Dave Portnoy GOES OFF On Bitcoin, AI, Socialism & Being Fired From Barstool

Dave Portnoy is the founder of Barstool Sports and author of Cancel Me If You Can https://www.amazon.com/Cancel-Me-If-You-Can/dp/1668222027. In this conversation, we break down how ESPN tried to force him out of his own company and how he engineered the legendary $1 buyback, his days as "Davey Day Trader" during Covid and the GameStop saga, his history with Bitcoin and crypto, and why he's considering running for mayor of New York City. ======================== Turn every conversation into a searchable business asset with PLAUD NotePro. Visit https://Plaud.ai/pomp and use code POMP for 15% off. ======================== BitcoinIRA http://lp.bitcoinira.com/after-crypto: Save up to 37% in capital gains taxes on your retirement investments. Take 3 minutes to open your account & get connected to a team of IRA specialists that will guide you through every step of the process. Go to lp.bitcoinira.com/after-crypto http://lp.bitcoinira.com/after-crypto to win up to $4,000 in rewards. ======================== Arch Public is an agentic trading platform that automates the buying and selling of your preferred crypto strategies. Sign up today at https://www.archpublic.com and start your automated trading strategy for free. No catch. No hidden fees. Just smarter trading. ======================== 0:00 - Intro0:52 - How ESPN tried to fire Dave from his own company & the $1 buyback12:47 - How Pomp and Dave first met & the Barstool Finance deal14:55 - Davey Day Trader, Covid, & going to war with Wall Street18:33 - GameStop & Steve Cohen23:30 - Barstool's content model & talent machine29:45 - The Business Insider hit piece34:05 - Running for mayor of New York City37:36 - How many houses does Dave have?39:26 - AI and the future of content41:51 - His ex-wife & the bank account story44:12 - Bitcoin — bad trades, losses, & where he stands now47:32 - Crazy Barstool moments54:35 - The new book "Cancel Me If You Can"

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 1:24Speaker 01

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• 1:30Speaker 04

  I walked out of that meeting, called Renee, my ex. I go, I just got fired from Barstool. I couldn't believe it. And we're changing, it's changing from Barstool Sportsbook to ESPN Bet. And they did this gigantic deal, I think it was 10 years, $2 billion is what this deal ended up being. And ESPN would market everything. I talked to Erica, I talked to Dan, and we all kind of regrouped. What do we want to do here?

• 1:52Speaker 05

  All right, guys. Today we got a conversation with Dave Portnoy. He's founder of Barstool Sports and he wrote a great book, Cancel Me If You Can. It is absolutely hilarious. In this conversation, we talk about how he almost got fired from Barstool, or he did get fired. We talk about his investments, how much money he's got, how much money he spends on a monthly basis, talk about AI, what stocks he likes, what stocks he doesn't like, Bitcoin, is he a fan, is he not? How much does he hold? There's incredible amount of detail in here and he does it all in his own style. He just tells you the truth. It's pretty entertaining. Enjoy. Here's my conversation with Dave Portnoy. All right, Dave, you got a new book out. Everyone is worried about all these little anecdotes, but the craziest story to me is that Penn, the company that had bought Barstool, fired you from Barstool Sports. How's that happen?

• 2:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I thought that would be the number one story in the book. It hasn't been so far, but essentially what happened, and I tell this story, we're in New York and I had a great relationship with Jay Snowden, like we were-

• 2:44Speaker 05

  CEO of Penn.

• 2:45Speaker 04

  Yep, CEO of Penn, like we were lockstep. I trusted him totally. He trusted me. We hadn't met in a bit. Is I gonna be in New York City? Can you meet me for lunch? Of course, sure. And hand to God, walking into the restaurant, it's a little Italian place, no, empty. I go, this looks like where somebody would get whacked, like in a mob movie. I literally said it.

• 3:06Speaker 05

  To him.

• 3:07Speaker 04

  To him. As we're walking, we sat in the back table in the corner, nobody around, and he starts telling me updates, like updates on the business. He's like, we are doing a huge deal with ESPN, which was shocking to me, but great. I didn't know. In my head, I'm like, all right, so is ESPN going to promote Barstool Sportsbook? Are we like, what's going on?

• 3:27Speaker 05

  Cause you guys were kind of competitive a little bit in terms of you had a sportsbook and ESPN wanted to have a sportsbook, and now the company was gonna essentially do a deal.

• 3:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, ESPN was basically a hired gun at that point. Like, they could advertise that they may have been advertising DraftKings, FanDuel, whoever. They didn't have a specific company that they're advertising with. We were branded. So when you think FanDuel, DraftKings, we had Barstool Sportsbook along those. And we hadn't actually promoted the sportsbook in quite a while because we got this new technology overhaul. So we had waited, I think we skipped an entire football season of doing any promo. The thought being, we, once the new technology launched, we would want to put all our marketing weight in, and the market share would go up. So don't promote it till we're ready. Market share lower, we promote, boom, we got the new technology up and it goes up. So I thought that was gonna be what the meeting was about.

• 4:20Speaker 04

  And he says, we did this big deal with ESPN. I was, wow, that's crazy. And I asked him some questions. It's great. Is McAfee gonna promote it? Is Scott Van Pelt gonna promote it? He's like, yeah, they're all in. This should be big for us. Okay, great. And then he segued to the next point, which was like, the only caveat to this deal, which was a done deal, is ESPN said- Dave Portnoy can absolutely not be part of Barstool Sports or this deal. It was stunning. I mean, I was stunned and he continued it. What? I didn't get up, be like, oh my God, what? What are you talking about? I was taken aback and it takes a lot for me to be taken back, but I was stunned and I just kind of sat there.

• 5:00Speaker 04

  I was processing it and he continued and he's like, all your stock options. And when we did the pen deal, we didn't get paid out immediately. A lot of it was stock, a lot of it vested. All that was going to vest instantly. How much money was it? Tens of millions. It was tens of millions. So I think maybe close to 30 or 40, if I'm going off memory would have, that I would have had to wait for, I get right away. And I'd be done with Barstool as a way out. And at that time, I certainly was getting a little tired of. How much money do you think you had made from the whole deal before this? A hundred?

• 5:42Speaker 04

  Uh, I think the whole deal I was making about a hundred, if I recall, so. Maybe you had made 60 or 70. Yeah, exactly. So.

• 5:53Speaker 04

  So 30 or 40, that was very material. Oh, super material, super material. Um, so he explained this all to me and I'm listening and he goes through the deal. And I'd be out of the contract. Everything's vested and I just kind of listened to it. The deal was already done. So we leave the meeting and I did say casually, what, what if I don't want to be done? Like what is like, well, this is good. You get to go on your way. But he knew it wasn't like, it wasn't like I'm so gung ho in the company right now. I walked out of that meeting, called Renee, my ex. I go, I just got fired from Barstool. I couldn't believe it. He had set up, uh, meetings with Erica and Dan, Big Cat, after me. And same story, here's what we're doing. And we're so everything's. Erica's the CEO of Barstool.

• 6:37Speaker 04

  CEO of Barstool, Dan's our like number one guy and we're changing, it's changing from Barstool Sportsbook to ESPN Bet. And they did this gigantic deal. I think it was 10 years, $2 billion is what this deal ended up being. Um, and ESPN would market everything. I talked to Erica, I talked to Dan and we all kind of regrouped. And you're like, what do we want to do here? And they both were like, we do not want to become ESPN employees. We don't want to work with ESPN. They want to become employees, but for lack of better words, they kind of would have. Also, I think we all realize, certainly I did, most of Barstool would have been fired, like no use for them. Like we have our, our bullpen of idiots and people have been with us a long time.

• 7:18Speaker 04

  What are they going to do? They would have cut, probably cut costs because they have this new media behemoth. So came around, talked about it and it came to conclusion, we, we weren't going to go along with this. So I called Jay and I'm like, listen, I, I cannot let ESPN fire me from my own company of 20 years at this point. This isn't going to work. They had already gone down the path. The ESPN deal was pretty much aimed with the understanding I want to be part of it. And I, I pitched him the concept to make this work for you guys to go on your new venture with ESPN and to have us be happy and no problems. Because if we were like, holy cow, we just got fired, this new ESPN deal with Penn is probably dead on arrival.

• 8:05Speaker 05

  Because you don't have at that time, a legal right to block the deal or to block yourself getting fired.

• 8:10Speaker 04

  No, they don't.

• 8:10Speaker 05

  It's more of just like the power of Dave and Barstool, these people on the internet pissed at us is going to be bad news for our company.

• 8:16Speaker 04

  Correct. If you're going to ESPN and creating ESPN bet with Penn and you have me in the streets saying, hold on, ESPN just fired me from my own company of 20 years, you're going to go bet with them now? Uh, I don't think that would have gone over that great.

• 8:34Speaker 05

  They don't want to go to war with you.

• 8:35Speaker 04

  No, and I did have a great relationship with Jay. So I pitched the concept, sell me back Barstool for a dollar. That's where that mythical dollar, everyone's.

• 8:44Speaker 05

  That was, that was your idea?

• 8:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was my idea.

• 8:46Speaker 05

  Where'd you get it from?

• 8:47Speaker 04

  Uh, well, we couldn't do it for free because you have to do the transaction.

• 8:51Speaker 05

  But you talked to like a lawyer?

• 8:53Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, we had, we had lawyers involved to do it, but they couldn't just give it to me. You have.

• 8:58Speaker 05

  I know, but like when you first were like, hey, I think I'm going to pitch him on a dollar. Did lawyers over there like, that's a great idea? Or they're like, there's no way they're going to.

• 9:04Speaker 04

  There was no lawyers at that point. It was Jay and I talking, like, how do we make this work for everybody involved? So it was like, I'll inherit all of our expenses and there were expenses and all the payroll and everything. I'll take it over. You got to give me the company back for a buck. Uh, and I believe there was. Till after the Super Bowl, somewhere about six to 12 months, we couldn't compete versus them. Then after that, we could go get a contract. So that was the deal we struck and it was really to part. Good ways with us, Penn, let them do the thing. I signed a 10 year NDA that said I could never discuss the details of this.

• 9:45Speaker 05

  That you got fired.

• 9:46Speaker 04

  That I got fired, that was ESPN, because they didn't want the blowback even now, right? Saying ESPN tried to fire Dave, like what the, I can't say anything.

• 9:54Speaker 05

  Why are you talking about it now?

• 9:56Speaker 04

  What, the beauty of this, I'm finishing my book and the Penn ESPN deal falls apart.

• 10:02Speaker 05

  This brand new book, cancel me.

• 10:04Speaker 04

  Brand new book and I'm writing the last chapter and I didn't know how to finish it, to be honest. I knew it was the perfect ending, but it's like, I can't tell it. Because they had it in it, if I tell, if I bash ESPN, they can come after me for everything. So I knew I couldn't do it. Word comes out, the ESPN Penn deal is a total disaster. Like, we weren't even promoting, we were getting better numbers than ESPN. So the deal falls apart. The very first thing I do, I didn't talk to Jay in forever. Hey, I just saw this deal fell apart. What do you think about me telling the truth about ESPN? And he gave me the green light. So that provided the perfect ending to this book.

• 10:43Speaker 05

  I mean, pretty good dude, if he lets you buy the company back for a dollar and he lets you tell a story.

• 10:48Speaker 04

  Hundred percent, and I always got along with him. You know, and I asked him after it was all over, what? Because we always saw eye to eye. I'm like, and ESPN, I don't know what went on behind their doors. I don't know why they were so, I've always, I've clearly, maybe not clearly, but I've had, you know, headbutts and disagreements with ESPN.

• 11:08Speaker 05

  But is it like, are they like a mortal enemy who deserves like a champagne bottle? Or is it more of just like, it's healthy competition and all is fair and love and war?

• 11:16Speaker 04

  ESPN has been the best thing that's ever happened to the history of Barstool. They've given us two gifts beyond belief. So I don't look at them as that mortal enemy. They canceled Barstool Van Talk and reunited Barstool and put our best talent back together and kind of united. And they handed me the company back for a dollar. So I don't look at them like that. We have gone to war, I guess, or exchanged words with certain employees of theirs, like, Mina Kynes works there, who I absolutely despise and think she's one of the biggest frauds of all time.

• 11:46Speaker 04

  But why they singled out like, who knows if Barstool with ESPN could have been a successful venture? It was a interesting thing they did to put almost Penn in that corner. Like, we'll do the deal, but Dave can't be part of it. It helped us greatly. I asked Jay, I'm like, what made you think, you know me as good as anybody at this point? What made you think I would let ESPN fire me from my own company? And he, he, it was a fair answer. He's like, I just thought you were done. Like you had been doing content for so long. He was with me through a lot of the worst parts of basically my life and attacks and things. And he stood by me far more than a lot of other companies would have.

• 12:29Speaker 04

  So he, I, I got where he was coming from. Like, hey, let's try ESPN. Barstool is two steps forward, eight steps back because they get attacked by everybody. And this legalized gambling world is very difficult. So I got all that. And he just was like, I thought you'd be happy to get the money, go buy your place in Antucket and disappear.

• 12:49Speaker 04

  If I. The regulators liked you or no? Hated. Hated you. A couple of states, you want to go to the deep south in Louisiana? They may like me. Massachusetts, my home state despised me. There was like a meeting, I used to watch it online. The gambling like council, there's one particular lady who was so biased against us, another member actually had to literally stand up and be like, I need an objection to be filed that Barstool is being treated differently than all the other companies we've interviewed because they would go read old articles about me that aren't facts, but treat them as facts. So it was, I, I think I say in the book, we had a very early discussion when Penn bought us.

• 13:30Speaker 04

  Do we name the gambling app Barstool Sportsbook or come up with a new name? And it was a discussion around table and, and I argued, we keep it. I'm like, we have so much equity in the name. I think it's important. Hindsight, probably would have been better off going a different name and pushing people to it. Cause it, it, it just, people have so many opinions about us and that's fine. In my world now, I don't care. Like. You say whatever you want about me and if I want to come back at you, I will. Can't do that when you're regulated by the government.

• 14:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 14:01Speaker 04

  Like, and that was part of the deal I made with them. When we did the deal, it's like, I won't attack government officials. I won't talk on politics as much as I can. Because we have to deal with these people. And guess what? One state may be very red where you need a license. The next may be very blue. So you can't win unless you just keep your mouth shut.

• 14:17Speaker 05

  I think a lot of people try to figure out, how did you build this thing? Right? And so I can only talk from my personal experience interacting with you. The first time I think you and I ever met was during COVID. You were doing unboxings, you were doing day V day trader. You know, all this stuff.

• 14:29Speaker 04

  You used to cost me a lot of time getting ready to, I had, you made me have to accept Bitcoin for, for the.

• 14:35Speaker 05

  Barstool fund, before that, before that. You just randomly DM'd me and said, I'll come on your podcast.

• 14:41Speaker 04

  Why?

• 14:43Speaker 05

  I would love to know because I didn't ask you.

• 14:45Speaker 04

  There had to be something that.

• 14:46Speaker 05

  Somebody tweeted at you, I think, but you, you said, so I was like, okay, fine. You know, you, you were, that was like your Hall of Fame years, I think, of content creation was during COVID.

• 14:54Speaker 04

  COVID, yeah.

• 14:55Speaker 05

  So we do it. And then afterward, I, I think we both had fun.

• 14:58Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 14:59Speaker 05

  And then you were like, hey, uh, let's try to figure something out. And so. You, Erica, et cetera, we all started talking about stuff. And there's two defining moments that I remember. The first is, uh, I was sitting in the office, uh, with Erica and we were talking and you came in. You had about maybe twice as big of a iced coffee that you were drinking. And you were pacing back and forth and we were talking about doing Barstool Finance and partnership, all this stuff, right? And one of the things that we kept talking about was, should we invent some kind of game or sport? And I remember we were talking about like, should we do heads up trading, all this stuff? You're just pacing back and forth and all of a sudden you just start muttering, I don't know to us or to yourself, they never saw me coming. They never saw me.

• 15:39Speaker 04

  Who was I talking about?

• 15:40Speaker 05

  Wall Street. And I look at you and I say, and I say, Dave, three days ago, you were on TV. You had a cigar in your mouth saying you're the king of Wall Street. And yesterday you were pulling Scrabble letters out of a bag saying, you know, this is so easy. I'm better than Warren Buffett.

• 15:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, yep.

• 15:55Speaker 05

  And Erica and I both were like, this is electric content. Like there's no way to beat this. And of course, Wall Street doesn't know how to compete with, you know what I mean? Like CNBC can't do this, none of this stuff. And so I don't think any of that was planned. Like, I think the Scrabble bag, you probably just grabbed and was like, this will be funny. And then it turns into a thing. Is that like how most of the content got created?

• 16:16Speaker 04

  All of the content. I mean, there, we, we, we do, we have a lot of people, a lot of talented people, myself included. You try different things, you see what resonates. But yeah, like DDTG was massive when it was going. And clearly that was never something I thought. That was early days of COVID. It was, we just did the deal with Penn. It's supposed to be sports gambling. We signed the deal, the ink's not even dry. One of the all time most this Barstool stories ever is when we rang the bell on NASDAQ. It was the worst day in the history of NASDAQ. Like we're popping champagne and the entire board behind you is just bright red. Like the country is ending, the world is ending. No one knows what's going on, like clinking champagne bottles to celebrate the sale.

• 17:01Speaker 04

  But that was, that's how recent, like the deal was signed, COVID, sports go away.

• 17:07Speaker 05

  Good thing you got it signed.

• 17:09Speaker 04

  Really? And I didn't know if they were going to business. Their stock went down to like three or $2. And I wasn't that close with the J yet. We just did the deal. So I didn't know what was going on. But I knew we were supposed to throw out sports gambling. That's why they bought us, gone. So it's like, all right, well, the stock market's still going. And I decided to do that a day. We had Glenny Balls, big fat Glenny. And I'm like, first day, I'm like, Glenny, give me a stock. It was around 11:45. He goes, people get hungry at lunch, Shake Shack. So I bought Shake Shack and we just started watching the stock market and people were riveted. And I was all through COVID.

• 17:45Speaker 05

  I mean, to be honest, people do eat lunch. So.

• 17:47Speaker 04

  They do eat lunch. They do eat lunch. And I think he bought that stock around like 30. And at one point it was like triple. So I went live every morning, the stock market, opening bell, closing bell for about 15, 20 minutes. Putting millions like into it, day trading it in it, it took off. And Wall Street at first, I think, hey, it's funny, this queue, we're gonna have fun with them. And then I think they started not liking me as much and everything, but I still.

• 18:22Speaker 04

  Like think Wall Street is just an insider's game and and the biggest casino and the people try to like, you know, the gatekeep it basically.

• 18:32Speaker 05

  They, I, my take on it was they didn't like that you were saying the truth in such a like crude, transparent way because you were like, stocks always go up.

• 18:39Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 18:40Speaker 05

  Right. And they were like, oh, you're not supposed to say that, right? And you're like, no, no, literally, just look at the chart.

• 18:43Speaker 04

  Look at the history of the stock market.

• 18:45Speaker 05

  It just keeps going up. Like you guys are not smart.

• 18:47Speaker 04

  And, and they had never dealt with an internet guy. So, you know, I'm saying I'm the new captain of the internet and Warren Buffett's old and like, would you trust like an 80 year old guy to run any business? Why are you listening to him? And there was also one of those moments, those peak moments where I was like, I don't think airlines or cruises are going out of business. So Spirit Airlines, which is now out of business, is like a, was trading down to like six bucks. I'm like, I'm going all in on Spirit Airlines. Big whoop de do. We fly in this country. No less than 10 minutes later, Warren Buffett's like, I'm selling all my stock in the airline. So I posed it, me versus Buffett, and Spirit Airlines actually

• 19:32Speaker 04

  ripped. It went from like six to 21 in that span. So I'm like, you follow this idiot. Now I'm putting on a show. It's, it's.

• 19:41Speaker 05

  But you were right, though.

• 19:42Speaker 04

  I was, in that case, I was totally right. But I'm still, I'm talking in Barstool language. Well, when you see Dave Portnoy, he says he's the new captain of the stock market, Warren Buffett's old and washed up in the Wall Street Journal, it hits a little different. But that's what was happening. I was spoofed on billions. They like, they had a guy sitting at desk whacking. So that was a, a whole new audience that, that was introduced.

• 20:03Speaker 05

  But I think a lot of people also started to realize, like, you were essentially a mirror to what was really happening in the market. Like, there was tons of young people coming in, all this stuff, right? So like, in a weird way, maybe you were just like a older version of what was actually happening, but you were the one who was communicating it as directly as possible to the people on the internet.

• 20:20Speaker 04

  Yeah. And then the GameStop thing happened and I was dead smack in the middle of it because I'm day trading and like.

• 20:28Speaker 05

  Didn't you bully Steve Cohen off the internet?

• 20:29Speaker 04

  Yes, Steve Cohen deleted uh his.

• 20:32Speaker 05

  Tell that story. Cause I know, I actually know the other side of that story.

• 20:35Speaker 04

  Yeah. So the GameStop thing happens and I'm trying to ride it like everybody else. I was maybe a day or two late, but I'm like, oh my God, the Wall Street Bets, things going bananas. Roaring Kitty had posted a video about me like before this happened. He's like, people are making fun of Davey Day Trader. He's going to the moon like before Roaring Kitty was Roaring Kitty. So I, I was in the middle of it and then all of a sudden you can't buy it. You can only sell it and the thing craters. I think I lost 70 grand on it. I'm like, what, what is going on? As was everybody else, mostly novices and a lot of people actually who didn't trade stocks, who had heard about it, friends,

• 21:13Speaker 04

  who signed up for accounts and put money into this thing to be totally screwed, like totally screwed. Uh Vlad Tenoff, he, his first interview was with me. I had on DDTG and I'm grilling him. He's trying to be like hipster. He's wearing a Lakers hat. I didn't know half the stuff I was talking about because I wasn't overly fluent. Um, and Steve Cohen, it went through. So that's it. The way I remember it is it appeared to me that Citadel, Steve Cohen, were trying to bail out all these, the, the hedge funds, the people who are shorting it. So I was hammering Steve Cohen,

• 21:52Speaker 04

  who doesn't have the best Wall Street reputation. I'm like, did you guys do the inside trader? Are you getting the information from Robin Hood? Are you involved in this?

• 22:00Speaker 05

  He had just like gotten on Twitter.

• 22:01Speaker 04

  Yes, because he bought the Mets, because he bought the Mets.

• 22:04Speaker 05

  So he got on it. So the, the side of the story I know is that he basically was like, I'm gonna talk to the fans. And when this is all going on, he has a bunch of people around him.

• 22:11Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 22:11Speaker 05

  Who are like, hey, let us help you. Let us review the tweets, you know, like kind of doing the thing that if you're there to like mitigate risk.

• 22:19Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 22:19Speaker 05

  Number one is don't let the billionaire tweet directly to the people.

• 22:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, right. Yeah.

• 22:23Speaker 05

  And supposedly he was like, nah, I got it. And he just told everyone like, leave it alone. And then he did not, I think, realize who he was engaging with.

• 22:32Speaker 04

  Yeah. He, he came in, went quick and, and, and who'd I, I've gone back and forth like I, I've never met him. I've heard stories like he's somebody, if you want to put down a list of people you don't want to cross, he's generally high on that list. So I don't know if that has complicated things down there. But yeah, he deleted it quick.

• 22:52Speaker 05

  So he deleted the entire account?

• 22:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, gone.

• 22:55Speaker 05

  And what'd you do when that happened?

• 22:57Speaker 04

  I said, I ran him off. I ran him off Twitter. He's come back, but and I still ask every once in a while. I mean, they, the movie Dumb Money, which was about that whole thing. I still don't know how, because we get threats, like take down requests, all this. The movie Dumb Money used a clip of me in the movie without asking me, which I still don't know how they had the clip of me talking to Vlad Tenoff, except instead of Vlad, they put in the actor who played, but I was still real and it was still the real conversation. No one, no one told me. It's like, oh, I'm in the movie.

• 23:34Speaker 05

  Do you want a royalty check?

• 23:35Speaker 04

  No, my ego is fine with being in the movie. And maybe they knew that, like, trust me, this guy's just gonna be happy as mentioned. But yeah, so it was like every, somehow a trait of mine and ability of mine is not on purpose. We're pretty good at ending up smack dab in the middle of big things. Like, how in the world was I in the middle of the GameStop controversy? But I was there and I.

• 23:58Speaker 05

  But it's also on the internet and I think that there is something about like having your finger on the pulse of what's happening and I think being able to communicate what you're thinking, one of your greatest skills is just like, you just say what you think.

• 24:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:10Speaker 05

  Right? And so you're like, hey, what are all these people over here doing? It's kind of like you're walking down the sidewalk. You see a big group gathering and you're just nosy, right? You're just like, hey, what's this group?

• 24:19Speaker 04

  And for the, for the, for the finance, they just had never,

• 24:24Speaker 04

  there hadn't been an innovation in how people talk about finance, probably till Mad Money. Like, and Mad Money had been around forever. There weren't people making hype videos like I was making.

• 24:35Speaker 05

  With a green dildo or whatever?

• 24:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, the green, I had a green hammer. I mean, I was going after these, these like hedge, the people on TV. I mean, I was crucifying them. And they didn't know how to react. And by the way, if you react, you probably lost because I have a team of like ninjas making these hype videos for me. So it was, uh, it was something.

• 24:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, it was pretty entertaining at minimum, right? All right, um, so the second interaction or part of this interaction is we started talking about, hey, should we go do this deal or whatever? And I never really thought that this was like a, a big deal or anything that was noteworthy. But I heard Big Cat on a podcast say that I was one of the only people to ever go through, hey, should we do something together and walk away? And he was very shocked because the deal that you had offered at the time was let's do Barstool Finance and we'd be 50 50 partners on it. And the part that I got hung up on was I was to take all of the assets and contribute them to it and you guys would bring the Barstool machine. In the world I come out of is you gotta buy it, right? And so we just were like, hey, look, we like each other. We think this can be pretty powerful, whatever. But I'm like, hey, you guys gotta buy it. You guys are like, no, you just contribute it.

• 25:41Speaker 05

  And the reason why that was so interesting to me was I think I got an insight into how you guys worked with so many of these creators, right? Most of them aren't business oriented. They don't selling their Instagram account or whatever. It's like not a thing. But then you look at your track record and the ability to supercharge these people, whether it's the, you know, Call Her Daddy's or whatever, like, I don't know if there's anybody who's got a bigger hits business than you guys have had over the last 15 years or so, taking people who nobody knows and making them huge stars, right?

• 26:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, I, I've said that. Uh, I think I would put our roster of digital media, new age media stars up against any network, really. You know, if you include me, but me, Big Cat, PFT, and then you look, I mean, Bussin' with the Boys, Spitting Chicklets.

• 26:30Speaker 05

  Call Her Daddy.

• 26:30Speaker 04

  Call Her Daddy, Jenna Marbles.

• 26:32Speaker 05

  Even KFC on Instagram and stuff.

• 26:34Speaker 04

  Pat McAfee.

• 26:35Speaker 05

  One Minute, you know, man, and all that stuff.

• 26:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. It, it, that is, that is the model, what you just described. And that is how we do the model with a lot of the people. It's, uh, now I don't know if we had like a term on yours, like the, the talent is generally. Well, you do two or three. It's very similar to an athlete in a way.

• 26:54Speaker 05

  You basically sign them and then there's some sort of like revenue share component to it, right?

• 26:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, it depends how big they are when they come into our world on what that is.

• 27:01Speaker 05

  Now you've started to eat into more. So now you guys, you know, you've gotten into alcohol. You do the events, you sign the big deal with Fox, do, you know, the Saturday football stuff. Like, it almost feels like you guys as a business have graduated. Are you still looking for some of like the undiscovered talent and that's still part of the model? Or do you feel like you've reached a point now where?

• 27:19Speaker 04

  We always are. It's, it's far more difficult to find that talent now.

• 27:26Speaker 04

  Because they don't need us as much. It, it, it really, you're evaluating two things. Hey, we can, as you said, supercharge your career if you're talented. You can basically cut the line. You can grow really fast. But in this day and age of, you know, streaming and Twitch and Instagram and Snapchat and TikTok, you can build a pretty big brand without being attached to a network. It's a lot easier. So you, that, that's what people who try to hire have to weigh. We're always looking, but it's, we're, we're not going like, it's not the number one priority. If we find them, great, we will hire them, but we're not out there scouring.

• 28:08Speaker 05

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• 30:54Speaker 05

  I think one of the aspects is like you guys have always been edgy, right? And so you have this line in the book that's like, you don't cancel me, I cancel you.

• 31:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, right.

• 31:00Speaker 05

  And you look at, you know, Penn deal, right? You look at Steve Cohen. I mean, we just go through all these examples. There's some people who are really attracted to that and they want to come and work with you guys, etc. There's a lot of people who are just like, these guys are fucking crazy. I don't want to be associated with them, whatever. Huge reason is because the media came after you. How bad was that? Like, I know that people look at you and they're like, oh, he punches back. And there's a lot of folks who I think are inspired by that or whatever. But like, I've had people come after me. I've had, you know, death threats all of a sudden. It's not fun. I can't imagine that you were in a good spot.

• 31:30Speaker 04

  The Business Insider stuff was the lowest I've been, uh, probably in the bar stool 20 something years.

• 31:39Speaker 05

  Like you felt like you were under attack?

• 31:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, and it's not only under attack. I, I, I knew there are lies and I knew what they were going to write. And, you know, the day before the article comes out, like I called my parents and be like, just heads up, this is going to be written about me tomorrow and everyone's going to be talking about it. That's a horrible thing to do. My girlfriend at the time, ex-girlfriend, I hadn't met her parents yet. They're saying really, I mean, if we're just being blunt, they got away with saying they didn't accuse me of rape. And in the article, it's like, there isn't, but the headline's right. Like they, they said it's basically Reed's is rape. Um, totally made up. It was, to me, it was very depressing. It was very scary that that can be done on that level. And, and I, you know, I fought that tooth and nail.

• 32:24Speaker 04

  I tried to sue, didn't get anywhere with that. Uh, and even that will be misconstrued. Dave lost the lawsuit. It's like, no, I couldn't prove malice, like, because they didn't, they didn't say I was in jail when I wasn't. But if I could ever get, like, the emails on how this happened and where it came from, there's no amount of money I wouldn't pay for that because I know it was a hit piece and I don't know where it came from. So, yeah, that, uh, that was a bad time. I don't care about a lot of the other stuff. Like, I, it's so.

• 32:52Speaker 05

  But that's the one that bothered.

• 32:53Speaker 04

  That's the one, and still.

• 32:55Speaker 05

  Did you think about giving up at any point, just being like, I'm just going to go away?

• 32:58Speaker 04

  No, but I mean, I still live with it every day. Like, you know, we were just talking a little bit about politics before we started and, and people don't like me. Like, they'll quote that article like it's real and be like, oh, you're going to listen to this guy? And, and it, there's nothing I can ever do to change it. But that's, that'll be with me forever on totally. False, and when I say false, I always make it quick. I'm not talking like, oh, there's 0.11 chance, there's zero. It's just a made up article. So that, that was low.

• 33:29Speaker 05

  You, I think you are the, I don't know if you call the Wall Street communications strategy innovation. I know you call it that. I don't know if that's really innovation, but I do think the innovation was like, oh, you're a journalist. Well, why don't we just sit down, have a conversation and we'll just roll the cameras, no editing and we'll just see what happens. I'd never heard anyone say that to a reporter before. That was the funniest shit of all time.

• 33:50Speaker 04

  And, and they won't do it. Like, which is, which is always my point is like, the Business Insider and then the New York Times each spent a year plus in my life. And didn't want to sit down with the subject they were interviewing. And by the way, they never talked to my ex-wife, who was married to for five years, dated for five, never talked to Erica Nardini, never talked to NPR female employees. They were just calling every, people would send me audio recordings of the reporter and they were crazy. It's like, they're so digging. So yes, I've always said, even this book tour, people would come up and, and I'd be like, yeah, I'll do it. But I'm recording it. The Wall Street Journal literally came over and, and he, he said,

• 34:32Speaker 04

  I, I hadn't read your book and I heard all your requests to do this interview and I was very confused. Why you were like, I have to record it. And then he's like, I read your book. I understand now why you want to record it. And I learned that early on. I learned that from Inside Edition and a clip that will still, this is when I was young, naive, dumb. I thought they were going to do a fair interview. It was a hit piece and it was all, it was two hours chopped into 45 seconds of making me look like Hitler. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to have to be a little more careful because I, I was naive at that point.

• 35:04Speaker 05

  Well, you come from the internet, you come from newspapers, right? And then all of a sudden it's like, hey, these people have an agenda and they've got distribution in a game where you don't have a megaphone back. Like you can't reach the TV audience without going through, right?

• 35:14Speaker 04

  And, and I grew up in a household like my dad, New York Times, gossable, like CNN, gossable. That's, that's the household I grew up in and it's kind of what I just thought. I like, I never till I got into Barstool, really thought about, oh, the, the Times is left or the Washington Post is left. That never crossed my mind. Really. I, I, I didn't pay that much attention.

• 35:35Speaker 05

  Uh, you mentioned politics. Uh, you're all over the news right now because you said that you may run for mayor of New York City. Why not just run for president?

• 35:44Speaker 04

  I mean, it really, the New York City thing is because I'm specifically, it's not, I guess, only here, but I am overly disgusted with what is going on with who's being elected from Mandami down to these primaries and the things they've said. They've let the fox into the hen house and I am, as I'm sure you are, but I'm an entrepreneur. I'm a capitalist. I'm not saying this country is perfect, but I do love this country and they're openly like saying they hate the country and they want over, I mean, it doesn't even sound real when you're like, well, she found a group that wanted to overthrow Western society and that she said.

• 36:20Speaker 05

  Like state, the stated mission of the group.

• 36:23Speaker 04

  Correct. And it's like that, we're electing her like, and Mandami's got her hand in the air and they're doing a pub crawl. So that's, that's shocking to me. That's really, that's why I said New York City because, you know, he, he is doing what he said he wanted to do before he got elected, which is get as many socialists elected and then basically seize the means of communication and they truly seem like they don't like this country and they want a major change. So that's when, you know, I get asked, I go back and forth on it. I like, could I win in New York? Probably not. A lot of people being like, you're going to win in New York.

• 37:01Speaker 05

  But because the demographics stronghold.

• 37:05Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. I think it'll be really hard and outsider, but who knows?

• 37:08Speaker 05

  Would you run as a Republican or an independent?

• 37:11Speaker 04

  Probably independent, but I'll tell you what I would do, which would be a little shift from Mandami. He's got these idiotic politicians who don't know what the internet is and he uses it like a weapon. He's never gone up against somebody who can be like, not so fast. Like you think you're good at the internet? I'm pretty good at the internet myself. So it would be a very different type of opponent for him than what he's used to. It's almost like he's treating like how I was treating Wall Street. They don't know what to do when he's making these cutesy videos.

• 37:43Speaker 05

  Yeah. He, he's got kind of like a Mr. Rogers neighborhood vibe in the videos. By the way, he's an excellent communicator.

• 37:49Speaker 04

  He's very good. He's very savvy. And he knows how to use the internet and social media and appeal to these people. And the people he's campaigning against have absolutely no answers and no idea how to combat that. I, I may not win, but if you want to do some internet stuff, I'll do some internet stuff.

• 38:10Speaker 05

  I think that your meme warfare would be very good compared to like Mr. Rogers neighborhoods.

• 38:17Speaker 04

  Totally. And I'm sure I could raise an absolute war chest because there's a lot of people who do not like this guy. So, uh, yeah, I mean, you asked in the beginning off camera, like, is it real? It is real. Do I think it's gonna happen? No, but there's a lot of times I feel like my dad on the other side. I, I can't get out of this space. Like it's social media, it's the TV and I really am like, what is going on in this country? Specifically, starting in New York, I feel like Mandami is the head of the snake. Um, so that's why I said New York. And then other days I'm like, Dave, you have a great life. You're in Isle of Marotta half the year in the Keys and then talk it and you've made it. Why? Like, why do you want this?

• 39:01Speaker 04

  I mean, I said that about Trump, like what made Trump want to be president seemed to have a pretty good life. And there's no dirtier game than politics.

• 39:08Speaker 05

  Hundred percent. How many houses you have?

• 39:10Speaker 04

  Great question. Uh, I have five, five houses. One's got mold in it being fixed.

• 39:20Speaker 05

  So it's pretty crazy to go from the newspapers to you had to think for a second, how many houses you have.

• 39:25Speaker 04

  Yes. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Listen, Barstool has been.

• 39:31Speaker 04

  That, that's what the book really did. It's like, you look back and it's like, how did we do this? I don't even know. Could it ever be done again in the, probably not the right time, right place? Um, I never dreamed it. We'd become this successful. It's been a wild, wild ride.

• 39:49Speaker 05

  How much money do you think you spend in a month?

• 39:52Speaker 04

  I have no clue. I mean, I'm actually not an overly, I like horses.

• 39:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 39:58Speaker 04

  Uh, and I bet on sports, but I'm not like flashier going out. So.

• 40:02Speaker 05

  Like I, I, my take on you is like, you don't really party and do all like the crazy things where like most people blow a bunch of money. But you know, horses and houses.

• 40:11Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. Those are, but the houses are an investment. So it's like, if the house, listen, I, I don't think you can go wrong where I'm getting the houses. And, and if this, the money is sitting in the stock market or sitting in real estate, to me that, that's.

• 40:25Speaker 05

  Did you buy any of the houses sight unseen?

• 40:29Speaker 05

  Or did you visit each one of them?

• 40:32Speaker 04

  I visited each one of them and I had the same feeling. So Nantucket is my favorite place in the world, dream place going, had the absolute like best feeling when I walked through the door. That was the same with my Isle Marotta House.

• 40:48Speaker 05

  You just knew.

• 40:49Speaker 04

  Just knew. And then Saratoga, I bought a tear down and rebuilt it near the track. So those are the three that I'm really in.

• 40:56Speaker 05

  All right. In the content game, one of the things that I hear people talking about, but I haven't really seen anyone do yet is all this AI content. You worry about that at all with Marshall?

• 41:06Speaker 04

  In what sense?

• 41:07Speaker 05

  Like if somebody shows up and is like, hey, we don't even need the talent anymore. Forget like, I think you called it, you know, your circus of idiots and we can just like remove all the cost of this and we're just going to use computers.

• 41:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, that luckily for the morons who work for me, I want to do that, but I could, I could replace 90% of my staff with AI. I did my audio book and I couldn't read, like I can't read. I actually think I do have dyslexia a little bit, like I hated it. So I spent 10 grand to have this very advanced AI read it. You could not tell the difference. I couldn't tell the difference. My parents couldn't tell the difference. They wouldn't let me do it. The book company is like, can't do it. Like

• 41:47Speaker 05

  So you had to read it.

• 41:47Speaker 04

  Yeah. So I had to read it, but the AI was so good. It was scary. Like nobody would ever know it was me. It was picking up everything. So of course AI could replace these fools I have, although we have had a couple of employees try to use AI and it almost makes them too intelligent. Where we're like, that's not you because it's too good. So, but it is, it is a tool that if I wasn't working for us, like if we sold or I was out and it was ESPN in Penn. Hundred percent that would be a concern.

• 42:24Speaker 05

  Do you use any other AI tools like on data basis?

• 42:26Speaker 04

  No, none. I mean, well, I use like chat.

• 42:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, we gotta get you on Sylvia. You you seen that yet?

• 42:32Speaker 04

  No.

• 42:32Speaker 05

  We we built this product. You go in and you attach all your accounts, like your financial accounts. You just talk to it about your finances.

• 42:38Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 42:39Speaker 05

  So if you were like, you know, hey, should I buy the horse or not?

• 42:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:42Speaker 05

  It has all.

• 42:42Speaker 04

  I don't want to disparage one of your products since it's yours, but that sounds like one of those horror movies. Where the robot takes over your finances and you go and log in.

• 42:52Speaker 05

  No, it can't it can't touch the money. Can't touch the money. Well, maybe it'd be too smart, right?

• 42:57Speaker 04

  It's like eventually it eventually one day. There's a like one of these and there's been a lot of movies where the robots become too intelligent like.

• 43:05Speaker 05

  Of course.

• 43:06Speaker 04

  Turn around, kill the humans.

• 43:07Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 43:07Speaker 04

  That's gonna happen with AI. We're gonna be like, who couldn't have seen this coming? I mean, it's becoming that smart.

• 43:12Speaker 05

  You you worry about that like?

• 43:14Speaker 04

  No, really, not in this very, but I mean, it's crazy how what it can do.

• 43:18Speaker 05

  Yeah. CFO Sylvia dot com. You should check it out. Um, your, uh, ex-wife.

• 43:23Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 43:24Speaker 05

  You said that she was the first person you called when they tried to fire you from Barstool.

• 43:26Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 43:27Speaker 05

  I also saw a clip that she still has access to your bank account.

• 43:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's a Shannon Sharp clip, like crazy viral.

• 43:32Speaker 05

  Okay, so, uh, explain what what's going on there?

• 43:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, so she's really one of my best friends still to this day. Uh, she was with me from day one. Literally in the book, it's like she would hand out newspapers day one. So we always had a great relationship. We didn't separate because there was some scandal or anything else. We both it it it. We had love for each other, but maybe we weren't in love, if that makes any sense. But I've trusted her implicitly. She's somebody who was there with me from day one, like. Living every up, living every down. Hey, we gotta go move in with your in-laws. We have no money. We can't do this. We can't. Never complained, always like very supportive, had my back. So to me, she's she's part of the growth.

• 44:19Speaker 04

  And really, we separated when the thing exploded. Trust her always. Um.

• 44:25Speaker 04

  So it it never really occurred. We didn't get divorced right off the bat. In fact, we still haven't, but it the reason in the beginning was like, let's see what separation's like. And we stayed separated and, you know, the money was coming in. She can do whatever. I trust her. She could have always at any point still today be like, I'm taking all the money I'm running. I just know she would never do it. It's trusting somebody as much as I trust my parents, really.

• 44:49Speaker 04

  We did try to get divorced. It got denied by Massachusetts.

• 44:52Speaker 05

  Why?

• 44:53Speaker 04

  So.

• 44:54Speaker 05

  I didn't even know they could do that.

• 44:55Speaker 04

  Neither did I. It was news to me. We had an agreement set up.

• 45:00Speaker 05

  It's like a reverse arranged marriage.

• 45:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's crazy. I didn't know they could do it. They said it was unequable. But she also was like, I think at the time I was buying the Nantucket house. It's like, well, it it. If we just split everything, it's just gonna sit there in the bank account anyways, the same way, except I don't have the collateral to get the Nantucket house and she didn't want it. And we had a very good, it's like she gets, it was set up in a way exactly pretty much how we were living for the past five to six years, except to make it legal. And the judge was like, no. So it's very rare, I think, in life that you have somebody that you can trust like that, which you've been through the ups and downs and everything, and she's one of them, and I'll always be there for her, and I think she'll be there for me.

• 45:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, makes sense. Bitcoin, you went from, I think, hating it to.

• 45:46Speaker 04

  You hate it again.

• 45:46Speaker 05

  You you became the diamond hand.

• 45:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, I hate it again.

• 45:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 45:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, what do you think? Why? It's like I'm always in at the wrong time. So.

• 45:53Speaker 05

  When you, when you start talking about it, I do get nervous.

• 45:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:56Speaker 05

  As soon as I see you start to, I'm like, oh, shit.

• 45:58Speaker 04

  So I I originally, the whole Winklevoss disaster was, it was 11,000 when the Winklevoss has explained to me what Bitcoin was.

• 46:06Speaker 05

  They came to your house. I remember.

• 46:07Speaker 04

  First time it was, we're both in the Hamptons. They had the same hotel. And they're like, we own like whatever the Bitcoin and we're six two and there's two of us. So we'll come explain it to you. And they said Elon Musk will go to outer space. He's gonna mine gold from outer space and rain down plentiful. So these fucking guys are crazy. So I had bought 2 million of it at 11,000. They walked out of the room, sold them. I don't, I do not understand any of what they're saying. It went to like 50,000 or 60,000 in fast order. Like you can probably find the date of when they did that and see how quickly.

• 46:46Speaker 05

  From like August or September of 2020 to like March of 2021, six months.

• 46:51Speaker 04

  Yes. So and that's when they were there, August. So it's like. All right, I if you six X two million is 12 million, I was not happy. And then I was like, I gotta get back in it. Everyone's talking about this thing. I've been in out. I'm in right now. Probably at an average of like a hundred bucks, something like that. What do we have 59? I don't know what the hell is going on with it. I really don't.

• 47:14Speaker 05

  Nobody knows.

• 47:15Speaker 04

  No, I mean, you got sailor selling it, saying it's good that he's selling it. Who knows? Who knows? I'm not gonna sell it. It may go to zero. I may lose millions again.

• 47:23Speaker 05

  All right, but it's not like a material part of your net worth.

• 47:28Speaker 04

  It's enough that I'm like, I look at it every day. Will I be fine? Yeah, uh, but I probably had, you know.

• 47:36Speaker 04

  Fifteen million in it at some point.

• 47:38Speaker 05

  Fifteen million dollars of Bitcoin.

• 47:39Speaker 04

  Not anymore, I don't.

• 47:40Speaker 05

  No, no, no.

• 47:41Speaker 04

  But I probably did, yeah.

• 47:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, you know, you know how to get 10 million is you start with 15.

• 47:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, I, I mean, I'm always, always, always on the wrong side of Bitcoin and crypto. Always.

• 47:55Speaker 05

  Well, there's other coins that you bought along the way and I could see like the chats, right? The chats would convince you.

• 48:02Speaker 04

  Well, I, I dabbled with meme coins, which was honestly, maybe in the 20 years, the craziest thing I was ever involved in. Like.

• 48:09Speaker 05

  Remember we did the hat, uh, like a college selection? And, uh, you picked one of the coins, remember that?

• 48:15Speaker 04

  That was safe moon.

• 48:16Speaker 05

  Safe moon.

• 48:17Speaker 04

  Yeah. And then I got mentioned in a lawsuit. They're like, you were an insider. It's like, I literally picked out of a hat, said, I have no idea. It's probably a scam and I lost all my money. So, but I had to hire a lawyer. Because there's all these influencers who are, I guess, were given free safe moon and didn't disclose. And I got included in that and it's like, I got my, I got killed. I told people, but I had to pay a lawyer and then they laid it out and they dismissed me from the charge. But I still had to pay for it. Yeah. So I, I'm always, always, always on the wrong side of everything regarding that.

• 48:51Speaker 05

  How do you pick what stocks you buy now?

• 48:53Speaker 04

  Uh, I'm fairly safe right now. Like I have a guy who helps me like a broker, but it's fairly safe. There's nothing crazy in there. All right. I want, I want to mention three moments in Barstool history. You tell me what you remember from them. Brady six. Going to jail, clearly. That, that's the most. Did you think you were going to go to jail? No, no, they're very Barstool. It's like I, we don't think too far in advance. Um, I thought even You change, just for people who don't know, you change yourself to the NFL. So when Brady got the four game suspension from the NFL for Devalle Gate, we're like, we gotta do something. We're still in Boston, drove to New York, put like one, two, eye black on Patriot gear.

• 49:37Speaker 04

  We went to NFL headquarters, demanded to speak with Roger Goodell. They said no, they actually first asked if we had an appointment and then, uh, they said, no, we handcuffed ourselves to each other in the headquarters and did a sit in and got arrested and, and the police were kind of, they knew who we were at that point, a little bit. They're kind of joking. So I didn't think we were going to get arrested. Uh, I was wrong. We spent a day in jail. It was horrible. So that, that's the memory. Did people in jail know who you were? No, the cops did. The cops. No, no. Thank God, because they were trying to move us around. What do they call it? The tunnels? That's where we were. I mean, if you like commit murder, you go to the tunnels. Like it's where everybody goes who commits a crime in New York City that night. And there can be some scary people

• 50:19Speaker 04

  there. The cops knew we were not a threat and they were trying to move us around to keep us kind of separated from like hardened criminals. Um, yeah, that. You mean the guys in the Patriots gear? Yeah, right. Like the guys protesting Brady. When the judge saw us the next day and it would be like the case before us would be like domestic abuse, something serious or like a murder. And then we get up there and say, like, what'd you do? It's like we protest, protested Tom, Tom Brady and she cracked a little smile. It's off our record. So, yeah. All right. Howitzer Gate is probably one of the, the craziest ones. Yeah. It's funny because Will Compton, who worked for us, Boston with the boys, big star. Is he a star? He's a star. He's, he's a star and I like Will. It's one of the guys I wish we could have back, but, um, he texted.

• 51:04Speaker 04

  What's he called? Like SEAL, uh, SEAL Team six or whatever? What does he do? Dad Team six? Yeah. He does all sorts of stuff like that. But, uh, he texted me this morning. He didn't even know about Brady Gate. That shows how long we've been doing. He worked for us. He had no idea what it was. That. I mean, he's viral. He brings you in the closet, you know, parts in the phone. Yeah, yeah, no, he, he, he's. He is a big star. Yeah, um. Howitzer gate.

• 51:28Speaker 04

  That was, was that our first really huge controversy? So that's back in the blogging days. When I'm just cranking out 10 to 15 blogs a day, every 45 minutes, looking for something. Uh, that's interesting. It's also the height of the Patriots Colts rivalry, specifically Brady versus Manning. Like, I hated Peyton Manning. I was so team Patriots, whatever. At this point, every, the media is always Peyton Manning this, Peyton Manning that, Colts this, Colts that, Colts 14 and 0 to start a season. Patriots got no respect, but we whooped them every year. Talk one day. So, and I'm doing my scrolling across the internet to talk about, find things to talk about. And lo and behold, there's a picture of Gisele, uh, Brady's wife, their little toddler on the beach.

• 52:12Speaker 04

  It's an infant toddler, well endowed, to say the least. It was like shocking. So I wrote a blog. Check out the Howitzer on Brady's kid. And then the sentence below is Peyton Manning could never have a kid like this. That was it. It was like a shot at Peyton Manning, moved on, didn't think anything of it. Like that was a whole blog. Yeah, that was it. It was like just Peyton Manning could never have a kid like this. Press publish, move on. Yeah, I don't know how long it was, couple hours, all hell breaks loose. Dave's a pedophile, Dave's posting pictures of, uh, kids dicks. A lot of people didn't know how the internet worked. People were acting like I was in the bushes with a camera, a long range camera, taking a picture.

• 52:54Speaker 04

  The pictures are all over the paparazzi pages, like the same pages we went to get photographed. It was everywhere. And I thought I was making a very clear Peyton Manning joke. Well, I mean, people were calling for my head. The state police showed up at my house. Uh, I was on Howard Stern. Howard Stern trashed me. It was, it was nuts. And people still, in the book, I talk about it, people still bring up out of context tweets from that controversy. As like trying to say. Got them. Yeah, like Dave, Dave, there's a, the tweet I have that says, wah, wah, he's, he's two years old, it's child porn. I, this sounds horrible even saying, I'm mimicking people who are saying that because it's like the kid's so young. If you sexualize the kid,

• 53:39Speaker 04

  you're screwed up. It's like the Gerber baby. But people have no idea what the quote came from or what it's in. So they're like, Dave, it's crazy. Um, so yeah, that was a, that was a wild time. Wild.

• 53:52Speaker 05

  All right. Last one is, uh, Tico, Texas.

• 53:56Speaker 04

  I didn't see that one. Tico, Texas.

• 53:59Speaker 05

  I mean, that's got to, that's like Catch Me Outside before Catch Me Outside.

• 54:02Speaker 04

  Yeah. Tico, Texas. Tico, Texas.

• 54:08Speaker 04

  How do we even start here? So, so Loud Sean is a rapper. Loud Sean.

• 54:15Speaker 05

  What a name.

• 54:15Speaker 04

  Yeah. Uh, no, was it Loud? No. Little Sean. Big Sean. Big Sean. Loud Sean was a crazy employee we had. Big Sean rapper was dating Ariana Grande.

• 54:27Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 54:27Speaker 04

  They broke up. Kevin Clancy, who works for us, was like, what a, what a fumble by Big Sean. You're never going to get someone bigger than Ariana, better than Ariana Grande. You're lucky you had Ariana Grande. There was a rapper in Texas called Tico Texas, who I don't know how her Twitter feed found Kevin's tweet, but it did. And she did not like it. She was a big, Big Sean fan. How dare you say that about Big Sean? You're an idiot. She was black. Kevin's white. She started calling him a baseball fan. That was her word for like, white fans. And, and she's like, you're the worst. It turned into this battle. And

• 55:13Speaker 04

  Tico Texas wrote a rap song about Kevin dissing him. Kevin wrote a rebuttal rap song about Tico Texas also killed me in it because I was on Tico's side. I was like, go get Kevin. He's such a baseball fan. Whatever Tico did, I was like, tell me more, Tico. And, uh, I ended up then writing a rap song, getting into Rise Page, Use Rise. I went to Self by Self West to visit Tico. And one of the crazier three day trips I've ever had. She eventually was a full time employee, Tico, Texas. She just stopped showing up to work. Um, but just

• 55:51Speaker 05

  You had to fire?

• 55:52Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. Just another

• 55:54Speaker 05

  It is hard to get fired from Barstool.

• 55:55Speaker 04

  Real hard. She just wasn't showing up.

• 55:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 55:57Speaker 04

  Her contract was probably up and we didn't renew. Uh, just another one of those crazy shooting stars we've had in our universe.

• 56:05Speaker 05

  All right. You got this book, uh, that came out. Uh, Dave Portnoy, cancel me if you can. I gotta say, the best marketing I've seen for a book is you sitting next to the pool. Just open up to a random page. You just start reading and it's electric.

• 56:16Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:17Speaker 05

  I mean, that is like, there is no better, like, let me show you.

• 56:20Speaker 04

  Yeah. I wish I could read the whole thing in that voice. I, the audio book, you can't be like that because it's hard to read like that entire book. But yeah, that, that, I haven't felt pressure to market anything in a long time. I feel pressure with the book. Like, I don't know why I do. Like, if it's not on the New York Best, Bestsellers list, I,

• 56:40Speaker 05

  Do you think they would put you on if you had the numbers?

• 56:42Speaker 04

  So I didn't know that it was

• 56:44Speaker 05

  Editorialized. Yeah.

• 56:45Speaker 04

  Correct. Now, they did promote it as saying it would be one of the bigger books of the summer. So maybe, but yeah, I, I,

• 56:53Speaker 04

  I, I don't know why. I don't know why some things put pressure on me. I feel pressure for this to be successful.

• 56:58Speaker 05

  All right. Well, we don't want you to feel pressure. So

• 57:00Speaker 04

  I do. I feel pressure.

• 57:01Speaker 05

  No, I know. But like, if people go buy the book, then the pressure should leave.

• 57:03Speaker 04

  Need to buy book, buy multiple. They're not that expensive. And for the first week, when's this dropping?

• 57:08Speaker 05

  Uh, today.

• 57:09Speaker 04

  So I'm doing $10 because I didn't do this for money. And to be honest, I don't even understand how the book industry works. It, it seems like not the most lucrative thing of all time to spend your time on a book. Um, no offense to, you know, our publishing is great, gallery, but I don't get the finances. I didn't do it for the money, but so $10 every book I'm giving to Lifeline Animal Shelter this week, which is basically probably all the profit. Uh, which is where I got Miss, Miss Peaches.

• 57:36Speaker 05

  Barstool Fund, you did a great job there. Nice deal more at the animals, right?

• 57:39Speaker 04

  Yep. Yep.

• 57:40Speaker 05

  How many businesses with the Barstool Fund?

• 57:42Speaker 04

  We're close to 450, raised about 50 million.

• 57:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's crazy.

• 57:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's probably the proudest thing.

• 57:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 57:48Speaker 04

  That I have.

• 57:49Speaker 05

  Actually, that's another, I should have said, another interaction with you, Erica and Barstool, was watching you guys try to figure out how to take crypto was quite hilarious.

• 57:57Speaker 04

  Yes. Yeah. And, and there were a lot of big mouths in crypto who got shut up real quick though, because they're like, if you get it, we'll donate all this money. And that just never came. It's like, we spent all this, where's our crypto? It just never came.

• 58:09Speaker 05

  I remember I introduced you guys to a company, like, I will help. And then they called me back and they were like, I don't know if anyone can help them.

• 58:15Speaker 04

  We had, we had no idea how to do it. None. Zero. But all these people like, take crypto, we'll do it, we'll do it. We did get it done and it just never came. But yeah, that was a, they're very proud of that. I mean, there's a lot of business still, if I see them, like, we save a lot of business, a lot of great businesses. So I'm proud of that.

• 58:32Speaker 05

  Listen, I think that you probably get too much shit for the, for the bad stuff. You don't get enough credit for the good stuff. So I think you're doing a great job. Cancel me if you can. Everyone go pick it up.

• 58:40Speaker 04

  Appreciate it.