Dave Portnoy is the new King of All Media. It’s no longer Howard Stern. I’m a lifelong Stern fan — he probably wouldn’t object to this piece. Times change, icons evolve, and the crown moves. Stern owned it for decades. Now, Portnoy has taken the larger-than-life personality engine and built his own content empire.
Love him or hate him, the Barstool Sports ecosystem is spreading everywhere. And while it’s billed as a sports brand, that’s like saying Nike is a shoe company.
Barstool is not new. The company was successful long before most radio people had heard of it. What started as free sports papers in Boston has become a full-blown content and talent factory. Breakout talent comes from every cubicle inside their New York and Chicago offices — driving billions of digital impressions. Massive partnerships with Netflix, Fox Sports, DraftKings, and more followed.
The Barstool Blueprint
RockTernative — and all of radio — should be studying Barstool the same way everyone once tried to decode and replicate Stern. Howard’s antics got headlines, but beyond that, the magic was authenticity, risk-taking, and relentless experimentation. Barstool is checking all of those boxes.
While Portnoy’s rise echoes Stern in the ’90s, the comparison isn’t entirely fair. Their paths, content, companies, and lives are very different. However, what is fair is recognizing that both built empires by unleashing talent rather than muzzling or managing them into predictability.
Why This Matters for RockTernative
Radio likes to say, “talent is our advantage, our secret sauce.” If that’s true, why does the industry keep firing talent left and right? Where’s the farm system? Where are the up-and-comers? Good luck finding live dayparts in smaller markets — places where major-market stars once came from. Where are tomorrow’s radio stars going to come from?
And why is talent being managed and coached like a playlist? Predictable. Safe. “Don’t say it that way, say it this way. Use fewer words, don’t ever stop a minute late, and definitely have an opinion — but not a strong one, or else someone might complain.”
Meanwhile, Barstool has practical business and content standards. But they’re not afraid to let talent be talent. That may bring some foul balls, but it’ll bring a lot more home runs. They greenlight new projects, let them run, and if there’s no path to ROI, they end it. Still, they aggressively push boundaries to see what sticks.
A Pantry Full of Secret Sauces
The results speak for themselves. Barstool Sports has walk-in-sized pantries full of secret sauces: Portnoy, Big Cat, Brianna Chickenfry, Hannah Montoya, Jersey Jerry, Stu, PFT Commenter, Jon Gruden, the Chiclets — and countless more. Most of them could anchor a morning show. Instead, they’re driving podcasts, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Netflix.
The Barstool pathway is simple: recruit, develop, let them run, promote.
Radio’s new pathway is equally simple: fire everyone possible, then overwork, underpay, and underappreciate everyone else.
Barstool has more per-capita stars than most radio, film, or TV companies. If I’m the CEO of a major broadcaster, I’m thinking about how to integrate Barstool’s spirit into my company. It’s not hard — it just takes courage and a return to the basic fundamentals radio used to own.
Barstool Brand Building Basics
- Content First: No one is coming for the ads or what they can get just as well or better everywhere else.
- Stars Are the Secret Sauce: There is no Barstool without their personalities. Radio mostly peddles predictable music — it needs to be in the “star-making” business again, with music as the bonus.
- Try New Things: Not everything sticks — but nothing sticks if you don’t try.
- Tentpole Events: Barstool runs pizza festivals, golf and gambling events, and even week-long lifestyle remotes. RockTernative used to build big events and broadcast live everywhere — today, many brands don’t even have street teams.
- Specialty Shows: Portnoy approves verticals for niche interests that won’t go wide but can strengthen overall reach. Radio used to run Metal, Local, New, Punk, Acoustic, Deep Tracks, and even Dedication shows — not P1-centered, but passion drivers and incremental Cume growers. Those are mostly gone or buried so only vampires hear them.
- Topical Campaigns: Barstool reacts to the world in real time — emergency press conferences, Spring Break Vegas, Summer House, “Tea by the Sea.” Living in the moment is something radio used to dominate.
- Revenue Integration: Portnoy’s sales teams monetize through category exclusivity, content integration, live reads, and real testimonials — not long stop sets where messages go to die. DraftKings, Chevy, Mountain Dew — they see the value.
The Bottom Line
None of this is new. RockTernative invented half of it. Radio doesn’t need to reinvent its model — it just needs to remember what its model actually was. Give Dave Portnoy credit: he bet on talent, took risks, and wasn’t afraid to fail. That’s how he became the new King of All Media.
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Keith Cunningham is a music industry and Rock/Alternative columnist for Barrett Media and the founder of Black Box Group, a modern-modeled creative & strategic consultancy built for brands that need strategies with teeth. He’s the former Master of Mayhem at 95.5 KLOS-FM in Los Angeles for over a decade, a nationwide consultant, and has been repeatedly voted one of America’s top Program Directors and strategic thinkers. Keith has built his career by taking multi-million-dollar brands from worst to first and leading Marconi & Gracie award winners along the way. A data nerd with a rock-and-roll heart, he is an advisory council member for St. Jude fundraising, a fantasy football champion, and lover of his daughters & dogs. Reach him at keithblackboxgroup@gmail.com or on LinkedIn or X.