Barstool Sports Dave Portnoy (from live video)
Dave Portnoy’s Barstool Sports was forced to part ways with Ben Mintz, a famous poker player who hosts his own podcasts and appears on Barstool Sport because of a racial slur that he uttered on his “Wake Up Mintzy” show and Portnoy is not happy about it, to say the least. The problem here is that all Ben Mintz did was read a lyric from a popular rap song that had the word in question in it.
Penn Entertainment, Barstool Sports’ parent company, fired Mintz; even though, both Dave Portnoy and Barstool CEO Erika Nardin opposed his firing.
About the incident, Ben Mintz tweeted, “This morning, I made an unforgivable mistake slipping on air while reading a song lyric. I meant no harm & have never felt worse about anything. I apologize for my actions. I am truly sorry & ashamed of myself.”
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And Dave Portnoy tweeted about it saying, “I think anybody watching the clip was like there’s no way he meant to do that,” adding, “never in my wildest dreams did I think we would have to fire Pentz.” Portnoy went on to explain that Penn made the move, in his opinion, because it is concerned about government regulators pulling their licenses for gambling businesses. he also said that the punishment did not fit the crime.
Dave Portnoy told the New York Post, “I hate the decision. I disagree with the decision. I would not have made the decision. But I don’t deal with the things Penn deals with in terms of state regulators etc.”
“Penn paid a lot of money for Barstool ,” he added, “and they have to make the best decisions to protect their business. I trust and respect [Penn CEO] Jay [Snowden] that he makes what he thinks is the right move and that’s all you can ask for. Doesn’t mean I’ll always agree but again he deals with things I don’t have to think or deal with.”
“I still disagreed with it, and maybe I’m naive, but I’m like, ‘There is just no way anybody can look at the clip and think the punishment fits the crime.’ It makes my skin crawl thinking a guy would lose their job on an innocent mistake. Yes, horrible, but clearly no intent … It’s everything I’ve stood against for 20 years.”
Dave Portnoy also Tweeted, “By the way for everybody saying Barstool is dead to them I knew this would happen. I said it’s so against everything we stand for that it could be a death blow. Penn understood this. They still did it. That’s how frightened they were of regulators who operate with no impunity.”
