Dave Portnoy (Facebook)
Dave Portnoy is back at the helm of the firm he founded, Barstool Sports. The mogul bought it back from Penn Entertainment for a whopping $1 after selling out for $551 million.
In 2019, Penn Entertainment paid Dave Portnoy $163 million for a 36% stake in the firm. And then earlier this year it paid another $388 million for the rest of Barstool Sports.
So, why did Penn unload the company so soon after acquiring it and for so little? Well, it’s because Penn said that it expects Barstool Sports to lose up to $850 million on the investment. And Penn Entertainment was also smart enough to put a proviso in the sale contract guaranteeing it 50% of however much Dave Portnoy gets for selling, should he turn around and sell the company to someone else.
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But Dave Portnoy says he will never sell again.
A very happy Dave Portnoy posted a video on the platform formerly known as Twitter proclaiming, “For the first time in forever we don’t have to watch what we say, what we do — it’s back to the pirate ship. And by the way, I am never going to sell Barstool Sports ever. I’ll hold it until I die.”
But Dave Portnoy just might sober up when he realizes that the company must somehow find a way to deal with the projected $850 million in debt.
Dave Portnoy was never happy with the new ownership. For example, in March he criticized the firing of Ben Mintz for using certain “racist” words in a podcast. But at the time Portnoy also lamented that it was out of his hands and how the new corporate ownership needed to be concerned with government oversight in relation to its other business operations.
“We did this deal about three years ago, and I think both parties were like, ‘We’re going to take this thing to the moon,'” Portnoy said. “And I think we underestimated how tough it is for myself and Barstool to operate in a regulated world where gambling operators, the New York Times, [and] Business Insider hit pieces [are] f****** with the stock price. Every time we did something it was one step forward, two steps back.”
But Dave Portnoy may already be having buyer’s remorse. He posted a video of empty offices in a blogpost titled, “How F****** Brain Dead Are All My Employees?”
“I have an honest question,” Dave Portnoy wrote. “How fucking dumb are all my idiot employees? I’ve literally owned Barstool again for less than 24 hours, they know I’m in town and literally none of them have showed up at the office today before 10am. I’ve been here since 8am because I’m old and don’t sleep anymore and was reading all the news articles sucking my cock for buying Barstool back.”
