Sports Media

Gord Miller Calls Out Dave Portnoy On Twitter – Portnoy Responds

Adam Krieger / NHL / March 18, 2021

Gord Miller Dave Portnoy — (via Kim Stallknecht for The New York Times)

Gord Miller a hockey reporter for TSN and NBC called out Dave Portnoy and all of Barstool Sports on Twitter.

My comment today about not wanting to associate with Barstool Sports has prompted a lot of texts/emails/calls. The response has been incredibly positive, especially from female/BIPOC colleagues who have been afraid to speak out about their issues with Barstool (and sites like it)
— Gord Miller 🌻🇺🇦 (@GMillerTSN) March 17, 2021

Miller accused Barstool of being a company that discriminates and that they “condone non-consensual sex”

“My problem with Barstool is the history of unapologetic misogyny, racism, xenophobia and the repeated condoning of non-consensual sex. If not wanting to associate with that makes me part of “cancel culture”, or constitutes “virtue signalling” or being “woke”, I’m OK with that.”
GMillerTSN on Twitter

It is no secret to anyone who has read stuff I have written for Vendetta that I follow Barstool pretty closely, would consider myself a fan. I listen to some of their content, read the blogs and follow them on Twitter, but these accusations are far from anything I have ever heard or read.

Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports, came to the defense of his company.

Nobody should ever be afraid to publicly speak their mind. But when you do I’d suggest doing actual research before slandering an entire company with blatant lies.

Now comes the part where our fans become the bad guys because
they defend us from being called Nazis. https://t.co/DrQLGQW7RJ
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) March 17, 2021

We are clearly in a crazy time of the world, “cancel culture” seems to be a trending topic on Twitter twice a month as the world is trying to get rid of the hatefulness.

This is not the first time people have tried to cancel Barstool, and Portnoy knows the typical playbook, he challenged Miller to a debate about the accusations he made publicly.

I’d love to have a live conversation and go through every single accusation you made. Context 100% matters. Let me know when you want to do it @GMillerTSN https://t.co/LwrP8JUQ1Q
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) March 17, 2021

It would be an interesting discussion to have the accuser and Portnoy square off live. The non-consensual sex accusation stems from early Barstool days when they did raves/concerts called The Blackout Tour. They went college to college throwing great parties, doing what they could to make money and grow their content game.

The name of the tour sounds aggressive, but it wasn’t named after the idea of getting blacked out (so they say). It was named that way due to the black lights, which made it rave-like.