PENN Entertainment announced it had officially acquired complete control of Barstool Sports this morning, but founder Dave Portnoy says nothing will change now that the deal is complete.
During an appearance on Bussin’ With The Boys, Portnoy told Will Compton and Taylor Lewan that just because the company is now wholly owned by another entity doesn’t mean anything changes in regards to Barstool’s content.
“No, because it really — for lack of a better word — that hierarchy was already there,” said Portnoy. “If PENN came down and said ‘We want you to do this’, theoretically, (Peter) Chernin could have said ‘We still own the majority of the company.’ So no, but they knew they were selling it to PENN, so it really hasn’t changed. PENN doesn’t tell us what to do on the content, it’s more on the back end starting now to migrate systems over, accounting, things like that. The content’s pretty separate. They know why they bought it.”
PENN originally purchased a stake in the digital sports outlet in 2020, before announcing last year it would acquire the remainder of the company in a subsequent deal.
In total, PENN Entertainment purchased Barstool Sports for $551 million.
