Dave Portnoy: Barstool Sports Is ‘Losing Millions’
Dave Portnoy is back in control of Barstool Sports again. However, it isn’t sunshine and rainbows after Portony has regained control. Straight from the horses mouth, Portnoy acknowledges that Barstool is bleeding money in its current state.
“I knew before I bought the company back, it was losing millions,” Portnoy said. “I can get back in control of this thing—it may be rough for a couple months getting things back to where we’re not getting F—ing smoked, but I think I could make this a good place to work.”
There were a lot of takeaways in that interview with Kirk Minihane. The notable ones include Portnoy admitting that he checked out after the sale of Barstool went through. He also confirmed that he is in talks with Sirius XM Radio about a possible show to potentially increase revenue.
Front Office Sports noted that Barstool lost $16.1 million in the first six months of 2023. That’s not a small amount of money. Especially now that Portnoy has to finance the entire operation by himself.
It also seems pretty obvious that had Portnoy not regained control of the company, it was possible Barstool Sports would have gone completely under. WTF were the Penn people doing?
Layoffs could be on the way. Kelly in Vegas (link) and Coach Duggs (link) are two recent layoffs from this Summer. Troopz (link) was the first to be let go since Portnoy regained control of the company. With this news in mind, it feels pretty certain that other notable content personalities at Barstool are going to join that list in the near future.
Portnoy has his work cut out for him. Barstool’s current culture stinks and 99% of the writers they have on staff don’t even work. They should be ashamed of the blog numbers they put out. They don’t even show up to work.
