Barstool Sports founder and president Dave Portnoy isn’t bending the knee to YouTube.
On Thursday, Portnoy held an emergency press conference on his X account to let fans know that Surviving Barstool — a reality show produced by the company — was being pulled from YouTube. This stemmed from repeated strikes levied against the Barstool channel on the platform due to alleged broadcasting of violent threats.
In one of the Surviving Barstool episodes, Barstool host Kirk Minihane apparently threatened to blow up the house of another show competitor. Portnoy said he was given the option by YouTube to either take down the episodes and edit them to remove the questionable content or continue to receive strikes.
“I’m not changing the f–king episodes,” he said.
“This is Barstool, we’re doing it our f–king way,” Portnoy added. “F–k YouTube if they’re not smart enough to watch a reality show and realize what’s going on. Fine, whatever.”
Ultimately the decision was made to move the Surviving Barstool episodes that had already aired to the outlet’s streaming platform Barstool TV. Future episodes of the season plus the live finale will be available for fans to watch for $9.99.
“I think if you’ve watched it, you’ll admit that it’s worth the price,” Portnoy said. “We gotta make up the money we’re going to lose with all that shit.”
Survivng Barstool is about what you would imagine. It’s the Barstool Sports version of the CBS show Survivor. Contestants on the show are Barstool employees who compete for a $100,000 prize.
Portnoy, who bought back ownership of the outlet he founded and built from the ground up this summer, made it clear that if people thought he would jump when YouTube says jump they need to think again.
“The show is the f–king show, and I would rather eat my f–king insides and smash my d–k with a hammer than have to change the f–king show to make YouTube happy,” he said.
Several Barstool employees responded similarly to Portnoy, airing their displeasure with the situation.
