Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy calls the early, mutual end to ESPN’s U.S. sports-betting partnership with PENN Entertainment “a good day for PENN.” Saying the relationship never produced the results the casino operator expected and contrasting PENN’s engagement with Barstool to what he described as a distant ESPN.
Portnoy bought back the Barstool Sports brand in 2023 for a dollar after the casino and online gambling operator, paid a total of about $550 million to acquire 100% control of Barstool — just a few months before deciding to cut Barstool loose.
Regarding the news today that PENN and ESPN announced an early termination of their multi‑year online sports‑betting agreement effective December. Speaking on The Unnamed Show podcast, Portnoy said the “bad day happened long before today,” arguing the partnership “just didn’t work at all.”
“The tea leaves were there,” noted Portnoy. “A lot of people are saying this is going to happen because they had that opt out. ESPN just wasn’t delivering.”
He told listeners PENN had paid for “big results from ESPN” and “weren’t even close.” Adding that Barstool’s earlier efforts had been more effective when the company was “pushing and trying.”
Portnoy drew a sharp contrast between PENN’s experience working with Barstool and ESPN, saying employees at his company were “truly trying to make this thing work,” whereas, in his view, “ESPN employees don’t give a f**k.”
He praised personalities such as Pat McAfee as “needle movers” but suggested that talent associated with ESPN had not been motivated to promote the venture.
“McAfee didn’t promote ESPN. He made fun of it like,” said Portnoy. “It didn’t seem like he was incentivized to give a s**t about it. So you pay all this money to a faceless brand, and no one really cares.”
The Barstool founder did not temper his criticism of ESPN itself.
“I despise ESPN, and don’t want anything to work out for them. I don’t like, Bob Iger. I’ll tell you that much,” Portnoy said, singling out the Disney CEO. “I wish I could take a piece of pizza and slap him across the face. So sauce is left all over his face and burns his skin. You just hear whispers of things he said about us and Barstool Sports that I don’t care for.”
PENN’s announcement said all remaining payments from PENN to ESPN will end in the fourth quarter of 2025. ESPN will assist PENN with the transition from ESPN BET to theScore Bet. PENN will remain an ESPN advertising client moving forward, despite the network announcing a multi-year partnership with DraftKings an hour after the opt-out with PENN was announced.
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