Who founded Barstool Sports?
Dave Portnoy has an estimated net worth of $118M
Barstool Sports, a media company known as much for its raunchy humor and big personalities as it is for its sports coverage, has come a long way since its 2003 founding by Dave Portnoy.
Portnoy and Barstool Sports surprised everyone with a lengthy presidential interview in late July that covered topics from President Trump's experience being punked by Sacha Baron Cohen to the stock market rebound.
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"I hate politics .... On each side, you can predict what somebody's going to say, which drives me nuts. It's like you can put it in a box," Portnoy told Trump during the interview.
Barstool Sports had quite the humble beginning. Portnoy, now 43, was drifting along in life when he started Barstool Sports to fill a void of sports betting analysis in the 2000s.
Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy visits SiriusXM Studios on Nov. 14, 2017, in New York City. (Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images)
It was the early days of the internet, but Portnoy opted to make Barstool Sports a local Boston paper, not the website it is today. Portnoy wrote the first issues himself and passed them out to commuters taking the T.
Now Portnoy has an estimated net worth of $118 million and is followed by millions of people on social media.
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“I always wanted to do my own thing,” he said in a Barstool Sports profile. “I don’t know why; that was just how my brain worked. I always wanted to start my own business.”
Barstool Sports went digital around 2008, although Portnoy continued to distribute print issues until 2013. As the website's audience grew, so did Barstool's value, especially as Portnoy placed emphasis on creating personalities at Barstool.
“We were always early to things,” Portnoy said in the profile. “When I started doing this, you could write a story, and there was no real rush. As time went on, it became a competitive industry and other blogs would write the same stories as us. Everyone could have a similar take on something on the internet. But nobody – and still to this day – nobody has the personalities that we have here.”
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The site made headlines in January when it reached an agreement to sell a 36 percent stake to Penn National Gaming Inc. for about $163 million. Media company The Chernin Group owns a 36 percent stake in Barstool Sports and the rest is controlled by Portnoy, Barstool Sports CEO Erika Nardini and employees.
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Portnoy has trended on social media for his antics during coronavirus, including his profanity-laced rants while day trading. His fans have followed his lead.
“I'm trading my own money and lots of it,” Portnoy told FOX Business' Jonathan Garber. “I'm having fun. As long as we're still kind of with nothing else to do, I'll keep day trading.”