Trying to Understand the Business Insider and Dave Portnoy Situation
Last week Business Insider published an article that took close to a year to make, an investigation piece into Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy and then made some very heinous accusations. Now, more than 72 hours after the piece became public, more information has come forward and Portnoy has had a chance to defend himself.
The Accusations
”I was literally screaming in pain’: Young women say they met Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy for sex and it turned violent and humiliating”
– Business Insider
That is the headline, that is some really horrible stuff if it is true and that is how it actually went down. If this is true, Portnoy deserves to be in jail and never come out again. There is no debate to any of that, but only if this is true.
The biggest takeaway here for me is that the story was behind a paywall. If BI was doing such a public service and exposing a predator, why throw it behind a paywall to make money off such a horrible person.
Portnoy’s Initial Reaction
Despite knowing the piece was coming for months, the headline itself is still jarring and scary for Portnoy. He was quick to respond and released a video on Twitter to defend himself and try and get in front of it as much as he could.
Against the will of Penn National Gaming board members and their lawyers, he came out and immediately denied the horrible accusations, and then published some direct messages with the person accusing him of these horrible things. The messages directly conflict with what she is saying, but these usually end up being a “he said, she said” situation.
The Theorys
Portnoy said in his initial response cancel culture has been coming after him for a decade, and that this is no different. However, this story was eight months in the making, but it came out on the day Penn National Gaming’s earnings call came out. The stock was already down, so adding controversy to the mix is sure to tank the stock.
Not saying that is intentional, Portnoy has focused all his attention and rage at Henry Blodget, the CEO of Insider who is the one who told the reporter to write the story on Dave.
Inside trading? No way people do that still it’s guaranteed to end up in a serious fine and jail time and then that person would never get a job again, right? RIght? Wrong.
There are a ton of tweets from Portnoy since the story went public, but here are a few of the ones that stood out the most.
So What Happens Now?
I really don’t know what the next week or two looks like for Portnoy and Barstool. If this was any other person they probably go into hiding and try and hide out until the story passes, but that isn’t how Portnoy handles his issues. He is loud and brought the fight to them.
He has used this as a rallying cry to sell his frozen One Bite Pizzas, and claimed sales are up 50% this weekend compared to last weekend.
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