Club Shay Shay - Dave Portnoy Part 1

Dave Portnoy On Cancel Culture, Kanye West, Skip Bayless, LeBron, Tom Brady, Taylor Swift, Celtics, Patriots, Barstool Sports & Call Her Daddy

In Part 1 of this episode of Club Shay Shay, Shannon Sharpe sits down with Dave Portnoy—founder of Barstool Sports, one of the most influential figures in modern sports media. A business trailblazer and digital powerhouse, Portnoy—known as “El Presidente”—is a University of Michigan alum who turned a small free sports newspaper into a multi-platform empire now valued at over half a billion dollars. An outspoken personality, social media icon, and pizza aficionado, Dave built Barstool Sports into a cultural movement by doing things his way—and never backing down.

Portnoy breaks down how he started Barstool as a free newspaper in Boston, why he named it "Barstool," and how being high school classmates with ESPN’s Todd McShay shaped part of his journey. He explains how Barstool capitalized on raw, unfiltered media, his admiration for Bill Simmons, and how his love for gambling played a key role in shaping the brand’s voice.

We explore his Massachusetts roots, how the company exploded in popularity among college audiences, and how Barstool grew to surpass legacy networks in social media dominance. Portnoy opens up about firing people publicly, and working with big names like Wallo267 and Gillie, Pat McAfee, Coach Jon Gruden, Bussin’ With The Boys, and Alexandra Cooper of Call Her Daddy. He also talks about the fallout with Cooper and Caleb Pressley, the future of sports media, and why he’s always hunting for the next big star. Plus—his take on Jon Gruden saying Roger Goodell “hates football.”

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Shack with angels when he's like I want to see
her playing in her underwear and like running up with that.
If I said that, I'd be in jail.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Oh yeah, for you, in jail.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
All my life, grinding all my light sacrifice hustle ped
pricing one slice, Doctor bronic Geistae all my life. Ipp
be grinding all my life, all my life, and grinding all.

Speaker 4 (00:19):
My light sacrifics Hustle paed pricing one slice, Doctor bronict
Geist swish all my life, I been grinding all my life.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Hello, welcome to another episode of Club Sha Shay. I
am your host, Shannon Sharp. I'm also the propriud of
Club Shasha, stopping by for conversation on the drink today.
Is one of the most influential people in modern sports.
He created a company that's now worth more than a
half a billion dollars. A pioneering force in the new
age of digital media, a business mogul and a trailblazer,
a media magnet and an icon, a social media media

(00:53):
star and an influencer, a bold no filter of media star,
outspoken personality, a powerhouse spokesman, host, producer, writer and director
of philanthropist, a piece officionado, a University of Michigan alum,
A wealthy entrepreneur who built a multi platform empire. Founder,
founder and operator owner sports and pop culture company bar

(01:16):
Stool Sports, l presidente Dave Putno.

Speaker 5 (01:19):
Quite the intro.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Thank you, appreciate you many.

Speaker 5 (01:22):
No, I appreciate that intro.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
I like that, Bro, I got it. I got we
got to toast, Bro, I got to toast you man.
For you to be able to do what you've done,
I mean for you to have the vision and to
see it through. Chres, cheers, cheers.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
I said I wasn't going to drink this, you know,
by the way, I don't like any but I'm doing it.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
None of this is better, but I'll let you tell
me for yourself.

Speaker 5 (01:46):
I probably won't have it for a little time after this.
Let's say that I'm more unlike the Noon Speed but
went and wrong as the Romans. Yeah, Bro, thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Bill. Barstool into a half a billion dollar empire. Started
off doing four page newspapers, which is the dying Dynasty.
How did you have the vision in the forethought to
do what you did?

Speaker 5 (02:12):
So? I didn't have the vision.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
That's an easy answer, Okay, I just didn't want to
hate my job when I woke up.

Speaker 5 (02:19):
Okay, I knew I wanted.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
To try my own thing, But if barstool, if I
was making sixty grand a year working for myself, I
would have been happy. But anyone who said the had
vision back then is probably lyon, because you know, we
started as a newspaper for MySpace, existed Facebook, TikTok.

Speaker 5 (02:35):
So for anybody know what the Internet was going to be,
they're lyon.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
We were just always really quick and kind of moving
and following trends.

Speaker 5 (02:42):
But I had no idea would turn into this.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
You handed that newspapers on the subway platform street corners
of Boston, yelling at people. How many papers did you
think you handed out a date?

Speaker 5 (02:53):
Probably five to ten thousand.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
We had a circulation of thirty thousand, probably at the height.

Speaker 5 (03:00):
Wake up.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
You see it any city corner and just hawking papers
outside the garden. I grew up in Boston South Station subways,
just working.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Because a lot of time people get they taken in,
throw it on the ground.

Speaker 5 (03:13):
Oh that happened.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
I count that if you took it that, yeah, I
evenna ask I'm gonna end it up. But if you're
going on the subway, right, just looking for anything, right,
so you get as many hands on it as you can.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Todd McShay started out as one of your earlier writers
and you cut the build websites and the newspaper went digital.
How did you know that that, Todd? How did you
decide who you were going to pick to write and
who are you going to start staff?

Speaker 5 (03:39):
I went to high school mcshae.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Okay, Okay, hard ass choice.

Speaker 5 (03:44):
Yeah, I was in his wedding, so we weren't paying
anybody when we started.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
He got involved in sports before I did, so he
already he was already I am maybe just starting on
ESPN a little bit.

Speaker 5 (03:55):
So you just helped them the.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Side, right. Wow. So is it true that you started
putting women on the cup bikini's on the cover and
that's when the newspaper kind of took it?

Speaker 5 (04:04):
Is true?

Speaker 1 (04:05):
So, uh, there's a photographer in Boston.

Speaker 5 (04:08):
He's like, have you ever thought about putting a girl?
Maxim was huge at the time.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yes, yes, so they have a big part of it
the Super Bowl. I don't know if they still do this.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
They still do it, I think, but yeah, when I
back in the day, Maxim was like the party, it
was Yeah, So he reached out to me, the photographer's like,
have you ever thought of putting local women? Maxim you
put there a sledge.

Speaker 5 (04:27):
Yes, so we started putting.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
I'm like, no, I haven't, but if you want to
do the photography for me, do it. Knock yourself out.
And he came over, did it and it was a
local girl. Well that started getting people's attention. I'm like,
let's do it again, and that kind of you know
what it really did for us back in the day,
like bud Light, Miller Lite, they paid no attention. I
started Barstool and like, oh, we'll get all sports advertising.

(04:49):
We didn't when they saw pretty girls. Like, if you
know where the girls are, the guys will follow. So
it actually opened doors advertising wise.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
I read that you had models handing out the newspapers,
started having models hand out the newspaper. Before that, you
had homeless people actually handing out the newspaper. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
So the first first week we launched homeless people Okay,
lab already was the name of the company, and I
was driving around and they were just drunk, not paying attention.

Speaker 5 (05:12):
They didn't do they didn't do dick, they didn't do anything.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
So We fired them after one week and then I'm like,
you know what if I if you're a guy walking
off the subway, would you take it her a pretty
girl or a homeless person? Pretty girl? So we lasted
that for maybe a month. So put girls in little
jerseys and handed them.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Out during that process. What did that teach you about advertising?

Speaker 5 (05:34):
Well, that wasn't rocket science. It didn't teach me anything,
but I knew I knew guys like pretty girls like
you're gonna take a newspaper.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
So they didn't teach me really anything about that. It
was just really expensive to do it. But you know
that that was no lesson.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
But let me ask you quick ask you this. Have
you listened to your fan base over time? Because you
said the pretty girl pretty, the guys followed the pretty
girls wherever guys are that means advertiser. We was gonna
come because those are the guys they drank the beer, eat,
you know, take the products or bat or do whatever.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, I have listened to It's a fine line because
I'm sure you know the people who hate you and
don't like you are often allowedest. Yes, you suck at this,
You're not good at that. So I don't let that bothering.
But the beauty of what we did and newspaper more Internet.
It's like the Internet doesn't lie. You see the numbers,
they're going up. So I'll always follow that.

Speaker 5 (06:23):
As much as people like the chirping and noise, somewhat,
I trust my gut a lot.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
How did you know not being politically correct you could
win doing that now over the last eight decade, but
barstool is way older than a decade. How did you
know that not singing, not doing always the right thing
could be a win for Dave?

Speaker 5 (06:45):
Yeah, so that's how I am like this.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
Maybe in Northeast like Boston, I'll say do whatever, and
I'm fine, I'll stand on two feet and stand with it.
It really wasn't intentional, like it's just me being me
and being us. But we did get to a point
where we built this loyal following and it's like I
knew I had them, and if we're honest with the audience,
they'd follow us anywhere.

Speaker 5 (07:09):
So that was always an advantage.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
And that means that there's a lot of people out
there that doesn't want to be politically correct, that have
to be politically correct, but they had someone that you
know what, he's not politically correct. I like him. I
like what he's doing, I like what he's saying.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
So we always had the advantage I didn't have a
boss like so, you know, if you're in a corporate world,
it's great to think one way want to be, but
if your boss is like, you know what, you're gonna
get fired, you can't do it.

Speaker 5 (07:33):
That's a lot of different pressure. We didn't have it,
and we didn't belong.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
We weren't beholding an advertising that was also huge, so
advertisers canna be like, hey, you.

Speaker 5 (07:41):
Gotta watch what you say.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
We had early Barstool, our money was coming from our audience,
selling T shirts, doing events, so we didn't care if
an advertisers like we're gonna drop. It's like, all right, see,
like we're going to just keep doing us.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
There were not a whole lot of models out there
that you could follow, So who did you look up to?
Just says, you know what, I kind of like their
business model. I kind of like the way they do things.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
The early guy who I looked up to was Bill Simmons.
So I'm a Boston guy. Yes, this is before he
went to ESPN. His writing style was more like this
is interesting. I reached out to him trying to get
him invest in barstoow.

Speaker 5 (08:17):
Be part of it. Obviously never happened.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
But it wasn't so much a business model, Like I
came from business side, so I was always like, if.

Speaker 5 (08:23):
I can sell ads, do this.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
I just want to enjoy my life. But I wasn't
looking around and be like, that's the model. I think
we became the model, not on purpose, but there wasn't
much like us.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Well, I'll kind of think you was gonna say how
with Stern because he would kind of say.

Speaker 5 (08:37):
It, and we do get compared to that.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
I never looked I'm never a big Stern fan growing up,
so what but we get that comparison and got it
throughout the years all the time.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
You know, I heard that you're kind of like a
combination between ESPN and Playboy. Is that Is that a
fair assessment?

Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, it's an interesting assessment. I mean we have we
have the TNA, I mean ESPN. I think ESPN's moved
more more probably to our side of the street in
terms of like letting people fly and even like I
saw you know and when you and like, uh no,
it is stephen A. No, it was you and Herbie
going after like that's barstool, Like, well, let him fight

(09:15):
it out, let it. And I couldn't even tell him,
like do these guys really not like each other? Is
just like a show that's barstool.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Even teammates like barstool. Like I'm feeling like and we're
gonna get in this a later. Like when you had
busting with the boy and you had part of my taker,
you had this one and that one and you all
on a one umbrella. I see us, see us as teammates.
You would let him take shots.

Speaker 5 (09:34):
Oh my god, we need each other a lot. The
most vicious shots are in turn okay, And like I
mean I just got here, Like I just watch a.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Tail of one clip at the super Bowl and he's
talking to Patrick Mahomes.

Speaker 5 (09:47):
He's like, hey, we're leaving barstool.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
They are leaving, and he's like, so you'll come on
our podcast right now. I mean to me, I'm that
to me is like he let he basically put uh
to my homes in his mouth, like he basically was like,
let me roll over petya belly and I'll go out.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
We go at each other.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
But that and it's real people think it's fake. In
the end, we're all one team, but yeah, we attack
each other.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
Is it true that early advertisers basically they were offshore
illegal betting sites that weren't illegal in America, So you
like reached out and got those dollars.

Speaker 5 (10:22):
So I've always loved gambling.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
So before I start a barstool, I actually flew to
Vegas into reviewed in casinos, like how do I get
in this industry? And I used to bet, so I
talked to these offshore casinos, said, you know, how do
I get involved? They say, create the newspaper, will advertise
in it. And that was the early advertising we had
that got us. Like when we launched no Girls, no nothing,
it was just really fantasy sports, that type of thing.

Speaker 5 (10:46):
It allowed. We pre sold the ads for a year
two years party poker, and we morphed after that. But yeah,
that that was our early advertising.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
Did you ever get frustrated? Did you ever think that
this possibly couldn't work? I went, I got a job.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
About six years in, I took a sales job, drove
work there. At lunch, I'm like, I cannot I can't
do barstool and give it a chance and do this so.

Speaker 5 (11:10):
One day lunch, drove home, never went back. But I
mean I wasn't. We didn't make money for a decade. Really, Yeah,
So how did you get by grinding? Like I moved
in with my in laws.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
We had no rent, like in just there's paycheck to paycheck,
trying to survive.

Speaker 5 (11:24):
But it was literally like nothing.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
At the time. Did your wife like Dave, she made
me get the job.

Speaker 5 (11:29):
She made me get the job.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
To her credit, she stood by me, and it always
felt in my gut this thing's like there's something here. Yeah,
But to turn the corner and actually do it took
a long time.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
Did you create fake Frank ads? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (11:43):
To get like I was early, like Morton's Steakhouse, I
put in a rival like Flemings Morton's.

Speaker 5 (11:49):
Right, Chris, Yeah, they call they and.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
The actual place would call me like it was Flemings,
there's a steakhouse in Boston. They'd be like, we didn't
advertise in your paper. Why you win there. It's like, oh,
my sales guy quit. I don't know what happened. And
then we take it out. But the thought was, Hey,
if Morton sees Flemings, the Mortons want to get in there.

Speaker 5 (12:07):
Oh, yeah, we did that one.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
I would do anything I would do to try to
get somebody in the paper.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
But you also created fake emails with extra people like, hey,
we got a big ass.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Down correct, So do you want someone to advertise to
know that I'm the head writer, I'm the founder, I'm.

Speaker 5 (12:21):
The sales guy, my market hanging guy. So I had
like ten different aliases.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, oh my goodness bad. But it seemed like you
had a plan, like even though it wasn't successful early,
you had a plan and you had a fortitude to
stick to withness that you know what it's going to click.
I just got to give it time.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, I keep going back and some people say I'm
being a humble I thought it was working. Did I
ever dream it would be something like this? I like,
I think I'm a smart enough guy and a way
to monetize, and if you really hustle and work your
ass off, you can probably carve out some sort of
living for yourself.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
Did I know that the Internet would hit right when
I needed to hit? I know that like social media
would hit and things like right time, right place, right guy,
all those things.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
How much would you say it cost you to start
bar stool.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
Oh, I'm not much, maybe thirty grand max. That's for
I had to buy the racks. That was the only expenser,
and the racks to put the newspapers in.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
Let me ask you a question, how did you start?
How did you come up with the name barstool?

Speaker 5 (13:20):
So barstool sports was supposed to mean and this is
an early internet one point. Oh, I looked for websites
that were allowed.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
It's supposed to mean anything that a guy would talk
about sitting at a bar watching sports. Okay, that was
what was supposed to mean. So I went through like
ten names and that was the one that was available.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
Did anyone invest in barstool beside yourself? Early on? Maybe
your parents, maybe siblings or anybody like.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
Parents helped with the news racks and that was it
and we had no outside money till twenty sixteen.

Speaker 5 (13:48):
We started two thousand and four. Wow.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah, wow, that's a very long time not to make
a whole lot of money. A lot of people probably
after twelve years go give it up there.

Speaker 1 (13:59):
Yeah, I mean we started around By twenty sixteen we
were doing pretty well, but yeah it I had a
normal job. Again, I would rather work for myself, not
make as much and then hate waking up and hate one.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
So you didn't you didn't really turn a profit. You
started in two thousand and four, so you kind of
turned into property May eleven around there, so you started
making good money now.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
I mean it's not no retirement money, no good enough mine.
We did a concert tour in twenty ten. We had
a kid who is Sam Adams was his name. He
was like a kind of local rapper, basically guy, and
we had never been outside Metro Boston. We did a
ten tour of colleges like your you Mass, We're going
to frat basements. I basically wanted to say, do people

(14:40):
know who we are? You Mass, the Mullen Center. They
called me and they're like, hey, what is this concert
you're doing? Keep in mind I'm going to frat basement
to do it. And they're like, we're getting calls for
this concert you're doing. It's like, yeah, I don't know,
we're going to frat. They're like, what do you ever
think of doing it in the arena. It's like I
can't afford that.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
We won't do it.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
It's like, well what if we set it up? Awigh,
very little risk. So if you're willing to do it. Fine,
we sold out five minutes, like sold there renow. That
was when it kind of clicked. It was like, there
may be something going on here that are not totally aware.
Showed up these campuses, signs on the rood. It was crazy.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
So let me ask you a question. When did you
know barstool could become a legit company? That you know
that I got.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
Something probably that tour around the twenty ten, twenty eleven
and then I'm probably making seven figures by twenty twelve,
twenty thirteen. It was hard to like, if you want
to advertise with us, you almost had to know somebody,
Like we weren't selling. You had to fight, Like I
remember we had we were in this fantasy space and

(15:38):
the gambling draft. I've had DraftKings. I met with like
the founders of DraftKings way back when FanDuel and you
had to know somebody to get me on the phone
because we were just happy.

Speaker 5 (15:49):
We're like, all right, we're doing well, We're happy where
we're at. But around then I knew we were here
to stay.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
How did you develop this loyal rabbit fan base?

Speaker 5 (15:58):
It's day afterday.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
So when we started the company, I used to blog
ten to fifteen times a day, like every forty five minutes,
something new up. We're on top of sports, on top
of everything, and you just build a trust with your audience.
If they're senior, every day, they start just becoming almost
like your friend. Like when I see our fans, they
think they know me. So you just build that up
over decades.

Speaker 5 (16:20):
You get a very loyal core audience.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
So basically you would say that college is where you
kind of like grew. It's like when you did this
little college tour and you went to UMass and you
had that arena and you sold it out, so you
would say probably college. Would you say college kids early
twenty Yeay, it was everything.

Speaker 5 (16:38):
So I started this thing. I was like twenty five,
twenty six, and forty.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
Seven now, so it spans all ages and different peoples
of their lives, like we have people, have kids, we
have new college kids.

Speaker 5 (16:49):
Just depends where you get us.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
I think that there were college kids, but their husbands
and fathers.

Speaker 5 (16:54):
Now, yeah, it's everything. And even like when I start
as a young professionals, so it was a lot of
people who just graduated and now went to the workforce
and like that.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
What do you think college kids. Really, why does bar
school resonate so much with college kids?

Speaker 5 (17:09):
I don't really know.

Speaker 1 (17:10):
I mean we were talking about college age. We're doing
like raves at college parties, and I mean even now
we have like handles on social media that just cover
that college. But obviously they like unfiltered and we're unfiltered.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
Right Frat parties? You had concerts? Were you in a frat.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
For about ten seconds at Michigan? So I wasn't big
into the hazing part of it. I like the Russian
part of it when they're kissing your ass and it
turns into like, go get me a beer.

Speaker 5 (17:41):
That's not really me. So I didn't.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
I didn't. I was gone quick. How did you know?
But you didn't want to be a part of that?
But how did you know the fraternity culture so well?

Speaker 5 (17:51):
I didn't.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
I mean the fraternity and sometimes people say different, I
don't know that it's fraternity culture as like human nature,
like guys like hut girls.

Speaker 5 (18:00):
The guys are going out to try.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
To get laid, like a lot of that is part
of what we were doing talk about in parties, but
it was everything. I mean, we talked just as much
about that as anything else.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
It seems like yet at I don't know if you
still feel this way that you were the direct of
the antithesis of what ESPN. How did you know to
like create something and say, you know what, whatever they do,
we're going to do the exactly.

Speaker 5 (18:21):
It wasn't on purpose like that, you know. I guess
people may look at I mean ESPN, and we've been
doing it for so long.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
Espan's actually changed a bunch of times, probably since we've
been doing this last twenty years.

Speaker 5 (18:35):
It wasn't. They're just more buttoned up.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
In early barstool, anybody who came from a network to
us we had some issues with because they they needed
a producer to tell them to say this and that,
and we don't do that.

Speaker 5 (18:48):
You're your We hire people we think talented and let
them run wide.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
You have the comfort broth.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah, it's like, we're not gonna tell you what to
say and you're gonna love what you're talking about.

Speaker 5 (18:56):
So it wasn't.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
We weren't trying to be the different and I had
no problems with ESPN until we had problems with.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
ESPN Because you look at ESPN, they got fancy studios.
Guys are normally button up. They're normally you know, soup tie.
You guys are in very informal, very casual T shirts,
blue g short Hey, hey, I'm more interested in what
you say, not what you wear. That was always your
So I heard a.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
Story that ESPN once had a meeting about us when
we're on a come up, and it's like, how do
we be more authentic?

Speaker 5 (19:26):
Like Barsol's like, well, you lost like you're having a
meeting on how to be authentic.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
There is nothing we are. I'm not planning what my
studio looks like. That's what my life looked like, you're so,
it's just.

Speaker 5 (19:38):
We didn't think about that. We didn't care about fancy cameras.
We didn't have fancy cameras. We had idiots.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
And it almost the bigger we got, the more I
had to keep an eye like, we don't want to
look polished like ESPN, Like that's not who we are.
Just because you can do it doesn't mean we want
to do it.

Speaker 5 (19:56):
That wasn't an early thought.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
If part of my take a playoff, part the interruption,
first take, so you've got par ink take it's so booboo.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yes, so stupid. They sued us first day, God sued.
They went through sent the cease and desist, the best
thing they could have done for us. It was one
hundred percent a mash of that, like that's what we're doing.
And then we posted, you know.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
You posted it. Of course that's the worst thing you
could do.

Speaker 5 (20:18):
To send the letter, idiots.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
Like, because you could have posted and then all of
a sudden everybody going, well, let's see what's going on.

Speaker 5 (20:23):
Yeah, they couldn't.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
Again, we've had that multiple Goodell's been won. But that
was perfect. Yeah, and in a weird way, it's it was
like tipping our hat to them, you know, it's like
an homage to that.

Speaker 5 (20:34):
But yeah, they they sent that letter right away.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
Do you think sports media is taking it staffe too seriously?

Speaker 5 (20:40):
I do.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
I think it's changed, Like again, I think a lot
of things it's much more free flowing. But yeah, generally
it's sports media people. I think there's a double standard. Okay,
let's let's say the flight Gate, right, one of my.

Speaker 5 (20:55):
Corner stone Yeah, that's one of my like cornerstone events,
and they're killing Brady and I remember sal Pal He's
on CNN or what I mean, ESPN acting like this is.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
Like world news being like Tom Brady is an ugs salesman.
Women buy ugs. They're not gonna buy ugs if they
don't trust them.

Speaker 5 (21:16):
It was so dumb.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
So I went to the.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
Media day and I see sal Pal and I take
my mic. I'm like, sell Pal, what do you say
about Tom Brady and uggs?

Speaker 5 (21:24):
No? No, no, I don't talk to the media. I don't
talk to the media.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
It's like you are the media.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
Like that double standard drives me crazy, Like you're going
to talk about people. Media are celebrities now, no different
than the athletes.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
How have you been able to surpass Guy Sports? Fox
Sports and social media following?

Speaker 1 (21:44):
Because we're born from the Internet, Like I were probably
the first digital media company.

Speaker 5 (21:48):
Like who are the heads of Fox? How old are they?
What do they look like? We're all young guys who
we hire.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
They come with a true proven Internet record, right, if
you don't get to us unless you're like would you,
Like I've been looking at crypto I don't understand it
because I'm too old, and it's like hard if you
have a crypto guy who's probably older than twenty five, Like,
he's probably not a great crypto guy.

Speaker 5 (22:10):
Right, So if you look at the Internet, these are.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
These are network guys who have come up doing it
the same way, same playbook, same everything.

Speaker 5 (22:18):
We had no playbook. We were figuring out as we went.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
Do you believe that's the mistake that Linear is making
is because those guys came up in linears. They don't
understand deep digital, they don't understand social kind of like
these say twenty three to thirty year olds.

Speaker 5 (22:33):
One hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
Like even I mean, eventually things will change, but like
if you look at a NFL game, why does everything
look identical on the sets? Eventually it's the same way
they've been doing it. One hundred percent. They're just this
is how you do it. This is the way to
do it.

Speaker 5 (22:49):
We're not going to change. We know more so one
hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
What do you think the future of sports media is?
Is it more what you do?

Speaker 5 (22:55):
One hundred percent. I'm gonna look at you.

Speaker 1 (22:58):
I mean, if you would think that you could say
some of the things that you say, whether it be
not on the main network, and then go on ESPN,
that that's a relatively recent development in my mind that
you can have that and they're letting them, even like
Steven A with his own that didn't happen not too
long ago, where like you just wouldn't see it.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
Were your goal always to creative media company?

Speaker 1 (23:23):
No, yeah, no it was to First it was to
have a job that I liked waking. Then we got
to a degree of success, it's like, what do we
want to do here?

Speaker 5 (23:32):
Is Boston replical? Replical?

Speaker 1 (23:34):
Can I hire other guys and create the success in Boston?
And then it became a media place where it's like,
let's try to create other personalities, which I think for
my money obviously biased my company. I think we've in
this new last twenty years created probably the greatest stable
or biggest like if you brought back everybody, whether it's McAfee,

(23:56):
Alex Cooper.

Speaker 5 (23:59):
Busting the boys obviously are leaving, you have Wallo and
Gilly me Dan, Like we have a list people have
come from the Internet. Jenna Marbles, who a lot of
you know who that is.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
Jenna Marbles was like Internet one point zero, like she
was the first YouTube girl.

Speaker 5 (24:14):
So we've launched massive stars and at.

Speaker 1 (24:17):
Some points like I think we have the platform that
we can do this and no one else was trying
to do it, like mcafee'sn example, like no one hired
his ass out of the colts.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
Nobody wanted him. What what have you learned about building
a media company? I mean can can if somebody say,
you know what day we need you to at University
of Michigan call today. We want you to teach a
class on how to go about building a media company,
how to build a conglomerate.

Speaker 5 (24:38):
I got no clue.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
Honestly, I think I think what we've been good at
and what I've had an eye for in they are
auto whole runs. It's like a band almost like a
record label model, like you're gonna miss but if you
can get some hits.

Speaker 5 (24:51):
We have a good eye for talent whatever that may like.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
Unique people like if I see something I'm like I
do I click off of it in a second?

Speaker 5 (24:59):
Or do they have me for ten to twenty?

Speaker 1 (25:01):
And if they do that generally means there's something there,
Like you're just interested in what's going on?

Speaker 5 (25:06):
Right?

Speaker 2 (25:06):
How many employees shows personality? Do you say you think
you employee at barstool?

Speaker 5 (25:10):
I think about four hundred right now? Total?

Speaker 2 (25:13):
Wow?

Speaker 5 (25:13):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (25:15):
Did you ever think you could grow a company to
have four hundred employees?

Speaker 3 (25:18):
No?

Speaker 5 (25:18):
I don't even know.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
It's just we got bloated a little bit, but we
have a lot of stuff going on.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
Well, how do you manage because you said you look
you are who you are, how do you manage so
many different personalities?

Speaker 1 (25:30):
We have different people who help, but the person that's
the word, the talent business sucks.

Speaker 5 (25:35):
I wont to recommend that for anybody, Like that's one
of those things when you asked me what I thought.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
But I mean, we're in the business of building stars
and then having them turn around and be like, hey,
we want a quad trillion dollars and you can't afford
It's like a sports team, SNL model or something like that.

Speaker 5 (25:50):
Like your agent there, Michael Klein. I think he owes
me his whole.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
Life for being honest, Like without me, he doesn't exist.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
So you might need to invest it.

Speaker 5 (26:02):
I'd like to know how.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
He runs that business, but it's uh, you let people
be themselves. We try to see if they rise above
the like if they start getting traction, we just give
them whatever they want. Resources you want to fly to
you know. I remember we have these two guys. They
started there there for a week and uh they wanted
porzingis like we want to go find his family and

(26:24):
where the from?

Speaker 5 (26:25):
Yeah, they flew. I had no idea what they're doing.

Speaker 1 (26:31):
So we just let the creators create and try to
put the resources behind them, and then we let the
internet decide.

Speaker 5 (26:36):
It's like, all right, you guys like them or not?

Speaker 2 (26:38):
How would you describe your workplace?

Speaker 5 (26:41):
Chaotic? Competitive, petty? All those things?

Speaker 2 (26:49):
What type of you mentioned? Like, Okay, I'm watching this person,
whether or not or want to hire him. Does when
I hear him, hear hear him or her speak, click,
move on or do They're like, okay, might have something.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
It's that and and I don't even have to like it.
It's just like I haven't really seen this. He's just
caught my attention for whatever reason. He's saying things I
haven't heard.

Speaker 5 (27:15):
Yeah that that really is it?

Speaker 1 (27:17):
And it's rare, but you see it, and again it
can be wrong plenty of times.

Speaker 5 (27:21):
There's just something there.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
It's like, why why am I staying more than that
one second almost to see what's going on here?

Speaker 2 (27:27):
Why are you okay with firing people publicly?

Speaker 5 (27:30):
We do everything publicly? Who did I fire publicly?

Speaker 2 (27:33):
You get? I mean you? I mean, I don't know
if I could be the type of ball ugh r Dave.
I mean you cut, because you cut. I think I'm
a little bit more compassionate then.

Speaker 5 (27:41):
I'm trying to think who did I fire?

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Who'd I fight?

Speaker 5 (27:43):
I'm looking for my guy, who did I fire? Publicly? Francis,
I tell people that fired.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
Yeah, but I don't know if it's like everything we
do is public, right, So like if you do, if
you've gotten to the point where you got fire by me,
you earned it, and I'll publicly do I'll do anything
in public. Don't come to mind. Like if you're in
my world, you got to content. Everything everything's fair game.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
What are your response when people say many they don't
pay enough? Man, they need to break bread. I mean,
you know he getting a whole loaf and he passed
our crumbs.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
Those find me that person who said that and that that? Like,
I mean, you'll have certain things we've had a cut, like.

Speaker 5 (28:26):
Call her daddy there? Do you know who that is?
I ax?

Speaker 1 (28:30):
So yeah, she's turned it a monster. We found her nothing,
she's nobody. We signed the two of them to one
hundred grand each write her and Sofia.

Speaker 5 (28:40):
Thing exploded.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
Six months later, they're up to five hundred grand. They
signed a three year deal.

Speaker 5 (28:44):
You can go be billionaires when you're like, that's what
we do like you, We don't own you after go
make all but the Peanuts thing.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
Why did't you like sign them to a three year deal,
maybe like a year in year and a half and say, hey,
let's redo it this deal.

Speaker 5 (29:00):
When we were redoing the deal. They're tough to deal with.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
You've got athletes same way, holdouts this their talent and
they look at it, and your talent looks at it.
Hey I got to strike when it's hot, and they
don't go about us. We pay as good, I think
as any media company in the I mean, Yo, Wall
and Gilly, they're crying popping bottles with how much they're making.
Alex got sixty, McAfee's making tens.

Speaker 5 (29:24):
We pay. That's the biggest misnomer in the world. No pay,
we pay, pay pay pay pay. I mean you're huge.
How much.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
I'm a free agent. Let let let me all right,
I'm just I'm just David. I'm just throwing that deal.
We don't have to negotiate publicly. But I'm just saying
I'm free.

Speaker 5 (29:42):
When he's free.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
When you want me to be free, are.

Speaker 5 (29:45):
You really free?

Speaker 2 (29:47):
Yeah? What do you mean like when you're here on
like I no parole, no probration, not.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
I'm pre free. You're probably very expensive right now. What
we are model generally is the re like we find
the guys, build them up, and then they leave as
opposed to like getting them at the top because you
pay the premium. Yeah, like we I don't know what
like you coming to us for example, We're not gonna
make you bigger. You're you're huge, so like our our

(30:16):
secret sauces if your talented will make you huge, but
you'd be good on our networks.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
What have you learned about negotiating?

Speaker 5 (30:25):
I'm not a big negotiator.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
You say, are you all take it to leave? Your
type of guy?

Speaker 1 (30:29):
I have a price that I know works for us.
And if it's not good enough, like, what are you
gonna do? Like the busting guys just you know three
years thirty million from FanDuel that that's more than we
can do. So good luck, you get you great relationship.

Speaker 5 (30:45):
But I'm happy for them. Damn three for thirty huh yep,
because I'm not even supposed to say out you got
they got the bag.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
Let me ask you a question, how do you go
about structuring your deals. Okay, you find somebody clearly when
you offer them, they're not making that money. So somebody
gonna give me a minute A men guarantee MG one
hundred thous plus I mean eighty twenty ninety ten as
far as revenue would ads. That's that's a lot of
money to a person that's making thirty five thousands.

Speaker 5 (31:14):
So most of the most of the time we do it.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
They're they're they're not as huge, but we'll do We're
full time employees for us, so.

Speaker 5 (31:23):
We basically own your IP. And it's no different than.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
A sports contract, like you signed for a certain amount
of years. You can have incentives. We're happy to rip
up if you're doing good at the end of the contracts.

Speaker 5 (31:34):
If we can't pay you what you.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
Want, then you can go get a better deal, which
is exactly Bustin's the perfect example.

Speaker 5 (31:39):
Alex Is McAfee. They're they're one after another.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
Well, you gotta tall, I mean you have an I
I mean you the better a hell of a GM.

Speaker 5 (31:48):
For this space. Yea space.

Speaker 2 (31:51):
Oh K, you don't think you can pick sports stars?

Speaker 1 (31:54):
Mean, it's a different thing that that. Listen, I'd love
to own a team and try it, but yeah for
this space. Yeah, Like even when you start popping off
like I didn't know where's that, there's just something that
and this credits you.

Speaker 5 (32:07):
You're like, oh, I'm not looking away here. They're like
something going on.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
Uh. Who do you think the next big sports stared
media is?

Speaker 5 (32:18):
Who? So? What level?

Speaker 2 (32:19):
Who?

Speaker 5 (32:19):
Who? Do we say is like a real unknown?

Speaker 2 (32:23):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (32:26):
It's hard. I don't know. All the people I know
of are known if they were unknown?

Speaker 1 (32:31):
Yeah, yeah, I mean we just hired Gruden, Yeah, who
was already top of the game then obviously Fella, he's
a monster. He's right back at the top. He's just unbelievable.

Speaker 5 (32:41):
He gets it, gets it. He could talk, he can talk.
He's somebody you don't want to look away. And I've
met about two different people through him.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
It's like they don't have it. Like you can see
why he got where he did.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
And he can tell stories. You need people that can
tell stories.

Speaker 5 (32:55):
And captivate, Like again, you want to turn the channel
on this guy or not?

Speaker 2 (32:58):
Right? You mentioned grew at a you know he had
one hundred million dollar contract. That guy. I think they're
in mediation right now trying to get that resolve. Because
you know he got you got let go. I think
he has still like six seven years on the dfright,
they're trying to figure that out. So how do you
go to a John Grew because you know he got
X amount of dollars? Is there's a situation where you
know he likes to talk, he has something to say,

(33:19):
and you want to give him that platform in order
to say it.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
Yeah, so for him, he started putting out videos. So
and I just saw it and right away I'm like,
oh my god, like again, I'm not turned away, And
we reached out or like, would you ever be interested
in talking? Flew out to Orlando. Actually Madam headed off
and he was ready to go. I think he was
ready to just get back in this world.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
Are you afraid of losing him to coaching?

Speaker 5 (33:44):
I'd be stunned if he's not an NFL coaches sometime
again stunned.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (33:48):
I don't think he's gonna be like tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
But the guy eats Liz Bleeze football, so I think
that's what he loves.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
Let me ask you this, there are some emails that
got leaked. Well I don't know who leaked him. Maybe
you know who leaked him. Maybe he's talking to you
about he has an ideal who he thinks lead those
to do to damage his reputation, his credibility. Are you
surprised he got fired because of that?

Speaker 1 (34:12):
No, not in the way that it sounded like it
went down. Sound like they're gonna get I mean, this
is my theory before. But he called Cadell an anti football.

Speaker 2 (34:24):
Well that didn't help.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
Yeah, right, and they guess guess who's reading. And as
someone who's coming from that, I know that guy can
hold the grudge a little bit.

Speaker 5 (34:31):
I don't think he loved that. He's like this guy
and he got caught up in.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
That whole Washington and suddenly the only email is being
leaked are about him.

Speaker 5 (34:40):
So I think I think they're like, we're gonna get
this guy out of here.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
Wow, you mentioned p Matt and what he's been able
to do. You talk about a punter, and and he
was a very good punter. But punters don't normally parlay
what they did on the field until media careers off
the field. That normally belongs to quarterbacks, maybe high level
player that had a big name when they played, and

(35:04):
they parlayed on that name moving forward, How do you
think McAfee has been able to be so successful.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
It's talent, Like, I mean, the second you see him,
it's he was a super talented guy. He was very
funny and very talented and as a punter, and Indie
was already kind of.

Speaker 5 (35:18):
Like yeah that'swag Yeah yeah, kind of like an Indian legend.
But I remember I hired him. He said he wanted
to be like WWE champion, like three days after I
met him, Like, that's one of his goals.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
He worked his ass off Denney's. But combine all that
with he's super talented. So that's why.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
How are you able to build around How are you
able to build around him?

Speaker 1 (35:38):
So what he did Barstool is already huge at the
time we hired him and we put out, hey, we're
doing a casting for McAfee, like and.

Speaker 5 (35:46):
Just all Barstool people showed up.

Speaker 1 (35:47):
He picked the team he wanted around him and ran
that office in Indianapolis.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
Wow, how do you feel like you mentioned Alex Cooper
left McAfee. I think McAfee might have been the first
to leave.

Speaker 5 (36:01):
Well, the first was that Jenna Marbles.

Speaker 2 (36:03):
Then I don't know Alex p Mac.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
I think it was Alex then McAfee and I'm probably
in now busting.

Speaker 5 (36:14):
I'm probably forgetting a couple others. But yeah, how do
I feel when they leave?

Speaker 3 (36:16):
It?

Speaker 5 (36:17):
It's bittersweet? I think I think.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
I think it's an endorsement of what we're doing, like
a new person coming up, like, hey, look at these
they all went and got multi million dollar contracts, so
we're a good place to build that career. It weakens
us and its pressure because when someone leaves like that,
you gotta replace them, find the next guy.

Speaker 5 (36:37):
Again, I keep saying it.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
It's a very sports team model, like you can't pay
everybody the max salary corret because then you're not gonna
have no offense.

Speaker 5 (36:43):
You have nobody. So that's what it is, and I
know that going in, but still sucks.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
McAfee said, quote he left Barstool part because the lack
of transparency with the business operations of the company.

Speaker 5 (36:55):
Yep, I think that's.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
I think that that part he and I disagree on. Now,
there are certainly something to be said, like maybe a
check was late or anything like that, but but late.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yeah, but it's like I got operations, I got people
gotta play.

Speaker 5 (37:13):
Yeah, No, he's making plenty. It's like a commission check.
We gotta wait, yeah, not like his regular salary. And
he was kind of in a hybrid.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
So let me give you example PMT pat mcaffee. If
our salespeople are out pitching it and at the time
PMT is dwarfing McAfee, which it was at the time,
obviously no longer.

Speaker 5 (37:35):
He did.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
He wasn't a full time He got like a share
of what was sold. PMT didn't. But it could appear
to an outside person, well, they want all the sales
to go to PMT as opposed to me, because they
don't have to share the commission.

Speaker 5 (37:48):
Sales guys don't give sales guys just want the commission.
Whatever these want.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
If the client is like I'm doing PMT our, salespeople
aren't going to be like, well, go to McAfee because
we got to do that. So I could see how
he would say, maybe it wasn't transparent, but in no
way where we're trying to screwmac vi anything like that.
He has said that about the business. At the same time,
be like, I, like Dave and Erica, I don't agree
with that part of it at all at all.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
You mentioned Alex that you lost her. Do you remember
that last conversation that you had with Alex.

Speaker 5 (38:20):
The very last one.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
Yeah, I mean I still talk to her time time. No,
there was nothing specific with her. I knew the deal
and and almost everybody leaves us will take a hometown
discount because they like work and it's kind of like
you know, Compton will talked about it's like you leave
the NFL and we're kind of like a team.

Speaker 5 (38:37):
There's a lot of us.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
We bust balls, locker room vibe. But she told me
what the offer, and it's like, if you can get close,
I'll stay.

Speaker 5 (38:45):
And we couldn't get close.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
Yeah, because the first like sixty million, and then she
just got a nug that I did.

Speaker 1 (38:50):
Yeah, she's she's she's a megastar, and she's somebody like
the first time I met her, right, I saw sizzle
reel and I'm like, who.

Speaker 5 (38:57):
Made this for you?

Speaker 1 (38:58):
She's like, I did, I learned how to edit, done,
signed up, let's do it. So she's self motivated, very smart.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
What made her special?

Speaker 1 (39:06):
That what I just said, So, like you see a
lot of people who don't put in the work to
learn how like the beauty of nowadays, there's a lot
of people. I get one hundred emails a day. Hey,
I'm super funny, I'd fit in. I can do this,
I can do that. All right, show me a real
show me what you've done.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
Zip.

Speaker 5 (39:23):
They got nothing, the people, the internet. You can go
do it. You can be self motivated. You can put
out one hundred episodes. You can do whatever. So she
was self motivated. Show me what she wanted to do.
She learned how to edit. She had a very like motivated,
clear vision of what she wanted, and it was unique.
People hadn't done what she did at the time.

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(40:47):
slash shay shape, zip intro host jobs today, talk to
qualified candidates tomorrow. I had a college coach told me
that I thought about transferring when I became I was
a All American and was conference player of the Year,
and he says, it's not our job to get you
ready to go play somewhere else. I mean, it's a

(41:08):
blessing and a curse because they come to you and
a lot of these people are really unknown, and then
all of a sudden they grow into these mega superstars
and then they leave you.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
Yeah, it sucks that, but that's why I wouldn't recommend
anybody get in the town business. Like, you know, one
of our biggest stars right now, it's my dog mis Peaches.

Speaker 5 (41:27):
And I never have to renegotiate.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
So that's like, you want to get the dog business,
not the human business.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
Are you surprised she got as big as she got?

Speaker 5 (41:35):
It happened so fast that caught me off guard.

Speaker 1 (41:38):
But no, once it went going, and you know, once
you start that that mountain, she became like almost a
female open.

Speaker 5 (41:46):
She's got these huge guests and I mean she's got
Kamala and like that. So no, I wasn't.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
But you still have. You still do business where you
handle the merch.

Speaker 5 (41:55):
Right that ended? We used to wow, So.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
Let mess you this because you got a model for merch.
How did you do that? How did you come up
with that model?

Speaker 1 (42:05):
We need to make money, that's it. Like, yeah, I
told you in the beginning an interview.

Speaker 5 (42:09):
We had the the homeless guys selling the shirts, I
mean hand out the newspapers. I bought a bunch of
T shirts asid barstool sports on them so they could
wear it. Well, we let they lasted one week. I
was stuck with these shirts. I had no money. Put
the shirt in the newspaper. Hey buy these shirts a
couple of people bought them.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
I'd actually keep count Hey we sold seven shirts this week,
and then be a little picture of it. So day
one we were just selling merch hustling. You need to
find a way to make money.

Speaker 2 (42:37):
What's your number one selling T shirt?

Speaker 1 (42:38):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (42:39):
What a question?

Speaker 1 (42:39):
It could be free Brady. That was obviously they're around
iconic moments.

Speaker 2 (42:44):
I was thinking about the other one, the commissioner with
the nose.

Speaker 5 (42:47):
That's Hugelo.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
How did you?

Speaker 5 (42:50):
How did you?

Speaker 2 (42:51):
How did you come up with that idea?

Speaker 1 (42:53):
So there was a shirt that we sold Charlie Sheen
winning like yes, So we sold that. It was on
a similar blue T shirt and I just stuck the
red nose on them. And then we had I mean,
Patricia Ward off the plane after they won the Super Bowl,
Sean Payton Ward when he got suspended. It became like

(43:16):
basically a sign of rebellion against the league just took off.
We did this event at Foxborough first game after they
won the Super Bowl.

Speaker 5 (43:23):
Godell's back at Gillette they're playing the Chiefs.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
We had forty thousand towels printed with the little clown
nose on it, and we did an event a week
before I said, Patriot season ticket holders, I need you
to show up at this warehouse. I'm gonna give you boxes.
You hand them out, crafts call me. They heard about it.
They're like, you know, we don't let anything come into
the stadium. You're not allowed to promote for free. We're

(43:46):
just gonna turn the other cheek on this. We're gonna
let these come in.

Speaker 5 (43:49):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
Yeah, so that took a life of its own.

Speaker 5 (43:55):
Have you ever met Roger never put me in cuffs twice?

Speaker 2 (44:00):
Think you think Roger would sit down? You think he's
willing to bury to hatch it now?

Speaker 5 (44:03):
I don't know. Maybe now. At one point during COVID,
he did a charity auction and it was you could
sit in his basement watch Monday night football with him.
So I've been two hundred and fifty grand won the auction,
and then I got an email being like, we did
NFL security, did our background check on it. You've been
arrested twice. We're not gonna let you do it. You

(44:24):
didn't have to do background check. I've been arrested twice
by you guys. Yeah, that's the background. You didn't have
to do.

Speaker 2 (44:32):
Go take that.

Speaker 5 (44:33):
So that was a little bit ago.

Speaker 1 (44:35):
The thing about it, it's been good for us if
he sat down and be the end of it, Like,
I mean, what's gonna happen?

Speaker 5 (44:40):
So I don't know. It's been an interesting saga with him.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
Are you still banned by the NFL? Can you not
go to an NFL sanction event?

Speaker 1 (44:48):
I don't believe we're allowed to media Day. Like a
couple of years ago, they had a picture. It looked
like we're like Billy the Kid.

Speaker 5 (44:55):
They had the gang.

Speaker 1 (44:56):
They had posters up with like Barcel employees. Dude, be
on the look out for them to fuck with ESPN
with super Bowl events.

Speaker 5 (45:04):
But I only do it if the Patriots are in it, which,
by the way, I still hate. I've gone over. But
you're little like call the National Guard thing. There's no way,
I like, very aware of that, Dave.

Speaker 2 (45:18):
You couldn't have been more than like sixteen to help
it was.

Speaker 1 (45:21):
It was before we had really gotten going and you
guys were in the height of it.

Speaker 5 (45:26):
But yeah, I hate that speech held on Caleb Presley,
I mean gone, we lost him too.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
Yes, you know these gambling companies there, if we know
how much we're paying people and how much we make
and someone's going to overpay by fifty percent. Now, it
may not be an overpay for Underdog because I don't
know their business model, but I know how much we
made and if.

Speaker 5 (45:53):
I can't just lose like ten million a year, can't.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
Yeah, because you can only sail so much.

Speaker 1 (45:59):
Yeah, It's like I go to our salespeople, like how
much can we possibly make on this guy? And I'm
happy to even get close to breaking even? And Caleb
wanted to stay so.

Speaker 2 (46:10):
But they just made him an offer he couldn't refuse
and you couldn't match, and it's gotta be okay, it is.

Speaker 1 (46:15):
He at one point is like I told him. I'm like,
I think you gotta go. He's like, I'm not gonna go.
Like we hired him out of college. I saw him
running down the North Carolina sidelines with his long blonde hair.

Speaker 5 (46:26):
I'm like, who the hell is that?

Speaker 1 (46:27):
And and so we recruited him as much as we
recruited out of college and he was with us, I
don't know, seven eight years. So but at some point
everyone's gonna get paid.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
Hello, Tom Brady signed it.

Speaker 5 (46:41):
Oh the Brady you got listen.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
You can do like you know when you do a
murder mystery have strings. Like, yeah, almost everything comes back
to us. You know a guy silver Lake, Brady's company,
they're all underdog, they're all barstool people.

Speaker 5 (46:57):
We were so early. It's like all barstool.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
But Dave Brady is your guy. It's like if you
got a girl, hey, y'all break up. She should be
off limits to Brady. He definitely shouldn't. He definitely should try.

Speaker 5 (47:12):
To quarter her half. The companies won't exist that I
agree with you.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
I agree it sucks that they're they're but it literally
every company is so twisted with like ex barstool people.

Speaker 5 (47:24):
It's tough. And Brady's my guy. I don't know Brady's
my guy. I don't know that his guy.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
Okay, yeah, like he he likes me, but like, but
he's running a business now you do it?

Speaker 1 (47:38):
Yeah, I don't think he's Like I owe Dave a
ton of favors.

Speaker 2 (47:45):
Why do you let your why do you let your
your talent keep their eye ps?

Speaker 5 (47:49):
It varies so if some of them come to us,
like Bustin.

Speaker 1 (47:53):
Had the IP beforehand, call her daddy essentially put a
gun in my mouth.

Speaker 5 (47:58):
With contract negotiations, It's like, all right, I don't have.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
I don't have much whaler rum and some ips they
don't work, Like all right, let's say you work for
me and we have club club sha yet right, what
am I gonna do with club.

Speaker 5 (48:14):
If you leave? So some of them it's like, you know,
you're just being to a degree, there's a bit more leverage.
But I want.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
Creators to be like they're a fair place. They're not
trying to put me over. So you know, certain ones
if it's just a general podcast that we can change.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
Yeah, but like what's synonymous with them? Yeah, call her daddy,
blessed with the boys x Y.

Speaker 5 (48:36):
Yeah, what are we gonna do with it?

Speaker 2 (48:38):
You actually signed a good friend of mine, coach Fryan,
to a contract before he ended up getting and I
think he was still doing it for you when he
was at Jackson State, my favorite guys we've had. He
told me the same thing. He said, man. I said, man,
because I was surprised that he actually signed with Barstool,
And he said, man, you got it wrong about day.

Speaker 1 (48:56):
A lot of people got wrong. But I didn't know
what to expect with him. Like I'm still pretty friendly,
Like I'll text him now all the time.

Speaker 5 (49:02):
I think he's one of the most what I was
expecting to walk through the door one eight and one
of the most impressive, Like none of his none of
his success surprised me in the least. After you get
to know him.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
What you I think the thing is the public persona
versus the private persona is totally different.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
I remember he told me a story when I was like, man,
when he was coming out of college, and he's like,
you know, you saw the pomp circumstance. It's like I
researched where guys on my position got drafted and they
weren't getting paid.

Speaker 5 (49:31):
And then he's like, I knew I had.

Speaker 1 (49:33):
To do something to create my brand and my image
and brilliant And he's a brilliant smart He's literally one
of my favorite hires that we've ever had.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
You signed million dollars worth of game Will Wallow and
Gilly how do you How did you know about them
before you signed him?

Speaker 3 (49:47):
So?

Speaker 2 (49:48):
How much do you know?

Speaker 1 (49:48):
A guy Ron who's a battle wrapper white kid. He's like,
he's like basically the real life version of M and M.
So he's from Philly and he's like, Hey, there's these
two guys. Uh, you may want to go look at
so we went to Philadelphia, sat down, had.

Speaker 5 (50:05):
Dinner with him. Walla Wallow is out of jail for
like five seconds when we met him, and I remember
him being.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
Like, I just hustle T shirts on the side of
the road, Like that's home making money right now, he
had his own gear.

Speaker 5 (50:20):
And again it's like, that's what we want, Like that's
the model you start exactly, it's all right, and we're sold.
We clicked, we got along. They're crazy, uh.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
And I mean, I don't even know what the hell
Gilly is doing now run out of the tunnel with that.

Speaker 5 (50:35):
I think I see you doing it.

Speaker 1 (50:37):
It's like the mascot. So and again it's like we
hire him. We try to put our gasoline behind him.
There a new demo for us. I don't think most
people will be like, oh, barcels Urban and then you
let them do their thing.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
Wow, how would that? Has the investment paid off? Because
normally you you, I mean, have you made any bad investments?
Because we hear about Kayler Presles, we hear about McAfee,
we hear about we hear about Alex Cooper, we hear
about all the.

Speaker 5 (51:03):
Yeah there, I mean, we those are big contracts.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
So you have to be really really proven at that
point to get that type of deal for us.

Speaker 5 (51:13):
So it's hard to do a bad contract.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
So those guys wal and Gilly are one of the
highest probably contracts we've given out. They're already there and
at the time, if we're being just totally honest.

Speaker 5 (51:28):
A lot of people have the perception of us just
a bunch of white guys.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
So there's a diversity ad that they add, even not
only being super talented. Like you know, we tried to
hire before it's uh, the guys on before they went
to show time.

Speaker 5 (51:46):
Oh yeah, all the smoke, no Jesus and Romerol Oh okay,
like before anyone knew who the hell they were.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
And even like we we did talk to up all
in all that smoke and.

Speaker 5 (51:58):
Sometimes do what's that? Yeah, huge didn't exists yet.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
Yeah, oh we was free when I got leg go
by Fox, we reached out to.

Speaker 5 (52:07):
A lot of they were before Fox. Oh yeah, no,
we were talking like pre COVID almost Okay, yeah, no,
we didn't reach out So I was like, well I didn't, honestly, No,
you were let go by Fox. I didn't. I knew
you were doing it with Skip And then you shut
up on hispan.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
I was like, wow, don't nobody, don't nobody want to
see j But you.

Speaker 5 (52:27):
Kind of you kind of like.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
I feel like open up after the Fox, like like
you were more guard.

Speaker 5 (52:34):
Like I don't know if this is gonna sound bad.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
I felt like you were a second fiddle to Skip
and then once you got off that show bloomed.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
Well, we didn't have Nightcap, So nightcap allows me to
be a different at one. Yeah, Zach Bryant, why you right,
why you had to diddy this song for him?

Speaker 1 (52:51):
He's dating a girl that was on my podcast. He
was dating Briann and Chicken fry Right, who is a
girl who blew up kind of social media. Doing a
TikTok podcast with her. She got paid, offered a twelve
million dollar NDA not to talk about the relationship. I
saw the NDA so in my head and based on
what she said, twelve million, she turned it down. Turned

(53:12):
it down because you want to be able to talk
with the relationship to me that somebody's doing real scumbag behavior.

Speaker 5 (53:17):
So this track came out.

Speaker 2 (53:21):
You old grudges, don't you like you don't believe? Yeah,
I believe. I believe.

Speaker 1 (53:26):
Champagne bottles with my enemy's names engraved. I'm Skipper, the
CEO of VS.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
John Skipper.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
Yeah, so they cancel her ESPN show without telling us
after one episode. Uh, I was mad made a champagne
bottle like two weeks later bust into the coke thing,
which makes no sense. That story he got held hostage
by a random coke dealer.

Speaker 5 (53:48):
Anybody believes that story is out of there. You don't
you found at You're John Skipper.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
You found a random coke dealer on the side of
the street and he's holding you hostage or after?

Speaker 5 (53:59):
No, I don't believe that story.

Speaker 2 (54:00):
So what the hell you think happened? Because the man
he had, he wielded so much power in e FPN
for such a long period of time, nothing ran through
ESPN without Skipper's blessing.

Speaker 5 (54:11):
I I something happened that I don't know. I wasn't there.
I think there's probably a lot of backstories, skeletons. Maybe.
I don't think it was a coke dealer. Yeah, that
forced them out.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
We were talking about busting with the boys, Taylor lu
Win and Will Compton. How did you how did you
how did you knew know they were they could be special.

Speaker 1 (54:32):
Saw in an early episode of Theirs and it was
just raw, real and we reached out to them. We're like, hey,
you guys are doing something we really haven't seen. Uh,
would you be interested to come on boards. I think
we've had them for about six years.

Speaker 5 (54:46):
It's been great. I actually love those guys.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
It sucks they're leaving bust balls, but they just had
that hit and Will's a monster. A lot of times
what you find Taylor's great and and this isn't really
your case, but a lot of times what we found
is the guy who were athletes who maybe didn't make
all that money, and he didn't he was like, you know,
bounce off getting cut.

Speaker 5 (55:06):
They come in the media world and they're just ready
to go working there. This is their career. They didn't
make it, and Will's been Will's Will's a megastar.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
Yeah, what did they learn how to do this? Because
I think they're set up for a production they're doing
a production company now.

Speaker 1 (55:20):
I think, no learn they go to the school of barstool,
get a degree, and they get a degree and then
they graduate make a lot of money.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
So let me ask you, this is that it seems
to be that this is the gambling deals or the
deals that they get once they leave you that they
don't get and they feel they don't get when they're
under you.

Speaker 5 (55:39):
Here's what it is.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
So we have a gigantic, all encompassing DraftKings deal. So
DraftKings pays us a ton of money. They don't necessarily
if Bustin's with us or not with us, that doesn't
change a sense of what Barstool makes. So other gambling
company will be like, hey, we can pay you all

(56:02):
this money.

Speaker 5 (56:03):
We have no way to make that up.

Speaker 1 (56:04):
If it was a different advertiser, if it was a liquor,
we couldn't incorporate it and give.

Speaker 5 (56:08):
The money to them, right, But in this case, it's.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
A gambling deal that's opposite of what.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
Correct and we have an exclusivity and DraftKings is paying
us the same whether Bussing's here or not. Buzzings here,
they care me, Dan and some people, So it puts
us behind the eight ball.

Speaker 5 (56:23):
And these guys have infinity money.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
These gambling companies right now, they're spending, you know, they're
spending like wildfire.

Speaker 5 (56:29):
Do yeah? Do you not have a gambling does he not?

Speaker 2 (56:36):
So they want to displit the revenue with you who blessing. So,
like you said, you have this deal, you have an
all encompassing gambling deal.

Speaker 5 (56:45):
I go back to your gambling.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
It's not very good. I don't really want to talk
about it. But that's so you have this all encompassing deal.
And so basically, barstool, we're gonna give you let's just
say what I'm throwing out number seventy million, and so
you're like, Okay, this show, I'm gonna give you, guys
two million of this, this show, I'm gonna give you
one point five million of this this show, I'm gonna

(57:08):
give you three.

Speaker 5 (57:08):
Million, pretty much. And now there's different people.

Speaker 1 (57:10):
Some people like if you advertise me or pardon my take,
that doesn't get cut at all.

Speaker 5 (57:15):
Those are like shows we.

Speaker 1 (57:16):
Own, spin chick lits, yes, busting, yes, but there's no
way it's going to be near what they where they.

Speaker 2 (57:24):
Can get on their own if a gambling deal just
reached out that rect to them.

Speaker 1 (57:28):
Yeah, and then they can still go sell their other
ads on top of that. So I think Will and
Taylor said they were to take forty percent, like they
if they are getting a forty percent, and I mean
Will was called he's like how can I stay?

Speaker 5 (57:42):
And I want it?

Speaker 1 (57:43):
I made the most aggressive offer I've made that barstool
to keep.

Speaker 5 (57:47):
Them, and I just couldn't do it. You get to
a point's like how you know.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
That makes sense? You can't do it if it doesn't
make dollalards, It doesn't make sense. And it doesn't make
sense it doesn't make dollards. That's a good So what
have you learned from each situation? Talent leaving because it
doesn't seem like if I sit here with you, Dave,
it doesn't seem It doesn't seem to me that you
bear any out of Massa.

Speaker 1 (58:11):
It's how you leave, Like I had a problem with
Jenna Marvels the way she left when she left. But
as long as you do the right thing, I know
it going in Like there's you know, if somebody left
for less money or similar money, even then I don't
I'd be like why, Like I don't we treat you well?
But I can't really begrudge any of it because I

(58:31):
do the same thing. Like if that's me, I'm probably
making the same decision then, right, So, but it does suck.

Speaker 2 (58:38):
Do you ever regret, like man bro, well, we put
this gas behind you bro, we blew you up and
just how you do your boy?

Speaker 5 (58:51):
No, I mean the call her daddy thing.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
Yeah, that became a real situation and it could have
ended really ugly and it didn't.

Speaker 5 (59:01):
But maybe it's maybe petty, like most of the people graduate,
Like when I said graduate going, they'll come back, they'll
be like, yeah, I owe Barcelola, like thank you, and
so no, I don't. I don't really have that that
and I'm a petty guy.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
I almost have it on lesser people, like people who's
like irrelevant. If someone goes like there's a guy at
Underdog who tried to poach our like producers that drove
me nots, it's like you won't even know who they
are if.

Speaker 5 (59:30):
You don't work here.

Speaker 1 (59:31):
That's a little different talent who's on contracts right, Like, no,
it doesn't, it doesn't.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
This concludes the first half of my conversation. Part two
is also posted and you can access it to whichever
podcast platform you just listen to part one on. Just
simply go back to club profile and I'll see you there.