HBO Fires Peter Nelson And Dave Portnoy Celebrates

Peter Nelson lost the battle when he tried to micro manage the Call Her Daddy team. Nelson is dating former cohost of Call Her Daddy Sophia Franklyn. He cost his girlfriend her podcast as Barstool eventually agreed to restructure Alex Cooper’s contract. Now she just does the show by herself. Now it’s clear that Nelson also lost the war.

HBO fired Nelson is a company wide shake up. Awful Announcing had the story that apparently Nelson wasn’t fired but pretty much left the company on his own terms because he had to.

“Awful Announcing has learned that HBO Sports president Peter Nelson is leaving the company. Nelson’s departure, which is not being termed as a layoff, comes at a time where HBO’s parent company, AT&T,  has enacted a significant layoff of a reported 600 people across their portfolio of media brands.

We’re told Nelson left the company “on his own terms” which can be interpreted in many different ways. However the popular conjecture is that Nelson and HBO’s motivation for the parting may boil down the fact that HBO Sports’s internal significance and ambitions have been trending down for the past decade as we’ve seen the network walk away from boxing and have inconsistent documentary output”

It sounds like Nelson was going to have to take a step back in the company. Nelson oversaw most of the boxing projects which obviously is a sport that hasn’t taken national spotlight compared to other sports.

We also have to talk about the Barstool side of things. I’m not saying Nelson got axed because he embarrassed himself and HBO with the way he handled the Call Her Daddy thing but I’d believe it had to be a factor.

Dave Portnoy made sure to do his victory lap like only he knows how. Celebrating in Nantucket eating a 5 star meal and grinning from ear to ear knowing another sorry fool got burned by trying to cross him.

As Portnoy said on one of his Day trading steams “You work for a Network, I am the Network”. Portnoy is right. Barstool can’t fire him. HBO could remove themselves of Nelson anytime they wanted.

I think the best thing HBO does is Hard Knocks which is set to premier soon. The Rams and Chargers are the teams on the series this year. Obviously, We don’t know what the company has planned this year but the restructuring could change how the show is produced.