Barstool Sports

Barstool's 'sign anyone who blinks at me' NCAA land grab

Shaan recounts Dave Portnoy launching Barstool Athlete via an 'emergency press conference,' offering to sign any Division I athlete who blinked at him — a reputation-driven play Shaan frames as 'level 4 luck' where the best athletes come to you.

“Listen, a lot of you asking how to become a Barstool athlete. If you play Division I sports and you blink at me, I will sign you. I will send you a t-shirt. You want pizza? You want Campari? I don't know what's going to happen here. We may just become the most powerful agency in the world here.”

Barstool Sports for the tech and business world

Shaan pitches a media company that treats business/tech as entertainment rather than news and analysis — pure comedy and memeable moments, the way Barstool did for sports versus ESPN.

“I think somebody should make Barstool for tech, which is, I'm here to make you laugh. You're into the business world, you're into the tech world, the startup world, whatever it is, pick your niche. And every day we're going to report news that makes you laugh.”

Steal thisPick a serious niche dominated by analysis and build the entertainment-first comedy brand instead.

The Virgin model: license your brand and take 7% on every leg

Begelman explains licensing a media brand instead of selling it: e.g. Barstool could license to Penn, take ~7% of the betting app, get paid for advertising it, and even run a venture fund investing in the JV—taking a piece on every leg. Barry Sternlicht runs this stack across Starwood Capital, brands, and hotels.

“Instead of them being bought by Penn Gaming, I think it was, they could have licensed their brand to Penn. Penn could have spun up an app for sports betting and Barstool maybe takes 7% of it. And in addition to that, Barstool maybe gets paid for advertising so that they advertise the new app. And in addition to that, if they want to take it a step further, they could even raise like a venture fund. And invest in the new joint venture so that they're basically taking a piece of the pie on every leg.”

Steal thisLicense your brand to an operator for ~7%, get paid to market the JV, and run a fund that invests in it—take a cut on every leg.

Dave Portnoy day-trades $3M live and films himself losing $600K

Sam describes Barstool founder Dave Portnoy putting millions into a day-trading account and live-streaming the whole experience, down $600K at the time of recording. Sam bought a hoodie because Portnoy wore one.

“Founder of Barstool is trading. He put $3 or $4 million into an account and has been day trading and filming the whole thing. I think he's down $600K right now, right? Yeah. Um, and it's awesome. It's so so good. It's really exciting, uh, to watch. And he wore one of these, so I bought it.”

Zillion Beers: a cameraman built a $1.6M merch brand on Twitter in 10 days

Barstool cameraman Dana, told by Dave Portnoy to stop trying to make 'zillion beers' a thing, bet he could sell merch. The bet escalated to $1M in 5 days for a $100K prize — and he sold $1.6M of Zillion Beers merch in 10 days, almost entirely via Twitter, growing from ~1,000 to ~150,000 followers.

“So he created a brand essentially on the fly, Zillion Beers, and in 10 days sold $1.6 million in merch. And throughout this process, pretty much the, the way in which they sold merch was pretty much all Twitter. And so I was watching, like, as a marketing person, I was looking at— Dana went from having 1,000 followers on Twitter to whatever he has now, maybe 150,000 followers on Twitter in 10 days.”

Barstool's playbook: milk profit, then professionalize for a $450M sale

Shaan breaks down Barstool's arc: Dave Portnoy ran it as a cash cow which suppressed its valuation, selling 50% at just a $15M valuation. After Erika Nardini was hired to operationalize it, the company grew to ~$100M in sales and sold a portion for $450M to Penn National, whose market cap jumped from $2.8B to $3.6B.

“He's— I believe he sold 50% of it at only a $15 million valuation years ago. 4 years ago. 4 years ago. Then they hired Erica CEO. She operationalized it and professionalized it. And Dave still was able to be kind of crazy and wacky. When she joined, she said that they're doing $1.2 million a quarter in sales and they only had $2 million in cash. Not a lot. This past year they got— they scared $100 million in sales, sold for $450 million, right?”

Build an audience equal parts love and hate, never apathy

Shaan argues Barstool's hard-to-copy edge is an audience with as many haters as lovers, never the apathetic middle. He cites Breitbart having the most comments of any news site he's seen as the business signal you want, regardless of politics: extreme engagement beats lukewarm reach.

“So what Barstool did that was great was they have an equal amount of people who hate them but love them. Right. That's what you need.”

Steal thisAim for an audience that loves or hates you, not one that's indifferent; polarization is the engagement signal that builds value.