Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy doesn’t think a former employee will be back with the company. According to Portnoy, former Barstool Sports — and now-former DraftKings talent — Jared Carrabis reached out to his former boss to discuss a potential return. However, Portnoy doesn’t see that happening.
On the latest edition of The Unnamed Show, Portnoy said Carrabis reached out to him at 10:40 p.m., just hours after announcing he was leaving DraftKings, and wanted to talk. Portnoy did not speak with Carrabis for long because he was going to sleep, and that was the extent of his conversation. However, Portnoy did reveal that while he didn’t initially know Carrabis was leaving DraftKings, he did know of a “competitive offer” given to Carrabis from another media entity.
When co-host Ryan Whitney flatly asked Portnoy if Carrabis made the company any money, Portnoy responded in the negative, which may answer the question of if Carrabis will return or not.
“He’s like the Katie Nolan of baseball,” Portnoy said of Carrabis. “Failing upwards, downwards, not really bringing in any money, but just going network to network.” Whitney quickly reminded Portnoy that Katie Nolan has an Emmy, won for her work in 2016 on Garbage Time with Katie Nolan, her former FS1 show.
“I like Jared, a lot,” Portnoy continued. “Would he bring in any revenue for this company? No…He’s like (popular NBA Twitter user) WorldWideWob, who has bounced around from like a million companies and actually I don’t think brought value to any of them. [Carrabis] has his own social thing, if the Red Sox win the World Series, you can make the money back on his merch.”
Portnoy, Whitney, and fellow co-host Kirk Minihane then speculated about revenue from hockey versus baseball and the other company involved in the negotiations with Carrabis. Minihane thought Carrabis could return to MLB Network in a greater capacity, but Portnoy didn’t think the broadcast arm of MLB would pay him enough. However, Dave admits that everything the trio discussed was hearsay and doesn’t know the specifics of any sort of deal.
“From what I’ve gathered, he’s not going to end up here because he still wants what I would say is too much money for us,” Portnoy said. “Maybe if I’d matched or got close to the perceived offer — no one’s told me what the offer is. I have what I feel like is a relationship with DraftKings where I have an idea of what they put on the table and if he said no to that, it ain’t going to work here.”
