
I have had to tone it down a little bit because I don't, Barcelona's so much bigger than just me now.
And what I do does affect other people.
And I see it like I go on Fox News, I'll go and talk to Carlson, and he knows I'm not overly like political, but every time I go on there, that affects how people view the whole company.
And some people may have different views, whatever.
So that I do sort of pay attention to.
It still doesn't affect necessarily what I do.
Like people are mad within our company that I interviewed Trump.
Right.
But, you know, you got to make the decisions you think are right at the time.
Yeah.
Dude, it was a fun, that interview was so funny, man, when he was like, you're like, you ever just rattle off a tweet and then just kind of hit his.
I still think I'm the only guy who's ever gotten him to say like, yeah, I regret something.
He's like, yeah, I do regret it.
I don't know that he's ever been like, I regret something in his life except for that.
Yeah.
It was so good.
When he's like, yeah, you know, you just write it and go to sleep.
And then you wake up and you're like, what the fuck did I write?
He's like, yeah, I've done that.
I've done that.
He was, listen, people have such strong opinions about him.
I think right off the bat, he kind of realized I wasn't like out to be like, gotcha.
So he was good with me.
He was down to earth.
He was not like his guard wasn't up.
It was a surreal experience.
Oh, yeah.
I can only imagine.
I remember watching that interview and watching you sit there.
I'm like, God, dude, that'd be so like, first of all, Dave's doing this, you know, like he's actually going and like, you know, whereas everybody else was just like making fun of Trump or not even giving him a chance.
I mean, mainstream media did not, I mean, he didn't help himself at certain points, but they didn't help him out of the gate or give him a chance.
But you're right there.
It's sort of, there's definitely a similarity with him and how I, it's like, if you come at him, he'll be a dick 10 times harder back to you.
When you're president, that can cause like issues.
Like I have so many things that people still bring up with me and they'll bring up quotes or whatever.
And somebody who came after me and I'm being like so sarcastic and an asshole back to them.
And then they take what it is.
So I see it, but you're right.
He's, you know, he's the president.
He was the president.
So like I'm not the president.
So I can do a lot of things.
I'm not trying to be presidential.
And I think some people are like, well, you should be.
And he's a totally different cat.
Oh, I remember when he was running, I thought right at the beginning, I was like, he's going to win.
I was like, he just sounds like he just, it seemed like it's not a part of a bigger plan, you know?
But then I wonder once he got in office, is it just too convoluted in there?
Or was he just kind of overshooting his own mark?
Or did, you know, that's what I kind of wonder because in the beginning, he was kind of like, even though he wasn't really like this came from nothing kind of guy, he was kind of talking to a lot of people that I think felt underrepresented or, you know, people who want some tradition in the country, you know?
And it's like he was dismissed by so many people.
And I think that almost made him more popular with the people he was resonating.
Like any way you look at it, he won the election.
So there's a large, large, large portion of the country he was speaking to.
And people are so dismissive.
If you weren't on his side, if you like Trump, you're like a racist asshole idiot.
So you're saying like more than half the country are those people.
Now, I'm sure there's definitely a subsection within his demo that do fit that description, but certainly not everybody.
And you just paint everybody with one brush.
It actually made him more popular doing that.
Oh, for sure.
You know, I've said before, he's intentionally divisive, which, you know, I want people to get along.
So that's where I kind of lose it.
And it's not just him.
It's both sides.
It's like you need somebody who at least honestly wants to bring people together.
And I don't know who that's going to fucking be.
That's a good point, huh?
Yeah, you do.
And it's not Biden because he's so dismissive of the people who do like Trump.
It's like they're just, everything's now.
It is.
And so that sucks.
It is.
It takes away almost half the dating pool, I think, for a lot of people, too.
I think about that sometimes.
It does.
It does.
You know, like it used to be, you know, it used to be it didn't matter so much if someone, like, you'd have husbands and wives at a different political.
It was just kind of.
It's toxic now.
It's gotten weird.
Would you ever run for like a governor or something?
Fuck no.
I ran for mayor of Boston.
Oh, you did?
Yeah.
I didn't know that.
I tried to.
They fucking blackballed me.
So the most Boston shit.
They did.
They did.
This is, I'm telling you, I was doing that blackout.
People get blackballed all kinds of stuff.
I was doing the blackout tour that I told you about.
Okay.
So we rented these venues.
House of Blues is a venue in Boston, like 3,000 people.
We sold it out, I think, seven straight days and like 30 seconds.
We were doing it, so there's a ton of schools in Boston.
So like, hey, Monday, it's a BU Barcel blackout.
Tuesday, BC.
Wednesday, Northeastern.
So all the kids at each school would buy it, sold it out instantly.
The police were so fucking like bat.
They're breathless.
Have you ever heard of kids getting breathalized in line, going down the line?
If we sold 3,000 tickets, like 20 kids got into the show.
Everyone else, too drunk, this, that.
I was like, this is fucking bullshit.
So I'm like, I'm going to run for mayor so they can't do this shit to me anymore.
And you had to basically get, what was it, like 12,000 signatures to get on the ballot.
Now, there's two parts of the signature.
You had to be able to read the signature and the person had to be a registered voter.
I hired a full-blown agency.
You have professional people get it.
Like, get the signatures.
We had like 20,000.
They just ruled 10,000 of them didn't count.
There's no way to appeal.
There's no nothing.
So I didn't make it onto the ballot.
But yeah, I was like trying to do it.
That's wild.
But other than that, no, who needs that?
I don't, who would ever, I've used this quote like the movie Gladiator when Maximus, it's the king wants Maximus to be the leader of Rome.
He's like, no thanks, dude.
Who wants that headache?
And he's like, that's exactly why you have to do it.
Who in their right mind would want to be in politics?
The person you want in politics should be somebody who's not doing it for ego, who truly cares about the well-being of the people, not doing it to money, get rich.
None of the politicians do that.
Because why would you?
I never understood that with Trump.
Like, you're this rich dude.
Nobody really hates you.
Like, people actually kind of loved you on the apprentice.
Like, you know, you have no ill will.
He's going to go down as one of the most hated dudes who ever lived.
Like, why?
Just, I guess, ego.
Like, yeah, maybe that's ego.
I mean, I could see it.
If somebody gets to say, you get to be president, Everybody wants to be, you know, or a little bit.
For you?
I mean, maybe for like an, you know, a couple hours, I don't know if I would do a full term.
You know, like, I think I'd want to be in the office and like walk down and see like that.
Well, that's ego.
Yeah, it's ego.
Yeah, that's it, which is cool.
But the amount of hate and the amount, like, I, I get so much hate and it's all political.
Like people who don't like me always, if you don't like Dave Ford, I can go to your Twitter and within three, you have something political on your timeline.
Yeah.
And it's like, who needs that?
Now, I don't know how isolated like these guys are.
Like when I went and visited Trump, you know, everyone's so pro-Trump.
It's like he, maybe he doesn't even, the hate doesn't get to him on a level.
I don't know.
But no, I will never run.
Yeah.
But do you think 10 years from now, you're like, oh yeah, I'm not fucking running.
No fucking way.
Wow.
No.
I think we would, I would love, I mean, I guess part of me would like to see you have, but then also, I, I sometimes feel like politics is just this like, it's this, this shell company for actual real leaders, which is a lot of it is in the tech world these days.
Yeah.
And even if you look at like you mentioned the barstool fund, which we gave away 50 million basically to like the government couldn't do that.
They move so fucking slow.
If you actually want to get stuff done, it's way easier to do it the way I did it, which is we just set it up 24 hours later, the money's going in.
And the second the money comes in, the money's going out.
They did, the government basically did nothing for like small business.
They're still talking about now and so much fraud with the PPP and shit like that.
So I don't know.
It's hard.
Yeah.
And if you really want to get stuff done, you can get stuff done not within, you know, the government.
Well, it's almost becoming more like that, I think, in the, in America these days.
It's like there's all the like, you know, there's a few kind of, there's less companies.
There's less mom and pop places.
There's just a few larger companies.
Oh, totally, man.
It's ridiculous.
I wish we had never done so much globalization.
I don't know a lot about that kind of stuff, but it's like, you know, the guy, the kid down the street, it used to be their dad worked at the factory in the town and they were proud of like, if their dad's factory made tables, they were proud of the table they had in their house.
My dad made this, you know?
And there was like a sense of like, you were doing something.
Now your table comes from China.
You have no idea.
The dad's doing pills.
The kid is in the other room, you know, cooking pills.
And then there's a guy in China making a table.
He gets shipped off.
He never sees it.
There's just like, I mean, it's kind of a very small example, but no, that was a small business.
We look for like generational.
And that was what was so sad about it.
Like nobody was helping these people.
It really was crazy.
It's like, hey, you can't have customers, right?
But we're not going to give you the money.
So like, what do they think is going to happen?
It's like that, that to me was always the wildest part.
Yeah.
And again, I mean, you've built up your career over the time.
The barcelo was the same.
I always looked at it like, I worked my dick off to get where I was.
And then if something that's so far out of control and it just vanishes like that and nobody's there to like, that is what the government, in my mind, that's what it's fucking for.
Like that is what we're paying taxes and all this shit.
Nobody was nowhere to be found.
Like if you want to keep shit closed, fine, but you better figure out how to take care of the people who need things to be open or let people make their own decisions.
One or the other.
Yeah, I agree.
I mean, I go to a lot of like recovery meetings and stuff and they closed all those recovery rooms, right?
Right.
That's crazy.
Bro, I had, no joke, I had five, maybe six friends that overdosed and died during the pandemic, right?
Died.
Like, and it was, and people were like, well, it's not because, but they need those rooms.
Like, they just fucking shut it down.
Like, what do you think people, I'd rather have COVID than overdose.
And to be honest, that was always my point.
It's like you let, let people decide.
Right.
Like, if you were, you know, like my parents or whoever, like scared of COVID, you do have the option to stay inside.
Like, nobody's coming into your house.
You can, you can live your life pretty safely.
I get it.
I mean, it was crazy.
Fucking, it's like a horror movie.
Who knows?
Yeah, shit.
Like, people are at their, like, at their funerals over Zoom.
Like, you know what I'm saying?
Like, what the fuck?
That's crazy.
That was crazy time.
Yeah.
Crazy time.
And then I talked to my friends in Mexico and like, yeah, nobody's doing shit down here, dude.
We're fucking partying.
We're shooting each other.
We're fucking having a blast.
You know, we're drinking.
Shooting each other.
I mean, probably grazing each other, but there's a lot of violence down there.
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Two title fights, one epic night.
I'm talking about UFC 284 this Saturday.
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You've had some, like, dude, you've done a really good job of like hiring like really neat talent, like guys like Caleb, Big Cat, who's your, you know, I don't know if you hired him or he was a partner.
No, no, we hired him.
Okay.
Yep.
You know, Glenny Balls.
Wow.
Was there Caleb, Big Cat, and Glenny Balls getting put in that category is pretty fucking high level for some better guys.
I don't know.
And Big Freddy or whatever.
Who's the guy that's tank the tank?
Yeah, that guy, huh?
Yeah.
Listen, we've hired.
I'm bet the under on him, huh?
He's a big dude.
He'll surprise you, though.
That's like you don't think he can fit in an airplane seat, and he can't.
So he'll shock you.
We had Jenna Marbles.
Do you know her?
Yeah.
Yeah, she came from us.
Really?
Yeah.
Dude, I was in love with her, dude.
Yeah.
Hired her out of a tanning salon.
Oh, I could see that.
McAfee, Pat McAfee was us.
Really?
Yeah.
We have a pretty good roster.
How do you pick talent?
Now, obviously, people end up usually speaking mostly of people's successes, right?
Do you feel like you've had a good eye for it, or do you feel like you've had just as many hits and misses?
What do you think?
No, we definitely have a good eye for it.
We have misses for sure.
I think, though, the biggest thing, we have an eye for it and we don't control people at all.
So, you know, we hire somebody and then it's like, you do you.
And hopefully they find the way.
Like Caleb, use an example.
Like we saw him, he was running up and down the sidelines of North Carolina.
He was like, because they wouldn't, because he never started.
Yeah.
And he wasn't even uniform.
His title was like, I think the professor of morale or director of morale.
So he had his blonde hair.
He'd wear like a ex-North Carolina professional football player who's now in the league, their number.
And we saw him on TV.
We're like, who the fuck is this kid?
We had him on one of our shows.
Like, oh, he's got a weird brain.
That's what we say.
Like, we look for weird brains, unique guys.
And we hired him.
And it's like, yeah, do whatever you want.
And, you know, he kind of, he was always talented and funny, bounced around kind of trying to find his niche.
And then he, the Sunday conversation, which is now his kind of trademark thing and is great, that took a couple years for him to like fit that exact perfect role.
And we just let people sort of do that.
So I think it's the combo.
We have a good eye for talent, but more so, we are so free in letting.
And I don't know if that's just, we're lazy or whatever, but we never tell people what to do.
It's like you're hired.
We'll give you the resources.
Do whatever you want.
And we've had a lot of hits because of it.
Like PMT, which is big cat.
Yeah, dude.
Like that was all his idea.
I mean, totally.
Like, I thought podcasts, when I first heard about podcasts, a guy, Kevin Clancy, who's been with us forever.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I'm like, that's a stupid idea.
Podcasts, you'll never make money doing that.
But they fucking did it.
Obviously, they were smarter than me.
Call her daddy, that came from us.
Yeah, yeah.
Alex Cooper.
So, yeah, we've had a lot of big, big successful people that really were.
I mean, McAfee played in the NFL, but no one knew him on the media side.
A lot of big people that Million Dollars Worth of Game is a huge urban podcast with us right now.
So yeah, we've had a lot of big successes.
Was there someone that you, can you turn the heat on?
You're a little chilly, huh?
I broke out my scarf game for a long time.
Nice, man.
I want to become a scarf guy.
Yeah.
Really?
Yeah.
Ooh.
That's a move, I feel like.
Yeah, it is.
This is the first time kind of debuting, going with it, but it's good.
I was taking off in the car.
I'm like, you know what?
I'm going to try to maybe get into the scarf phase of my life.
There is something nice.
It feels like it almost you feel a little bit regal or you feel like at least they'll let you in a department store.
I feel like.
And I'm starting to get, like, fat.
It's kind of like...
I saw you say that on a video the other day.
It comes with the age.
So it's like I've been doing the pizza thing forever.
My shoulders all fucked.
So yeah, I think it's just, you know, life.
Yeah.
Was there a hire or a fire or something?
Because, oh, I wanted to say this.
Yeah, Caleb, whenever I got to know Caleb, one thing he raves about is that he loves working for you.
Yeah, he's been great.
I think.
I mean, he genuinely like, you know what I'm saying?
Like some people say my job, but he has, I mean, he absolutely loves it.
I think there's two things for him that probably he likes working for us, me, is the freedom, which I just said.
And I always do what I say.
So I have the back of the talent as much as I can always.
But like, if I say something, it's his bond.
I actually think in his contract, he has something.
Like when Penn bought us, he's like, if there's a disagreement between Penn and me or something, like Dave gets to make the final decision.
He just, he just trusts that.
It's good to work for somebody where you, you know, you can trust like they have your best interests.
And I do.
And some people may not like what I say or do, but I'm pretty straightforward.
And the track record is like there.
Like 20 years, I've been pretty consistently straightforward, honest, truthful.
Yeah.
Is there a hire or a departure that you regret or that you like somebody that you let go or anything?
Or did you have any?
No, I mean, we hired Mike Rappaport.
This is a big fucking, I don't like that guy right now.
He doesn't like me.
He doesn't like me.
That was a debacle.
I literally, if I throw a punch, I've never been in a fight in my life, never thrown a punch in anger.
If I threw a punch right now with my left arm, it would dislocate.
That's how fucked up my shoulders are.
He got me so mad, I sent him a contract to fight him.
Like that's how fucking that ended terribly.
The McAfee thing with us didn't end great, but like I don't really have regrets.
He was always going to be like a huge star on his own.
He's so good at so many things.
So no, not too much.
Yeah.
I mean, we've become to a degree, and I always had a Saturday Night Live model, like we bring unknown talent and try to make them stars and we'll keep them as long as we can keep them.
But really, you know, if we can't, hopefully they go become big somewhere else.
And it adds more credibility for us, you know, because then people are like, oh, this is a place where I can get a start and build my name and either stay with Barsville or not.
We've been pretty good at that.
Like we got a girl now, Brianna Chicken Fry.
She's fucking exploding.
Like she's she's becoming big.
So yeah, we.
Yeah, she's cute.
I saw her on your thing.
Is that Native American?
What is chicken fry?
That was just, she likes chicken fries.
Like, you know, like the, I think it was Burger King, right?
Chicken fries?
Chicken fries?
Yeah.
So.
Oh, it's not a last name.
No, no, that was her, when we hired her, she already had like Brianna chicken fries as her TikTok user handle.
Oh, okay.
Because I think she liked chicken fries.
Either that likes late at night.
What's that?
She likes eating late at night, probably.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, I was wondering.
Yeah, I thought maybe she was like Cherokee or something.
Imagine that.
That'd be like your Native American name, chicken fry.
That would be fucking fire.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I almost knocked up this Native American girl one time.
So I met this girl in a motel, right?
So.
How does that work?
Like, is there like, does, do motels have like motel bars?
Or like you just saw her walk into a room?
Oh, no, no.
This girl, we met on social media, right?
Got it.
And this would probably history.
I might even remember.
Oh, it was an intentional meetup.
Yeah.
So she drove, I think, like 10 or 11 hours, too.
And she drove from like she-oh, yeah.
Yeah.
It was, and she was a Native American.
And so she drove in and she and we ended up making love or whatever.
I don't remember exactly what happened.
But then on the drive home, I guess she got kind of bored and she starts saying, well, if I'm pregnant, I'm going to keep this child.
And now I'm like, right after that.
Although, to her defense, you probably do have a lot of time to think on a 10-hour drive.
That's a good point.
That's actually a lot of things go through your mind.
Yeah.
I should have given her at least five hours to be hypothetically pregnant on that 10-hour.
Yeah, yeah.
Like a 10-hour drive, you're thinking a lot of shit.
Yeah.
Yeah, especially when you're just driving back to the res or whatever, and you just get back there, and it's a bunch of free gasoline from the government, and you're like, what the fuck am I going to do with this family?
You know, if I have a family.
But anyway, she got intense.
And God, that made me so nervous.
Did you, because you got into a relation.
You are.
I was married.
I'm in a relationship now.
Okay.
In a relationship now.
And was it, did you, were you looking for a relationship or did it just kind of happen?
Which one?
My current girlfriend?
Current girlfriend.
No, no.
So, like, my ex-wife, basically, I met when I started Barcelona right about the same time.
And I'm still like best friends with her.
She's the best.
And then I was single for a while, probably living a crazier lifestyle, I would say.
Like, it was a totally different time because Barcelona was nothing.
And to obviously, like, being well-known, fame, money brings more women and opportunities into your life.
So I've seen you fucking on Twitter a little.
At some point, I had seen something, you know.
Oh, yeah.
I didn't watch all of it.
There's some stuff out there that, you know.
Good for you, man.
You know, I get embarrassed.
Like, if I'm, I even walk out of the room backwards because I don't want women seeing my butt and stuff.
No, I was a big video guy.
Like, that probably, and back in time, it's like, who the fuck would ever want to watch me fuck?
But so, I don't know, five years single and then just met her.
Silvana is her name.
It was pretty organic.
Yeah.
And is it kind of less stressful?
Because I start to find that like, like as you start, you don't want to just like hook up with strangers.
It gets a little bit like scary kind of like, you know, it's like, I don't want a child, like even a possible child somewhere.
Yeah, I, no, I was pretty free and loose.
I would never, like in hindsight, I was probably a fucking idiot because there's a lot of, a lot of post shit that I've dealt with that a lot of people know about me.
I mean, I, I, you know, hit pieces written about me, about my sexual activities, sex states, I've had it all, which I never would have guessed for like, fucking me.
Like that, if, if someone back in high school is like, wait till you fucking see what this guy's gonna turn out to be, like, I, I would have never fucking guessed it.
So yeah, I was probably playing fast and loose is how I would describe it.
But whatever.
It's been a wild ride.
I'll say that.
Yeah, it's been exciting, man.
I think it seems like it's really been exciting.
Do you feel like a pressure?
Like, I feel a pressure as I get older to try and stay like younger and stuff.
Does that feel hard for you?
Does it feel like you?
No, no.
I feel like it's been a fairly natural thing.
Like, I, so I probably crammed so much into that five years of being single.
Like, I never went to clubs really ever.
And then I started going out a lot.
And, you know, I went from the guy who's like with his buddies, if you're trying to save up to go at once, like, how the fuck am I going to afford this table?
Only fucking losers would pay for that table.
All the girls are there, but it's like, I can't fucking afford this.
You know, you're getting opportunity.
Like, I remember I was just saying on the way over, like Super Bowl is coming up and I'm getting every invite in the book.
Like, hey, come to this party.
We have a table here, a table there.
And I sent it to this guy, Paul Gaz, who's, who's been employed basically number one, worked at my kitchen table.
We went to a Super Bowl party and we had to pay 25 grand for a table.
For us, that's like, do we have it?
Credit card, can we do it?
And they fucking put us in a satellite room.
We weren't even in the room where the fucking party was happening.
We were watching the party on a TV.
And I just, I sent them the link.
I'm like, man, times have changed.
We're getting, but so I, I, I did that phase.
I mean, I was doing drugs.
I was going out all the time.
Yeah.
It was just like a very different phase of my life.
Now, I really don't like being in clubs at all.
Like, I, Silvana, my girlfriend, still loves it, but I've, I've toned it.
I've gotten her to be like, listen, I can't, I, I don't want to be there.
Like, this is not where I want to be.
I don't feel comfortable.
I actually do feel old in those situations.
Yeah.
The first time in my life, I look around like, damn, I'm a fucking old guy in here.
So that part of my life, I think, is pretty much in the rear view.
Like Super Bowl, yeah, I'll go out.
But I mean, I was going out, fuck, four or five days a week.
Damn.
Pretty, pretty heavy.
Pretty heavy.
And were you partying pretty hard?
Could you party pretty hard or not?
Yeah, I was.
I never used to, but I was.
Were y'all doing drugs too, cocaine?
I'm not a big coke guy.
People always think I'm a coke guy.
I'm pretty honest about what.
What's the hair, probably?
This looks like a hair?
Oh, the hair looks like I'll find a gram in it, son.
Yeah, like a walmart.
Like a slick back guy.
I think it looks like a wet hair.
And maybe now, especially since you live in Florida, maybe that adds to it.
Like you think like, oh, this guy.
Yeah, no, I was doing a lot.
Adderall would be like, I do a lot just to even wake up, work.
I think SDC is the best drug there is.
Like, you know, I never get depressed on it.
But no, I was never big on Coke.
But like, for me to be out, I don't know how people, I mean, what are you, Miami doesn't fucking close.
Yeah, Miami's insane, man.
So you're there.
Even the trees, man, you'll walk by two trees.
It'll be fucking tough for you.
It literally like is.
Like, you walk out of 11 and there's a fucking line at 9 a.m.
It's just, I don't even know what people do then.
How you working?
What are you doing?
And people don't start going out.
It's like, hey, you want to go out to 11?
It's like, sure, you're going to be the only fucker in the club.
Like, nobody's out yet.
So it's a super late city.
And yeah, I was definitely partying.
I was definitely partying.
Dude, a friend of mine got all coked up one night, fell off of his balcony, right?
Landed on another balcony, right?
And T.I., the rapper, came out and found him.
T.I. is a big, big Miami guy.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's all sorts of shit.
I remember I was like, who was it?
Who's with Miami guys?
I was at 11. There's another rapper who is always in Miami.
Whatever, whoever this guy.
He's a big rapper.
And a camera guy came up.
I moved out of the way.
He's like, hey, this guy ruins the story not knowing him.
I'll probably think of it.
Put Miami rapper.
Look up Google Miami rapper.
Was he thick guy?
No, he's a little guy.
Okay.
Oh, it might be, what's his name?
Who has that same beat over and over again?
But he's from Atlanta, that guy.
He wears the green gloves in that one video.
Ludicrous.
No.
No, no.
Pitbull, Sean Kingston.
No, no.
He's a little skinny guy.
He's been around forever, but he's still super popular.
Nelly.
This is going to bother the fuck out of me.
Not Nelly.
Play guest that rapper.
I almost, it was similar.
Bobby Schmurda, no.
No, feel like it was.
Keep going down.
Hulk Hogan?
No, not a rapper.
Jason Derulo.
I did a pizza review of him, no.
He seems like a nice guy.
He was.
He ate pizza with no cheese, though, which is wild.
You know who told me the earth was flat?
Two black guys at a pizza parlor.
The earth was flat.
First time I ever heard it.
That's Kyrie.
Yeah, it might have been.
Who the fuck am I thinking of?
Cat Dahlia?
lives in Miami.
He actually just...
Oh.
Trick Daddy.
No, I like that song, though.
Take it to the house.
My, who?
It's just for whatever.
The story is fucking ruined.
Yeah, it's fucking ruined, dude.
It's ruined.
Forget the fucking story.
Dude, I went to Paris Fashion Week last week, right?
And which is crazy.
Yeah, which is crazy, right?
So this guy, Colm Delane, he's like a fashion guy, right?
He makes fashion.
So he had comedians come and be in his fashion show.
Andrew Schultz went, a couple of other guys.
And it's the fashion show finally was at like 11 p.m.
And Kodak Black is sitting in there with a baby in the front row.
Kodak Black.
You all time name drops.
I was credited in Kodak Black getting pardoned by Trump.
Were you really?
Yes.
He credited you?
Trump mentioned some convoluted.
Kodak Black actually reached out to me like during the Barcelona fund.
I think he donated and then Trump, when he pardoned me, he's like, Kodak Black donated to Dave Porton.
At the Barcelona Fund, he's like a good guy.
It was a little blurred, but it's like, what the fuck world am I in?
Like Kodak Black Trump crazy.
Yeah.
Everything's crazy now.
Does it excite you or does it scare you?
Like how everything, the lines are so blurred.
Everything feels so crazy.
The news, you can't trust the news anymore.
So there's conspiracy theories.
People are always like, there's all these conspiracy theories.
But it's like a lot of it is because you can't rely on the news.
So people are going to try and get whatever they think the news is.
Yeah.
No, the whole thing.
Yeah, that, which I agree.
I don't trust the fucking news.
Like everybody has an angle.
I've said that, but I don't even know where you go if you want like a non-spin take on something.
Where the fuck do you go?
I don't know.
So, yeah, that is just a way of life.
But I don't know if I find it crazy.
Everyone's just got an agenda.
Everybody.
There's nobody who doesn't have an agenda.
I know.
It's getting weird, huh?
Yeah.
Yep.
Big time.
I just wonder kind of how does that end, you know?
Or do we evolve out of it?
You know, like everything's gotten so like me, you know?
I don't know.
It's an interesting, it definitely feels like an interesting time to be alive.
You got to go and do Joe Rogan experience.
That was your first time, right?
Yeah, it was my first time.
What were you pretty nervous?
Tell me about that.
Yeah, I didn't know what to expect.
I really didn't because I was a huge podcast guy.
And people always, I always got like, hey, you should go on Rogan.
And I'm not like ever somebody really necessarily.
I did ask to go on Rogan once, and that was when all the fucking negative shit was happening.
I wanted to say my case, but I didn't know what to expect.
His studio was sick.
It was easy.
And I met the producer, Jamie, before.
He's like, I know all the barstool shit.
I have no idea what he's going to talk about.
He may talk about all of it, none of it.
Smoked a cigar.
I'm not a cigar.
I got like fucking weirdly high from smoking.
It's hard, isn't it?
Yeah, it's like, I am not a cigar guy.
And his studio is like trippy, right?
It's like with the little lights.
And it went by quick.
My main thing, honestly, because I know he goes so long.
It's like, if I go two hours, that probably means he fucking didn't like me and like I'm out.
So once it ended, I'm like, how long was it?
But it was cool.
And it's so big, you know, you don't even real.
I mean, I know how big he is because we're sore in the business.
But even still, like after we did it, so many people just walking on the streets like, oh, listen to Rogan, show the phone.
I mean, his reach is just crazy.
He's probably the most influential, you know, guy in media there is.
I think so.
I think it's been like that for a while.
You know, I think, and especially people didn't realize that until he got that big contract.
That almost kind of, I mean, it was amazing for him and he deserves it.
But when they put out that article that he made like 100 million a year or something, and I think it was twice that, but that's when everybody, like, that's when people started attacking him.
That's when you saw these hit pieces.
It's like, it's just, it's so dangerous kind of like, I don't know.
The media is just so scary.
It's like they can shape anything any way they want.
And I, he, he, he's definitely perceived as a threat because he, he's, he uses escape velocity, whatever.
But you can't control.
Right.
If you can't control how somebody thinks and you really can't hurt them, that, that is a threat.
I think the attacks come and why they came because what's the point really of going after him when he's a solo guy?
He doesn't give a fuck.
When you have Spotify, there's a thought, I can get to him now, right?
Because now Spotify.
Yeah, it's like Spotify backed him up, but I mean, he did have to delete episodes and maybe say things that ordinarily, if it was by himself, maybe would have, maybe he wouldn't have.
But I think that is, that's the switch.
It's like, aha, he kind of has to answer to somebody now, whether he actually does or he doesn't.
But somebody's signing his checks before nobody is.
So what's the point of going out?
What is that going to do?
Because you may just actually ignite more because he doesn't give a fuck.
His audience is his audience.
That would be, to me, the difference in why it happened when he did that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I remember when I first went in, dude, I was so nervous.
I got a tweet, a DM from him in the middle, like, and just like 11 p.m.
or something, but I was going to bed early.
So it was like middle of the night.
And it was like, hey, do you want to call on my show?
And I remember being like, oh my God.
Yeah, I was excited too when I got it.
Yeah.
Because if you people always hit me up like, hey, can you have me get on?
And it's like, there's no real way to get on.
Like, Joe, like, will literally hit people up.
That's exactly how that's how he does it.
It was mine.
So the New York Times wrote basically a hit piece on me.
And they were working on it for a year.
I knew about it.
They dug through my entire fucking past.
So trash.
That's freaking ragged.
Every single person that I was friends with in my network, they're reaching out.
I was having girls call me like that I didn't even know or send me DMs being like, what is this about?
A year long, they really found nothing.
It turned into just like again, like I'm a scumbag gambling hit piece.
The point of the story, the reporter wrote in the article, like we reached out to Dave for comment.
He didn't reach back.
And I posted my exchanges with this woman and they went back, I think, seven months where I'm like, hey, I know you're digging into my past.
I will sit down, meet with you.
We both get to record.
You can ask me anything.
I'll answer anything you want.
I'm right here.
She kept responding.
I'm eager to meet soon, soon.
This went on for months of her being like, I'm eager to meet with you.
I'll talk to you soon.
Ghost for like five, six articles.
She writes the whole article.
She's like, you have 48 hours to respond to a million bullet points.
And I'm like, fuck that.
It's like, I gave you the opportunity.
And I posted the exchange.
Rogan saw that.
And he's like, the New York Times, it's the worst.
And that, that prompted it.
And actually, I had my phone.
So I, I, she, she never, is the reporter never responded.
I wrote, her name is Emily Steele, this lady who wrote the article on me.
This is Friday, January 13th.
I just tweeted a thank you for the hit piece you wrote on me.
It's what landed me on Rogan and introduced a brand new audience to me.
Thank you for being a hater.
It actually made my brand stronger than ever.
Thank you.
So I just sent her that little fucking fee.
Thank you.
Yeah, they fucking do that shit, man.
They do that shit.
They sneak around.
People call somebody, call your old employer.
It's crazy.
And it's like, I've always said, hey, I'm here.
Like, I'm saying I'll sit down.
You can ask me fucking anything and record it as long as I can too.
If you're trying to do a fair, and what's crazy, like I grew up in my brain, like the New York Times is like legit.
That is what I thought of the New York Times.
So I always look at that.
Unless you're in this fucking world and you're like part of it, like even my dad, who's a liberal, hates fucking Trump, that type of guy, like he still has a hard time be like, yeah, the New York Times is biased.
Like he almost has it because he's seen it.
But it is scary because if you're not in it, you just believe like most normal people aren't going to do the back research on a hit piece.
They're going to like, oh, that's true.
So that part of it is fucking scary.
Well, it's even like even headlines and anything.
If somebody writes like Larry's Gay and you see that as the headline, you'd be like, damn, dude.
Right.
Larry's gay.
Did you hear Larry's Gay?
Yeah, Larry's fucking gay.
And they didn't even know who it is.
They didn't even look at who it is, if it's Lawrence or who it is.
Yeah, no, that is.
It's just like, And then it's like, and there's never any apology.
That's the weirdest thing.
You're like, you're, you're, there's never any like recuperate or any.
So Business Insider, who I fucking hate, wrote a hit piece on me, and it was vicious.
Basically, made me sound like a rapist.
And like within 24 hours, I had all the receipts.
Like, oh, thank God.
Of like, well, here's all the proof that this is totally fucking bullshit.
I was, I guess, naive at the time.
Like, oh, they're going to retract it.
Say apology.
They said they wrote another article and my lawyer was like, well, they can now say it's news.
It's like, well, it's only news because they fucking wrote it, but it becomes new.
It's like, what, what kind of fucked up game is this?
It's news now?
It's crazy.
It's fucking crazy.
I went all the way, fucking sued their asses.
And it just, the judge came back.
They're like, there's no way being bad at your job isn't an excuse to like sue.
It's almost like Johnny Depp.
Johnny Depp, when he sued, he originally sued the newspaper and lost because the newspaper can always be like, well, we didn't know that she wasn't telling the truth or we didn't look at any of the other evidence.
You have to sue the actual, like, he sued Amber Heard.
So the whole thing's fucked.
I know, huh?
Makes me really jaded.
Yeah, dude.
This shit makes everybody mad.
I think because you start to feel like there's no way to win against this thing.
And whatever this thing is, but it starts to feel like there's something that you can't.
The only way I look at it, people fucking hate me are always going to hate me.
I could cure cancer.
They'd be like, why didn't you do it faster?
Now, the flip side, the people who like me and love me are always going to love me.
And I've said before what's great.
Now, I tell the truth, but my crowd is so kind of like in my corner.
And I wasn't, but if I wasn't telling the truth, they'd probably still believe me.
It's like, it's almost that they're on my side and the people who aren't aren't.
Now, good for the people like me.
I do tell the truth and it's always honest, but it's so hard to convince.
Once people have their minds set up or made up, it's hard to get them off that point.
They just ignore like facts.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
Yeah.
People want to be blind to facts.
That's kind of bizarre.
But then sometimes I wonder how much do I fall into the same trap even myself.
You know, it's like, I sometimes wonder that.
We saw this thing like BuzzFeed is starting to use like AI to generate articles.
Do you see that?
Yeah.
Stock went up like a bazillion percent because of it.
But do you like, because you have like real, you know, employees with alcoholism and whatever else.
Yeah, yeah, we got the real deal people.
Yeah, you guys got the fucking guy, you know, who's right there, you know, some guy who's, you know, gonna overdose or his wife's gonna leave him because he's writing another article for you.
It's like, you got, yeah, but you got real people.
We got real people.
Yeah, you got real people with fucking asthma, you know, like fucking real motherfuckers.
Does this kind of shit scare you or do you think this is cheap or do you think anything about it?
It's a business.
I mean, I feel like BuzzFeed has always been the lowest common denominator for talent.
So it doesn't surprise me.
Nothing will ever, for our business, we look for weird, talented people.
There's no AI or anything like that who can, you know, replace, well, I like glenny balls.
But no, this isn't our world.
It doesn't scare me.
It doesn't surprise me.
Because it says BuzzVee's using AI to write its articles after firing 180 employees.
Yeah, they're talking about their like listicles and shit.
Right.
So they're just aggregating.
I feel bad for the people who got fired, but I wouldn't say those people were like the pinnacle of like talent, you know?
Right.
So it no Thoreau's, no Wald.
Yeah, you're coming up with like the, you know, the, I don't know, the 10 things you should fucking be doing when you like come home after your grocery.
I don't know what the fuck is that.
Yeah, yeah.
10 things you do when your cat dies.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
So they're just aggregating it.
Again, I do feel bad for the employees.
But this isn't, I wouldn't view BuzzFeed as like my world necessarily.
Like we really are looking for like talented people or weirdos.
Yeah, me and Caleb wanted to try and do a show, you know?
It would be fun.
I like spending time with him.
The bigger, I would say the bigger threat, if you want to call it, to my world, our world is the evolution of like technology.
Like let's take you, for example.
There's probably a world back when we started where you wouldn't have nearly the vehicles to get your name out there without like coming to us, you know, or somebody or TikToker.
Like TikTok doesn't exist.
So if you're a talented person, how do you get your content out there?
It's far fewer places.
So that's the harder thing because we really have to find the talent early, early, early because once someone's pretty established on social media or through their platforms, they don't need us at all.
So that's the harder thing with it.
Do you have somebody looking for that kind of thing?
Yeah, we're always looking for talent.
Really?
Always.
Now, when you say always looking, but do you have like an employee that's actively kind of no, we don't.
Right.
So I guess not, we're, we're always willing to hire talent if we find it.
Right.
But it it is hard.
You got to get them super early.
And our value prop on that early is basically we'll be like gasoline.
We'll accelerate you.
You sign, you know, generally like a two, three year contract.
And if you're good, being in our network should really like give you maybe a way to cut the line, so to speak, to get your name out there.
Then you can reevaluate.
Do you want to stay with us?
You want to do it on your own?
That type of thing.
Yeah.
Do you think anything about like this GP, this GP chat thing, that thing that can make all its own articles and stuff?
It can write papers, you know?
What's the difference between that and the listical shit?
Chat GPT can be like, hey, will you write me a paper?
You know, it's a Dave Portnoy writes a paper on young men trying to meet each other in the 17th century, right?
At night.
And you put that information in there and then it'll do like a three-page paper that would be in your voice.
Sounds like a good fucking way to get through school.
Yeah.
I just wonder how weird that's going to get if every, you know, like the same questions, I mean, the same questions, I guess, will come.
It's like, well, they're sourcing the information from somewhere, you know, so who's facts?
Like, how do you know where you're getting the information from?
What's real, what's not, what's biased?
That doesn't change that part of it.
Yeah.
Yeah, I guess in the end, in the end, I think you're still going to have to have real talent will prevail.
I think even with stuff like this, hopefully most people are going to see through like, oh, this is just another bullshit article.
Yeah.
And it's not anything that even a human wrote.
I feel like you can see that stuff pretty easily on the internet.
And if you're falling for that shit, then you, you or something is wrong with you.
And yeah, I don't know what these things would be used for exactly, but I know in our world at least, a lot of what people like is because they are attached to the personality.
So like if you switch the names on who like you, it changes how people perceive it because if it's Theo Vaughan wrote or did something, people know you and they view it through that lens and that affects their enjoyment or lack thereof.
Yeah, like when Frank left the Jags game early, that shit broke my, I was like, what is even going on?
But I found myself enveloped in his life.
I want to know what's going on.
Why is he leaving early?
I didn't know why he was leaving early either.
It blew my, it's like, this is the best game.
He flew all the way.
You're talking to Bills, Bills, Dolphins.
Yeah, Bills Dolphins.
Sorry.
When Frank left the Bills Dolphins game early, I just.
That's the attitude of Barcelona and full display.
I think I was mad at first because like, why'd we fucking send him there?
Yeah.
If he can't stay.
And by the way, you're never going to make a 6 p.m.
flight.
The game is long, but the game's a one.
You're going to be sitting in traffic.
There's no chance.
So it was doomed from the beginning.
So like this went through like 10 different things at Barcelona.
Like people booked it.
It's like, in what world, you can't, it's a one o'clock game.
You're never going to make six.
So yeah.
Yeah, he's in that park a lot with his luggage.
I'm like, what is even going on?
And I think he really thought he had to leave.
It's like, what are you talking about?
Like, of course, you'll stay the night and fly.
It's crazy.
Tom Brady just retired.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Did you feel anything about that?
So he's, he's.
Do you know Tom?
Very loosely.
But I have like a long history with him because of where I grew up.
Like, of course.
You know, I the good, the bad, the ugly.
Like, so he, first of all, he went to the same school as me, Michigan.
So he's the same year.
Okay.
So oh, really?
So you remember him from college?
Yeah, yeah.
So went to college with him.
Then he comes to the Pats, and I'm in Boston.
And in the Patriots rise, really coincided with the Barstool rise.
So we're so closely linked together everything since I've been involved with like the cops twice with Brady, once in a negative fashion, once in, well, cops involved is never good, but one anti-Brady, I guess you could say, and one pro.
Like, so he way back in the day, he, he basically, Giselle was on the beach with their little kid, Ben.
He was an infant, Ben Brady.
God, wow.
And he was naked.
Who was Tom West?
No, Ben, the kid with Giselle on a beach, my son's beach.
I'd be naked too if I was with her.
Yeah.
Well, keep in mind, the kid's an infant, her son.
Oh, okay.
So it's his son.
Tiny little kid, like the Gerber baby.
Oh, wow.
Huge dick.
Huge dick.
No, wow.
For a little baby.
And you saw it?
How far away were you?
No, it was a fucking paparazzi photo.
It was on the internet.
You can see that wand on him, huh?
Yeah.
And I made a joke that this was the height of the Peyton Manning, Tom Brady rivalry.
So I wrote a blog in this remote blog.
I said, check out the Howitzer on Brady's baby.
And I wrote a sentence below.
I go, Peyton Manning could never have a kid with this big of a hog or something like this.
World War III broke out.
Dave's a pedophile.
He's sexualizing kids.
The kid was an infant.
Police knocked on my door in Boston.
Came in.
They're like, we're going to make your life real fucking horrible if you don't take this down.
Like, people were saying I should be beaten to death.
It was.
Oh, it's like Mystic River.
It was crazy.
So that was way early.
And then fast forward, the Patriots explode.
We end up going to jail defending Brady for when he got suspended by the NFL, handcuffed ourselves to each other at NFL headquarters.
I've been dragged out of the Super Bowl on handcuffs.
Bob Kraft, the owner of the team, when Brady came back with Tampa Bay, called me up.
He's like, I want you to be my guest for when Brady comes back.
So it's been the full circle.
And I have met him, I think, a couple times.
But I like, so if I saw him, I'd be like, hey, Tommy, like, hey, Dave, how's it going?
Good to see you.
But I don't know him like on a real personal level.
But yeah, it's their success and everything that happened with the Patriots.
I don't think Barstool probably is the same if that doesn't happen.
It put us in the headlines in a lot of different ways.
So it's just a weird, magical ride.
It really has been.
It's been nuts.
Fascinating, man.
Congratulations.
Just on getting to have that experience because life, you know, to have the ups and downs, to have all of it, you know, to really have so many experiences.
And football is so big in this country and the Super Bowl is so big.
And we became Barcelona, the face of like the Patriot fan.
Like there's a game they could probably pull up.
If you pull up like Goodell Clown Towel, so Goodell, the commissioner in the league, like the first time he came back to Gillette after all the controversy, we printed like 70,000 of these towels with his face and a nose.
And we got, we're like, we need volunteers to hand these things out.
It was a big fucking thing.
Like if you, you can, if you on the images for it, you'll see like the whole fucking stadium basically.
Ooh.
Like go to the bottom right.
We had the shirts.
So yeah, like God AR.
Yeah, so like the whole fucking stadium.
Goodell in there.
It just, it was a wild time.
And we became, people just, they hated us because people hated the Patriots.
But that was your thing.
You did it.
Barstool's in here.
It's like this infection.
It's like this.
It's like this, like this plague, but it's not a negative plague.
It's like This disruptor.
Yeah.
And the Patriots were the most talked about, hated, loved, whatever team for like two decades.
Oh, yeah.
And we were just right in the middle of it.
I remember Tony Collins played there, didn't he?
Was that Tony Collins?
Yeah, you're going way back.
Yeah.
Yeah, running back.
Yeah, I got to meet him one time.
He went to ECU.
He was a cool cat, man.
Yeah.
I like Tony Collins, but I think he played in their Super Bowl game.
That would have been 85. And they lost to the Bears major?
Yeah, yeah.
Wow.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yep.
That was when the Patriots, they were very good.
That Steve Grogan was like, my guy.
He was like, I loved him.
Yeah.
I mean, the Patriots are, for the most part, terrible franchise up till the Brady era.
They had two Super Bowls and the second one being the Parcells.
But Tech Mobile, did you ever play like they're the worst team in Tech Mobile?
Very sad.
I can't even remember.
They had a lot of, I think one of the running back was white, I think, even.
Could have been.
Yeah, Craig James.
Half of the Pony Express.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah.
Them and the Colts are the two worst teams in it.
Yeah, that was a lot.
What do you got for the Super Bowl, man?
Where are you landing at with it?
I don't know.
I'm back and forth.
I think right now, you got to see if the Chiefs get healthy.
Their wide receivers are so banged up.
But if they get back, I think they get a pretty good shot.
But it'll be a good game, I think.
We're heading out there.
So we have a bar in Scottsdale, which is cool.
Oh, nice.
Yeah, we'll be doing like live radio there all week.
So we'll be there the whole time.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, I'm trying to see if I'm going to get over there.
I expect to see you.
Yeah.
I think we'll probably figure.
Hopefully I'll figure something out.
Yeah, I feel like the Eagles, it just feels like there's some kind of weird destiny thing going on there.
I mean, they're just tearing people up.
I can't tell.
I mean, it's a game they beat San Fran.
No quarterback, like anybody could beat.
I mean, I've never seen an NFL team.
They literally couldn't throw a forward pass.
So you're not going to win many games that way.
I think the Giants suck.
The Eagles are the number one team, best team the whole time in the NFC, but I don't know how good they are.
Right.
Yeah, that division.
There was so much disparity in the league this year between good teams.
There's just so many bad teams.
And I thought the AFC was overall better, but I think the Eagles are very good.
I think it'll be a very good game.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think it's going to be exciting.
Have you seen this power slap and stuff?
Yes.
It's crazy.
What do you mean by crazy?
Because people are getting like, well...
Yeah.
One guy's wife couldn't recognize him, you know?
So that's crazy.
Yeah.
You saw the clip of the woman doing like the somersault after.
Yeah.
No, I see it.
It's nuts.
It's nuts.
But I mean, people love that shit.
It does remind me of early UFC.
Like early UFC, because if you go Google it, a lot of hate out there online.
Like, this is the worst thing that's ever fucking happened.
You know, obviously a lot of people have opinions on Dana White, his incident.
Oh, that was crazy that that happened right when the league started.
I almost feel like, I wonder if that was planned.
It's like unbelievable.
Because his wife's at least a lot, or she's probably banned him weight.
I don't know.
I didn't get it.
It's hard to see.
I don't know about that.
I don't know what qualification it would be.
But so if you Google it, there's law hate.
Right.
But it's entertaining.
It's scary to watch.
But people are getting hurt.
One guy bought a van, right?
If you see that, the guy left the place and bought a van for no reason.
And he didn't even, there was no re, like, something.
So they're saying his brain got, you know, like his wires got crossed and something's like, you ought to buy a van?
Yeah.
Imagine just going, first of all, imagine buying a van.
Yeah.
Van's kind of cool.
Yeah, kind of.
But if you don't even need a van, you're just like, hey, I'm getting a van.
Like, you fucking come home from losing the fight with a van.
To pick a van.
Yeah, listen, it's entertaining.
Like, I really do think it's early.
I used to watch like the early, early UFCs, no weight class.
That was like ancient Rome, huh?
Yeah, and you had to fight.
Like, you fight, you win, you fight again.
It's like tournament, and people are like horrified.
Like, what the fuck is this?
It reminds me a little because there's definitely something about it.
And I don't know what that says about the human psyche.
It's like, yeah, I want to watch.
Like, this is fucking interesting.
Like, slap them harder.
So it's an interesting thing.
I think Dana's pretty confident it's going to be successful.
And numbers are big.
So we'll see.
Yeah, it's hard to deny those clips when you see them.
It's like you want to stay on it, but you don't want to.
It's like that and the people like attacking CVS workers.
Those are the two clips where I'm like, do I want to keep watching?
Bomb fights?
Like shit like that?
Like you just, now I'm sure they'll have to just like UFC.
That's why I say it.
If it continues and grows, they'll have to put some regulations, which he already said.
But there's something there.
There's undeniable something there, a human psyche.
It's like, yeah, I want to watch somebody get slapped so silly they do a somersault or a face.
I don't know what it says about humans, but like you said, people fucking used to go to the Coliseum in Rome to watch fucking gladiators.
So there's something inherent to it.
Yeah.
With all the success with Barstool, you guys have crushed it so much and your journey through it.
Do you think that there'd be a, do you ever start to have ideas of like there's something else you want to do down the line?
I know you guys are, you have a watch company now.
Yeah, yeah, Brick Watch.
Brick Watch, right?
I saw you tagged.
I was crucified for it.
You did?
Crucified.
So the number one thing I've been crucified for in my life.
For doing watches.
Because they're not cheap.
They're $2,400.
Okay.
And people.
It's nice looking.
Thank you.
It is.
I saw Eric Olson had one up.
No, isn't it?
Greg Olson.
Yeah, Greg Olson.
He had it on.
But there's a community of watch people who take their watches so fucking seriously that I did.
I was, I built, mine was like built for people like me who, I'm not going to spend like 10 grand on Rolex, but I thought I want a watch that's clean, looks good.
I spent a lot of time like coming up with the design of it.
It's more of a fashion watch.
People went under the hood.
It was, we'll see what happens with it, but whenever I post it, like watch snobs, they come from my throat.
Really?
Crazy.
Like time Nazis?
Like fucking.
Yeah, yeah, yes.
Time Nazis.
A bunch of fucking second monkeys out there.
Yeah, no, they're like, I could buy this watch for this, fucking has this movement and does this and fucking sucks my dick and doesn't do that.
They're crazy.
Watch people and they thought they're like, you're doing it as a scam.
It's like, what the fuck are you talking about doing as a scam?
Why?
Like, no, I'm not.
And it's like, by the way, I'm at the point, and maybe rightly or wrongly, where I can get investors for every people like, oh, he's a smart business guy.
So if I'm like, I'm doing something, people knew I was doing this.
They were like begging to throw money.
It's like, no, because Honestly, if it doesn't work, I don't want you to be able to be like in my grill.
Like, if I'll lose my own money, and I don't have to worry about a phone call from anybody being kind of nice, huh?
Yeah, so I, it's my own money that I either will lose or make.
But yeah, it's been a wild experience.
I've done a the people, it's slowed down a little bit, but when I launch it, people come over the throat.
But to answer your question beyond that, and that was just something that I thought would work.
Right.
It's like I, I, it's kind of that entrepreneurial spirit.
I spent a year or so, year and a half developing it.
Beyond that, one misconception I think people have always had about me is like, I'm ultra-driven, like to do shit.
Like, I think I have two more years with Barcelona, guaranteed.
And that could disappear to a beach.
Who fucking knows?
Like, I don't, I don't know.
I don't have that inherent need, I don't think, to work.
People don't believe me about that.
They think I'm an egomaniac.
Like, I'll have to be in the headlines.
I don't, we'll see.
I mean, always an instigator.
I just don't know if that'll kind of disappear.
And I hope it doesn't.
You know, it's fun to watch you instigate through the world, I think.
Yeah.
You know, it's been really entertaining.
I mean, it's been entertaining.
You know, I've long been a fan, and then I got to meet you, and you seem like a very, you just seemed a lot more even down to earth than I expected, man.
And I know that's a weird, it's not a compliment to give someone, but I think you look at someone's life and it looks so busy and insane.
And then you meet them and they seem, you know, it's interesting to find somebody that seems kind of down to earth.
I appreciate that.
So like, I'm sure with like in your work, like there's a lot of decisions to be made, right?
Have you always been a good decision maker?
Do you have like a process when it comes to that?
Because you probably have to make decisions pretty quick.
Yeah, no, I just go with my gut.
Like I always view it sort of family feud style.
Like, you know, if you watch a family feud, you got the head guy at the table, right?
Oh, yeah.
And then everyone shouts the answers at them.
If you hear a good answer, you're like, all right, I'll go with that guy.
But even if they have the right answer, but in my gut, I'm like, no, I get the right answer.
I'll go with mine.
I may get the X, but that's kind of how it is.
It's all gut-based.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's no, I look at this.
I follow my gut since I started it.
We've been wildly successful.
A lot of breaks that I could have never dreamed of.
And I didn't start Barcelona really to like be here.
I just didn't want to hate my job waking up in the morning.
But why would I stop following my gut?
It's gotten us this far.
Do you have a mentor that you reach out to if there's things that you're unsure about?
Occasionally, there's a couple guys.
There's a dude, Mike Rapoli, who I met through horse racing.
He started vitamin Water.
He started Body Armor.
So he sold both for like billions.
He's a crazy guy, but down to earth, nice.
So sometimes like business questions, I'll ask him.
Erica Nardini, our CEO.
We have like the best relationship.
So I'll run shit by her.
You know, my family, but those are those are kind of it.
We met a guy who sells, they do like horse, you know, the horse does sex with other horses.
Oh, yeah.
And they're breeding.
And their horse was like a champion.
It won like a, it won the damn, you know, I don't know what it is.
Kentucky Derby?
No, I think it was like Brickstone or Bricktown or something.
I don't know what it's called, but yeah, maybe Kentucky Derby.
I can't remember.
That or the Brickstone.
Or the Brickstone.
So they're wondering.
So, but people will pay.
And he said, like, like all through the week, there's just lines of like people bringing in their horse and the horse has sex with it.
And then they make like $30,000 every time the horse pumps.
And it's just out there pumping all fall.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
what that has to do with I mentioned the horse guy.
Yeah, breeding.
That's where all the money is.
God.
Yeah.
And they have to have it like natural.
You can't like artificial inseminated.
It has to, they actually have to fuck.
That's part of the rules.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cause you get to be right there, you say.
Yeah.
And it's like, if it doesn't take or it doesn't work, you still fucking spend the money.
Yeah.
Damn.
Boy, that's a lot for a glass.
Yeah, put it out to stud.
That's basically what that's called.
The male, they put out the stud, they bring the females.
Boom, bang, bing.
You're a busy guy.
And so, like, obviously your life's super busy.
Do you have like a day-to-day routine, a ritual that you do every morning?
This might be a bad question.
I don't know if I've been asking.
Yeah, no, I've definitely taken the foot off the gas a little bit.
Like the early days, I much more do.
No, not as much anymore.
I mean, I have my schedule, like the BFF podcast, which is like a Tuesday.
We'll have college, depending on sport, like sport shows to do.
My pizza review is every single day.
So I got to make sure those are in.
I'm going to start day trading again probably in March.
That'll be like at the beginning of the stock market, the end of it.
But I've definitely taken the gas, the foot off the pedal a little bit.
I mean, 20 years is a long fucking time to be doing something.
Yeah.
Would you ever come up with like an investing arm through Barstool, do you think?
Yeah, theoretically.
Because at some point, some of your fans will start to get older and they'll have money they want to invest.
Yeah.
Well, in other things.
Yeah.
Yeah, potentially.
I don't know.
Maybe.
I mean, it might be interesting, you know?
Yeah.
Especially if you are doing it or you get involved with people that do it well.
Yeah.
I'm sure a lot of your supporters would want to have the same or do the same.
We done?
Yeah.
I think we covered a lot of stuff, man.
All right.
Dude, thanks so much for hanging out, dude.
Yeah, no, it was fun.
I'm glad I got to do it.
Yeah, I appreciate it, man.
Yeah, for sure.
I want to come back on BFF sometime.
Open invite.
Praise, brother.
All right.
All right.
Thanks, Dave.
Cool.
Now I'm just floating on the breeze.
And I feel I'm falling like these leaves.
I must be cornerstone.
Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind I found.
I can feel it in my bones, but it's gonna take a little time.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Jonathan Kite and welcome to Kite Club, a podcast where I'll be sharing thoughts on things like current events, stand-up stories, and seven ways to pleasure your partner.
The answer may shock you.
Sometimes I'll interview my friends.
Sometimes I won't.
And as always, I'll be joined by the voices in my head.
You have three new voice messages.
A lot of people are talking About Kite Club.
I've been talking about Kite Club for so long, longer than anybody else.
So great.
Aye, Sweet.
Easy deal.
Anyone who doesn't listen to Kite Club is a dodgy bloody wanker.
Jermaine.
Hi, I'll take a quarter pounder with cheese and a McFlurry.
Sorry, sir, but our ice cream machine is broken.
Oh, no!
Wow.
I think Tom Hanks just butt-dialed me.
Anyway, first rule of Kite Club is tell everyone about Kite Club.
Second rule of Kite Club is tell everyone about Kite Club.
Third rule, like and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts or watch us on YouTube, yeah?
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