Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: This week on the podcast, I have an extra special guest.
Speaker 1: You might know him by the name of one Bite
Speaker 1: with Davy page Views. Perhaps you know him by the
Speaker 1: nickname Davy Day Trader Global. His name is Dave Portnoy,
Speaker 1: and he is the founder of Barstool Sports. And he
Speaker 1: has created a fascinating um franchise on the Internet, on
Speaker 1: social media and videos that began essentially as a fanzine
Speaker 1: covering sports in Boston and helping people with their bedding lines,
Speaker 1: and he has blown up into a full pop cultural phenomena.
Speaker 1: What's really intriguing to me is what he has built
Speaker 1: As an entrepreneur. He recognized the power of original content.
Speaker 1: He ended up a acting a dynamic cast of people
Speaker 1: who were similarly enthusiastic about creating um fresh, funny, in
Speaker 1: many ways um edgy content. And he's just blown up
Speaker 1: into a full phenomenal. Bar Stool Sports is now part
Speaker 1: of a publicly traded company, pen National Gaming. And if
Speaker 1: you are in the content business, if you are at
Speaker 1: all interested in sports or trading, or a whole a
Speaker 1: lot of other stuff, including pizza, I think you're gonna
Speaker 1: find this to be an absolutely fascinating interview. So, with
Speaker 1: no further ado, my conversation with Barstool Sports Dave Portnoy.
Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: This week, I have an extra special guest. His name
Speaker 1: is David Portnoy, and he is the founder of the
Speaker 1: sports and pop culture blog barstool Sports that has expanded
Speaker 1: into so many areas. I've really been looking forward to
Speaker 1: this conversation. David Portnoy, Welcome to Bloomberg. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So let's go back in time a little bit. You
Speaker 1: started Barstool Sports seventeen years ago. At the time, did
Speaker 1: you have any idea what you were creating? What what
Speaker 1: did you expect this to be? No, I had absolutely
Speaker 1: no idea what what's gonna happen, the journey that's going
Speaker 1: to go on. And really it didn't look any well,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say it didn't look anything like it
Speaker 1: did now. But it did start as a gambling fantasy newspaper,
Speaker 1: you know, the four page black and white gambling rag
Speaker 1: that used to hand out around t stations and subway
Speaker 1: spots in Boston. We've come full circle since we're now,
Speaker 1: you know, have a gambling app and got purchased by
Speaker 1: Penn National, So it did come full circle. But no,
Speaker 1: I had no idea. The truth of the matter is
Speaker 1: I always wanted to try to start my own business,
Speaker 1: with the goal being I would rather work for myself
Speaker 1: than somebody else. I'd rather work, you know, a billion
Speaker 1: hours a week than the normal typical work day where
Speaker 1: it was a night to five. But I wasn't in
Speaker 1: control of my own destiny. But I had no idea
Speaker 1: what was about to come with parcel? No clue. And
Speaker 1: you mentioned you're handing out written copies for pages. I
Speaker 1: had heard way back when you were literally outside of
Speaker 1: the Boston Garden and outside of other Boston sports arenas
Speaker 1: handing this out to fans on the way into games.
Speaker 1: How much of that has urban legend? And how how
Speaker 1: true is that? Now? That's a true So the typical
Speaker 1: day or a week, however, you want to look at
Speaker 1: why I started it, It was myself. And you know,
Speaker 1: there'd be all these fake names in the newspaper because
Speaker 1: I didn't want people to know it was a one
Speaker 1: man job, you know, So I had just made up
Speaker 1: aliases for my sales guy in my marketing guy all
Speaker 1: this stuff. But I would generally wake up about four
Speaker 1: in the morning, go to a subway stop outside you know, Boston,
Speaker 1: in the Financial District or wherever it may be. I'd
Speaker 1: rotate and I would hand out the newspapers as they
Speaker 1: were people heading into work, and I'd be yelling at
Speaker 1: people like, we're at this newspaper, take the newspaper. And
Speaker 1: then after I did that, so I would go from
Speaker 1: wake up four, get the subway around five, five five
Speaker 1: or steen, hand out newspapers probably till the morning rush
Speaker 1: was done, I don't know, nine o'clock. Then I would
Speaker 1: go home and I would write, I would do or
Speaker 1: call for sales, ad to do everything else a day
Speaker 1: to day. Then around three thirty four I'd head back
Speaker 1: into the city and I would hand out newspapers again
Speaker 1: to catch people on the afternoon commute, on the people's
Speaker 1: way home from work. And then after that was done,
Speaker 1: I would go back home right some more and try
Speaker 1: to get asked to do everything else and the other
Speaker 1: huge part of what I did. The newspaper started off
Speaker 1: weekly in the beginning, but that was not the right
Speaker 1: way to do it. It turned to bi weekly quickly.
Speaker 1: And I was also the newspaper deliver boys. So I
Speaker 1: bought this astro van off Craiglist. About eight bucks is
Speaker 1: what I paid for it. And I would load up
Speaker 1: the newspapers all the way to the roof, and I
Speaker 1: would go on about paper route all around Boston, the suburbs,
Speaker 1: outside of Austin, every single subway station, loading up my
Speaker 1: news racks with the newspapers. So I come back looking,
Speaker 1: you know, disheveled to say the least. So that was
Speaker 1: that was my life. No vacation days, no nothing, but
Speaker 1: probably about a decade. It was. It was a grind.
Speaker 1: It was delivering newspaper, writing the newspaper, selling ads, pretty
Speaker 1: much a one man show. Really what what was the
Speaker 1: response to the actual printed product? How did how did
Speaker 1: Bostonians feel about barstool sports as a four page hands out?
Speaker 1: People loved it, you know, it's very different. And in
Speaker 1: the early newspapers, I said us looking for writers, and
Speaker 1: I got very lucky, and that we assembled a terrific
Speaker 1: group of writers who stuck with me and worked for free.
Speaker 1: So the early days, just because they want to write,
Speaker 1: they enjoyed it, and so the content was very different
Speaker 1: and always evolving. It was always humorous. It's a different
Speaker 1: taken and slowly more of a way from just strictly
Speaker 1: gambling and sports to more men's lifestyle. But it was
Speaker 1: always a good reception. And when I judge it was
Speaker 1: ten people took the paper and said they enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: You know, the first time I did it, the next
Speaker 1: issue would be twenty people, and the next issue be forty,
Speaker 1: and the next eighty. So it always was slowly growing,
Speaker 1: and there was something in my gut that's like I'm
Speaker 1: onto something here. I don't know what it is, but
Speaker 1: it felt like it was growing every single week, and
Speaker 1: it was it was hard to put it into words.
Speaker 1: And I've also said, this is the only business I've
Speaker 1: ever started in. Obviously the post businesses failed, especially in
Speaker 1: the print industry. So you know, I don't know if
Speaker 1: I about somewhat lucky on one for one and who knows,
Speaker 1: but I always had that stut feeling, hey, this is
Speaker 1: this is picking up. If I just stick with it,
Speaker 1: it's growing, it's growing, it's growing. So I always got
Speaker 1: a good reception. So at what point did that growth
Speaker 1: ramp up to where the business outgrew your ability to
Speaker 1: run it if you're a jack of old trades. At
Speaker 1: a certain point you can't do everything. When when did
Speaker 1: it cross that line where hey, I need some help
Speaker 1: to manage this. Yeah, probably so start around two thousand four.
Speaker 1: Probably around two thousand and ten we're more hiring other writers.
Speaker 1: But I really did a bunch of it people. The
Speaker 1: model I went with and the first employee ever had
Speaker 1: is still with me. Who I call sales guy. You know,
Speaker 1: the model was prove yourself and won't pay you. You
Speaker 1: want to work for me, if you can sell ads,
Speaker 1: I'll give you a huge commission, thirty percent commission, fifty
Speaker 1: percent commission. There's no risk on my end. If willing
Speaker 1: to do it, you can do it. So we had
Speaker 1: a very you know, prove it. Like if somebody said
Speaker 1: they wanted to work for us or to do something.
Speaker 1: It really was, will give you the opportunity, but you're
Speaker 1: not going to get like you're gonna have to earn
Speaker 1: everything you get. Once you earn it, then you got
Speaker 1: a spot at the table, so to speak. But it was,
Speaker 1: you know, we really did it bootstrap and watch costs
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. Once we switched, so basically I
Speaker 1: did everything again. We were able to get some advertisers,
Speaker 1: and once we switched the website, you know rendant advertising
Speaker 1: and banner advertising, you didn't need a huge staff or
Speaker 1: force to really run the thing. You needed more people
Speaker 1: to try to grow it more than anything. And that
Speaker 1: was something I did consistently throughout Barstool's career. Is I
Speaker 1: didn't really take any profit or money off the table,
Speaker 1: even when money start coming in, I just kept reinvesting it,
Speaker 1: reinvesting it, hiring more people, trying new events, trying new
Speaker 1: things to try to grow the brand. Let's talk a
Speaker 1: little bit out the team you mentioned earlier, because it's
Speaker 1: not just Dave Portnoy. You've gotten, pardon my take, KFC
Speaker 1: radio chicks in the office caller Daddy. Are you guys
Speaker 1: like the Avengers? Do you assemble the whole team and
Speaker 1: and go out? How does that mass come together? Yeah? So,
Speaker 1: you know, I a lot of times I say we
Speaker 1: are one of the oldest digital media companies on the planet.
Speaker 1: So when I started Barstool, it was a newspaper, as
Speaker 1: we discussed, and then it morphed to a blog. And
Speaker 1: when we started blogging, if you told somebody what a
Speaker 1: blog was, they would have been like what is that.
Speaker 1: We're very early to the game. And I also say
Speaker 1: the Barstool Sports was born from the Internet. So all
Speaker 1: of the talent, all the people we have, the only
Speaker 1: way people know who they are is because they were
Speaker 1: able to essentially stand out by working harder, smarter, being funny.
Speaker 1: It's not because they put on ESPN or something like that.
Speaker 1: So we were born from a different generation and we
Speaker 1: had a good eye for talent and podcasting. We were
Speaker 1: very early too, and we let our talent basically do
Speaker 1: whatever they want as long as we think you're funny,
Speaker 1: and it's like, okay, this person may have something, We'll
Speaker 1: let you run wild, so you know, call her Daddy.
Speaker 1: Is an example that is probably a pretty good one
Speaker 1: and not everyone's cup of tea, but the largest female
Speaker 1: probably podcast in the world. I mean, it's gigantic and
Speaker 1: it's a girl, Alex Cooper, who we saw a very
Speaker 1: rough sketch of a podcast she did. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is interesting, this is something we haven't seen before,
Speaker 1: and and there was a promo video with it that
Speaker 1: was very slick. It looked like it was professionally done.
Speaker 1: So we reached out to her and had a meeting
Speaker 1: with her and I sat down and she's a beautiful
Speaker 1: blonde girl, and I was like, who made this? Who
Speaker 1: made this video? This this promo video? And she's like,
Speaker 1: I did, I edited it, I got it, I did everything.
Speaker 1: I learned how to do it all myself. And that
Speaker 1: was when it's like, Okay, we're gonna We're gonna give
Speaker 1: her a chance because that's the type of like basically
Speaker 1: motivation desire that we look for. Somebody has something unique
Speaker 1: and also the basically the energy and the motivation to
Speaker 1: do something like that. And they've exploded almost instantly. But
Speaker 1: and I barely listened to any of the episodes, but
Speaker 1: it was clearly something different. She was clearly a talent.
Speaker 1: We put the Barstool marketing engine behind it, and with
Speaker 1: podcasting right now, I think we have the number one
Speaker 1: hockey podcast, the number one football podcast, number one female podcast.
Speaker 1: What our audience is very good at. Don't give you
Speaker 1: a chance, and if you have something unique and good,
Speaker 1: you'll have a huge hit right off the bat. And
Speaker 1: iron well, not ironically, but one of the things I
Speaker 1: always said about Barstool or my goals once we started
Speaker 1: actually making progress and when I sold the Turning Group,
Speaker 1: the time, I wanted Barstool to be the place that
Speaker 1: a young college graduate who is in comedy, the first
Speaker 1: place they applied to work is Barstool. They used to
Speaker 1: maybe be Saturday Night Live or or you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know, some other comedy brand. I wanted it to
Speaker 1: be us, and we're sort of there. So we have
Speaker 1: our pick of the crop of all these talented people.
Speaker 1: The hardest thing is actually going through the applications to
Speaker 1: find talent. It's a huge advantage. Speaking of talent, you
Speaker 1: just signed a deal with Dion Sanders. How on earth
Speaker 1: did that come to fruition? That's a giant name. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we have another podcast that we uh signed million
Speaker 1: dollars worth. The game based out of Philadelphia. Again, something
Speaker 1: I had never I've never heard of either the guy's
Speaker 1: Wallow and Gilly their Philly legend um, you know, very
Speaker 1: well known actually that like Gilly was the ghostwriter for
Speaker 1: Little Wayne. So we listened to their podcast in right
Speaker 1: away we thought, oh, this is a hit, this is
Speaker 1: we need this, and so we signed those guys. They
Speaker 1: were friends with Dion Sanders, who was looking for maybe
Speaker 1: new opportunities, opportunities to be himself. Basically because when you're
Speaker 1: on a network, he's on NFL network, you have to
Speaker 1: watch what you say, you have to be guarded, and
Speaker 1: right now, people want unfiltered, they want authenticity. So he
Speaker 1: was looking for a place where he could be himself.
Speaker 1: It was one of those marriages. The second we met
Speaker 1: with him, we kind of knew that we were the
Speaker 1: right partner for each other. And to be honest, he
Speaker 1: has been and it's it's early, but he has fit
Speaker 1: into the barcel culture as well as anybody possibly could.
Speaker 1: People would be stunned the general public on how many
Speaker 1: people have the talent at other established networks who want
Speaker 1: to all come work for us because we're competitive pay
Speaker 1: wise with all of them may be better, and there's
Speaker 1: no there's no you know, Restrectes. You can be yourself.
Speaker 1: We want you to be yourself. We're never gonna say, hey,
Speaker 1: you can't say that, you can't say this. Everybody can
Speaker 1: be exactly who they are, and we find that that
Speaker 1: amula works for us and a lot of people want
Speaker 1: to be a part of it. So we've seen some
Speaker 1: upstart digital brands that started on the Internet like Vice
Speaker 1: and a CEOs explode into the video space. Either with
Speaker 1: HBO or some other broadcasting UM channel. What are you
Speaker 1: guys thinking about in terms of bar stool sports? So
Speaker 1: we're gonna ever see that on a mainstream cable channel,
Speaker 1: I don't know. We had a brief dance with ESPN.
Speaker 1: Uh for part of my take, they they greenlit TV
Speaker 1: show UM and then they canceled it because there were
Speaker 1: there were people at ESPN who don't like us, and
Speaker 1: we have our detractors uh in ESPN. That that left
Speaker 1: a bad taste in my mouth. Uh. I was hesitants
Speaker 1: of that deal to begin with. The thing that we
Speaker 1: need UM to do a deal like that is to
Speaker 1: find a partner who knows exactly who we are, who
Speaker 1: did their research, who can stand by us in the
Speaker 1: first time you know, the wind blows maybe the wrong way,
Speaker 1: they don't run for the hills. I thought ESPN was
Speaker 1: wildly coward was cowardly and how they dealt with us,
Speaker 1: UM and you know, my instinct sensed it. So it
Speaker 1: would have to be the exact right, perfect guilty because honest,
Speaker 1: unlike a lot of digital media comes to this, we
Speaker 1: can bring people to network, which is TV and an
Speaker 1: older demo like no other brand. We bring a lot
Speaker 1: more than I think they bring to us, So it
Speaker 1: really have to be the absolutely perfect deal for us
Speaker 1: to do that. Again, I think it would be more
Speaker 1: likely we buy a network, to be honest, and just
Speaker 1: run our own channel. So it sounds like you spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time thinking about business strategy and your
Speaker 1: overall media approach. How do you spend your day, How
Speaker 1: much of it is on creating content and how much
Speaker 1: of it is on these bigger picture Hey, we want
Speaker 1: to hook up with this company? Do we want to
Speaker 1: create something new with that company? That's one of the
Speaker 1: toughest challenges I have. Um, I think my role me personally,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure maybe there's others like it, but I
Speaker 1: can't really think of anybody who is as involved in
Speaker 1: the content in a company as well as the big picture. Obviously,
Speaker 1: we have a CEO who's unbelievable, Eric and Ardini, best
Speaker 1: higher we've ever made. But you know I we work
Speaker 1: closely on almost everything, so it is a mix. Um,
Speaker 1: it varies, like the day trading stuff I'm still doing.
Speaker 1: We had a big deal that a lot of people
Speaker 1: know about what Penn National and we just launched our
Speaker 1: Barstool sports book in Pennsylvania. Um, so I'm pushing that
Speaker 1: now and doing content with that, but there's much larger
Speaker 1: discussions on the way to you know, roll that out
Speaker 1: nationally and acquisitions and things we want to do. So
Speaker 1: it really varies day to day, but I'd almost say
Speaker 1: it's sixty forty business verse content at this point. But
Speaker 1: quite interesting you mentioned Eric Nardini, she's your CEO. How
Speaker 1: did you find her and what does she do for
Speaker 1: barstool so Erica. So so, basically I sold half of
Speaker 1: Barstool Sports to the Turning Group. Uh and I believe
Speaker 1: it was two thousand sixteen ish two thousand sixteen, and
Speaker 1: Barstool was about ten to fifteen people at that time,
Speaker 1: and we were we were just didn't have time to
Speaker 1: do anything on the business side. It was all making
Speaker 1: content and making content and making content. And part of
Speaker 1: the thing I said when that was Turning, we gotta
Speaker 1: hire CEO to basically run the business side. I always
Speaker 1: felt we had this huge audience, but we weren't overly organized.
Speaker 1: On the business side. We did a lot of we
Speaker 1: just didn't do things that a lot of other similar
Speaker 1: companies were doing. And if we could, you know, get
Speaker 1: the business in order we'd be putting gas on a fire.
Speaker 1: So they agreed, and right away. One of the first
Speaker 1: things we did after the acquisition was set out to
Speaker 1: find a CEO. They hired a recruiting firm, high powered
Speaker 1: recruiting firm. They had seventy I think interviews are so
Speaker 1: all men. None of them made it to the second round.
Speaker 1: I just none of them clicked. Uh. It was always
Speaker 1: they were telling us what we should do, and you
Speaker 1: should do this, you should do that. I think you
Speaker 1: should change this. I think you should change that, and
Speaker 1: it just didn't click. We had a woman by the
Speaker 1: name of Betsy Morgan who used to be the CEO
Speaker 1: of the Huffington Post. I'm a Nantucket guy. She she
Speaker 1: spent time in Nantucket and I was introduced to her
Speaker 1: and she became I think our only like advisor. She
Speaker 1: was basically an advisor to Barstool. We hit it off
Speaker 1: and one day she was in my neck of the
Speaker 1: woods in New York. She's like, you want to meet
Speaker 1: for a coffee? Was like, sure, So I walked over.
Speaker 1: In with her was Erica Nardini, who was friends. So
Speaker 1: Erica just happened to be there for the for the
Speaker 1: coffee and Erica and I started talking and she was
Speaker 1: a fan of bar School and everything. She said that
Speaker 1: she liked about barstool in the Business Model. I was like, Yep,
Speaker 1: that's what I think. That's what I think. So after
Speaker 1: Eric and I met, I called the Turn of Guys
Speaker 1: and I was like, have you ever heard of Erica
Speaker 1: and Nardini? They had She was a former CMO of
Speaker 1: a O L and like, I just met with her
Speaker 1: and I love her, Like, I think she's the perfect
Speaker 1: fit if she's willing to do it. So they reached
Speaker 1: out to Erica to gauge interest. She had just started
Speaker 1: her own company, so she was like, let me think
Speaker 1: about this for a day or two, and she came
Speaker 1: back to said, yes, this is too good of an
Speaker 1: opportunity to pass. Let me meet with the guys um
Speaker 1: and she did and that started the process. So it
Speaker 1: was unintentional. A lot of people, one of my pet peas,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people say we hired Erica because
Speaker 1: she's a female. It was all male company, and it
Speaker 1: just couldn't be further further from the truth. It's insulting
Speaker 1: to me, it's felt like to her, but she has
Speaker 1: been the absolute perfect higher and the most important higher
Speaker 1: that we've had. Let's talk about something that is really serious.
Speaker 1: You're part of pen Gaming. How did that come about?
Speaker 1: And what's it like being part of this giant company.
Speaker 1: Y As we mentioned in the early part of the interview,
Speaker 1: Parcels sports actually started back in the newspaper days as
Speaker 1: a gambling and fantasy rag as a newspaper I handed
Speaker 1: out about a year and a half ago. I don't
Speaker 1: know the exact date, but the legislation on sports gambling
Speaker 1: was overturned in the United States. So always it had
Speaker 1: been illegal, and now it was going to be legal,
Speaker 1: and on a state by state basis, states could decide
Speaker 1: whether they want to allow it once that law was changed.
Speaker 1: I basically knew this is a huge opportunity for Barceol
Speaker 1: because our core DNA was sports gambling, so and I
Speaker 1: knew there was gonna be basically a gold rush of
Speaker 1: all these companies trying to get in this industry. So
Speaker 1: we had meetings with everybody under the Son Vandal, Draftking, MGM,
Speaker 1: Stars Group, you name it. We met with them, and
Speaker 1: you know, none of them actually yielded solid offer, which
Speaker 1: stunned me. Which absolutely stunned me because I thought it
Speaker 1: was a no brainer fit that one of these companies
Speaker 1: should acquire Bars to give them a gigantic competitive advantage
Speaker 1: because how good we are at acquiring clients. And then
Speaker 1: we met penn National Gaming and Jasonde in the CEO,
Speaker 1: and almost instantly we clicked with them. I had actually
Speaker 1: never heard of them, and primarily because they're a huge
Speaker 1: regional casino operator and all the casinos are operating or
Speaker 1: most of them under unique names, so you know they're
Speaker 1: all different. You made like I had been in their casinos,
Speaker 1: but I didn't know that I had been in their casinos,
Speaker 1: if that makes any sense. So we met with them
Speaker 1: and it was a perfect marriage because they had this
Speaker 1: huge casino brand which grants them access and licenses into
Speaker 1: so many different states, but they didn't have a well
Speaker 1: known brand. We have a well known brand, but no access.
Speaker 1: Though the deal was struck basically that Penn National would
Speaker 1: they bought a like I think it's thirty six, with
Speaker 1: the option to buy more in three years and get
Speaker 1: the whole company, and they would lead their sports gambling
Speaker 1: efforts with our brand. So the Barstool sports book, which
Speaker 1: just launched on Friday in Pennsylvania and we'll be rolling
Speaker 1: out across the country in states we have access. So
Speaker 1: it's the perfect kind of mix of Pen having all
Speaker 1: these physical properties and the licenses in Barstool having the
Speaker 1: online presence in digital marketing, combining forces to hopefully become
Speaker 1: one of the premier gambling companies in the United States.
Speaker 1: So you have some pretty big competitors in that space.
Speaker 1: You have DraftKings, Fan Duel, there's lots of other smaller entities.
Speaker 1: How does barstool compete with the big guy is and
Speaker 1: what is your specific advantage that nobody else seems to
Speaker 1: be able to match. So yeah, and they are big,
Speaker 1: they're big competitors, and and I know them intimately because
Speaker 1: we've been working with those guys for a decade. Like
Speaker 1: at one point for Raftkings, I was offered equity and
Speaker 1: just so they could lock us up exclusively for advertising.
Speaker 1: This is a long time ago. So we know those
Speaker 1: guys well, and they're not going anywhere. They They've done
Speaker 1: very well with what they've done, and they have a
Speaker 1: huge database. What we're good at is and what why
Speaker 1: Pen invested because we can reach our crowd, our audience
Speaker 1: who was wildly loyal and wildly engaged and get them
Speaker 1: to download the bar Flo sports book app play place
Speaker 1: bets through us without spending really any money on marketing.
Speaker 1: So right now what you have is a marketing war.
Speaker 1: If you watch a football game, you'll probably see thirty
Speaker 1: seven different ads from you know, pen different companies, all
Speaker 1: basically saying the same thing. Combat with us, you get
Speaker 1: ten dollars here a hundred dollars day are pre five
Speaker 1: hundred dollar bet. It's all whitewashed. There's so much of
Speaker 1: it in a weird way. It's like our race to
Speaker 1: the bottom. There's only going to be so many of
Speaker 1: these companies that can survive. We will compete and compete
Speaker 1: effectively while most likely being profitable, which will be probably
Speaker 1: the only company that can say that. Because we're not
Speaker 1: gonna have the marketing costs that these other companies have.
Speaker 1: They have to spend, spend, spend to get any share,
Speaker 1: or else they won't get it. Because no one really
Speaker 1: cares about DraftKings versus Fandel versus MGM versus points bet.
Speaker 1: They don't with us. They're playing with us because of
Speaker 1: our logo, because it's a seventeen year story, because they
Speaker 1: root for us. That's why I think if you look
Speaker 1: before we did the deal with pen there's like a
Speaker 1: handful of robin Hood traders who owned it. Now it's
Speaker 1: over a hundred thousand robin traders. That's a marketing army.
Speaker 1: People wear the merch, they root for us like or
Speaker 1: a sports team. So it's all that is what the
Speaker 1: competitive advantages? Huh? Really interesting? So so, given how much
Speaker 1: of what you've been doing for the previous seventeen years
Speaker 1: has been driven by sports and bedding, what went through
Speaker 1: your mind when suddenly in March the NBA cancels the
Speaker 1: season and soon after almost all other sports grind to
Speaker 1: a halt. You you had to stop and say, well,
Speaker 1: I guess we're on vacation for six months, or do
Speaker 1: I need to come up with something new? Yeah, well
Speaker 1: that's the great thing about I guess the way barstool
Speaker 1: has been trained, like I said, born from the Internet,
Speaker 1: vacation certainly didn't cross my mind. It's okay, we got
Speaker 1: to reinvent ourselves or do something different. So I was
Speaker 1: never worried that once sports went away for a little
Speaker 1: bit somehow our content would suffer. You know, the day
Speaker 1: trading thing which I started doing when sports went away
Speaker 1: because like I got past the time somehow the stock
Speaker 1: markets open and I started dabbling with that. I never
Speaker 1: imagined it would become what it had become. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, and I've said this to Eric, our CEO,
Speaker 1: when when she came in, We've been around for seventeen years.
Speaker 1: We've stayed relevant for seventeen years. I'd say we've stayed
Speaker 1: edgy for seventeen years. We stayed cool for seventeen years.
Speaker 1: That is almost the biggest accomplishment. So many brands like
Speaker 1: ours or in this space, they come and they go.
Speaker 1: I've seen them a million times. It's not an accident
Speaker 1: that we've stayed relevant. We've always reinvented ourselves. We've always
Speaker 1: had something new, so you know, it's just the latest generation.
Speaker 1: And I'd argue that outside the obvious negative impact of
Speaker 1: quarantine and the pandemic for our stool and eyeballs and
Speaker 1: growth and present, it's been a very beneficial time. Like
Speaker 1: we grew in pays, views, we grew, and how how
Speaker 1: many people knew us, our footprint, our impact has never
Speaker 1: been stronger because people have not nothing to do, nothing
Speaker 1: to consume, and we were consistently on the cutting edge
Speaker 1: of putting out content, not just myself, but like Dan
Speaker 1: big Cat, you know he has he never twitched as
Speaker 1: one of our bigger stars, he had never been on Twitch.
Speaker 1: He went on Twitch and played an old college football
Speaker 1: game and create a fictional college football coach. He became
Speaker 1: the number one twitch stream on Twitch within like three weeks,
Speaker 1: which is wild to think about. So we've always been
Speaker 1: very good at being creative, reinventing, and that's because, not
Speaker 1: to say it again, but we're born from the Internet.
Speaker 1: If you're not creative, if you can't create ways, if
Speaker 1: you can't get people that pay attention to what you're doing,
Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't have found you in the first place.
Speaker 1: My special guest today is David Portnoy, better known as
Speaker 1: Davy day Trader. How on earth did the idea of
Speaker 1: videotaping yourself day trading? I'm about because when you think
Speaker 1: about it, it's not the sort of thing that lends
Speaker 1: itself to an obvious visual medium. We'll take us through
Speaker 1: the process as to how that got launched. So, uh,
Speaker 1: once quarantine hit, we needed something to do, something to
Speaker 1: pass the time, and we're searching for answers. So the
Speaker 1: stock market was still going in one day, I decide,
Speaker 1: almost as a mimick, you know what, I'm gonna throw
Speaker 1: in a full suit. I got a little I got
Speaker 1: a little bell, like I was ringing the stock exchange
Speaker 1: to start the day, and made a quick video and
Speaker 1: put it on and and you know it quick like
Speaker 1: people are interested, like, all right, this is interesting, and
Speaker 1: I never know what's gonna work or what people are
Speaker 1: gonna like. Is no different than my pizza reviews that
Speaker 1: I do. Yeah, I I didn't start that with some
Speaker 1: grand plan that's going to become the pre eminent pizza
Speaker 1: review guy in basically the world. But it was obvious
Speaker 1: when I did it people were paying attention. So I
Speaker 1: started with that one video in the suit, ringing the bell,
Speaker 1: and the next day I put a you know, a
Speaker 1: live stream on for a couple of minutes trading stocks
Speaker 1: and and people tuned and then we're fascinated. So the
Speaker 1: next day I did it again, more people paid attention,
Speaker 1: and it was just one of those organic things, and
Speaker 1: it was real, like everything we do. I was trading
Speaker 1: with real money, and I was gonna kill this. The beginning,
Speaker 1: which is always there's that you know it's a train wreck,
Speaker 1: but you can't look away vibe. So it was very
Speaker 1: clear right away that people were interested in watching it,
Speaker 1: and not like you said, I heard you, it's colorful,
Speaker 1: is different. I don't think anybody on Wall Street had
Speaker 1: ever seen somebody like myself basically doing what I was
Speaker 1: doing on Wall three with a large amounts of money
Speaker 1: and being very upfront about it. And you know, it
Speaker 1: was just very different. There isn't much out there like
Speaker 1: what the Davy Day Trader stick was so clicked. It
Speaker 1: certainly did click. I recall back in either March or
Speaker 1: April seeing an early video of yours. You're having a
Speaker 1: meltdown because you're losing a ton of money, and I
Speaker 1: remember saying to myself, either this guy is the greatest
Speaker 1: actor in the world or he is really getting buried
Speaker 1: in trades today. And it was you described it perfectly.
Speaker 1: It was a train wreck. You could not look away,
Speaker 1: right And although there was an early element to it,
Speaker 1: I didn't know what that's doing clearly. And I don't
Speaker 1: even mean with stock like I couldn't figure out the platforms.
Speaker 1: I couldn't figure out necessarily how to trade things. I
Speaker 1: was making mistakes, So those melt onems were very real.
Speaker 1: Because it isn't the easiest thing to use right away.
Speaker 1: You gotta kind of get used to it. So that
Speaker 1: element of it certainly capture people's attention. And then obviously
Speaker 1: I have a very large fan base who know me
Speaker 1: and know my personality and they're interesting to see what's
Speaker 1: going on. So sports was canceled, but it was a
Speaker 1: sport in a different kind of way. Really, it's people
Speaker 1: are paying attention how I do daily. And then obviously
Speaker 1: it started getting picked up within this financial Twitter community.
Speaker 1: Then it started getting picked up by the networks, who
Speaker 1: in my mind, we're kind of making fun of me
Speaker 1: in the beginning, but I don't really care. It's like
Speaker 1: any time we can get publicity, that's good for overall
Speaker 1: of our stool. And then then I started winning, and
Speaker 1: then it kind of changed the tone of it, and
Speaker 1: it's been an interesting ride it it. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think I maybe for the last couple of months, I
Speaker 1: shouldn't say maybe I'm the most talked about person on
Speaker 1: Wall Street. If you told me that was gonna happen
Speaker 1: six months ago, I would have looked at you like
Speaker 1: you had ten heads, what are you talking about? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're now up to one. Point eight million Twitter followers.
Speaker 1: When you started live streaming your your day trading, you
Speaker 1: didn't quite have that same size following, did you. Uh,
Speaker 1: it was big. I don't know what it is. We
Speaker 1: definitely have far more people now. The live stream always is,
Speaker 1: you know, four to five thousand people concurrently on it
Speaker 1: at once. I don't know what I had. It's definitely
Speaker 1: picked up. It's a new demo, it's a new audience.
Speaker 1: But you know, Twitter actually is super hard to grow
Speaker 1: your your user base, so it hasn't grown dramatically. Huh.
Speaker 1: And how well thought out is your your training? Do
Speaker 1: you go in with a plan, do you have a
Speaker 1: strategy or do you just looking at whatever is moving
Speaker 1: and catches your eye. It's all over the map, it
Speaker 1: really is. There is strategy to it. I'm always looking
Speaker 1: at earnings and what I think I'm using, you know,
Speaker 1: my own logic in regards to what I think maybe
Speaker 1: a good COVID or not COVID stock is and then
Speaker 1: it could be for example, you know, I was on
Speaker 1: vacation for a week and uh, deer. I woke up
Speaker 1: there was a deer outside my window. Like it was
Speaker 1: very beautiful actually, but anyways, I saw the deer, and
Speaker 1: I thought that was a sign, so I bought John Deer.
Speaker 1: So it can really be anything that can be all
Speaker 1: over the minute. How did that trade work out? Very good?
Speaker 1: Their earnings were actually the same day. That's why I
Speaker 1: thought it was a no brainer. So they had great earnings.
Speaker 1: That's very funny. So the question that you kind of raises,
Speaker 1: so let me let me back up and ask this.
Speaker 1: So you've talked about losing six hundred thousand dollars in
Speaker 1: a day. I don't care. Markets are gonna go up eventually,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make this back. How much does a half
Speaker 1: a million dollar swing affect your psyche or are you
Speaker 1: able to just put it behind you? It really varies.
Speaker 1: So when I started, I was down about two or
Speaker 1: three million instantly, almost shorting stocks, which I don't do
Speaker 1: anymore because I got killed and that's the main thing
Speaker 1: I've gotten killed on. And then I end up being
Speaker 1: up about four millions at my height, I am now
Speaker 1: up probably about one the last couple of weeks of
Speaker 1: knock three legs out. That doesn't bother me at all
Speaker 1: because I'm up. When you're down, it's a lot harder
Speaker 1: to go further down. But I do overall believe if
Speaker 1: you just hold, and you have the time to hold,
Speaker 1: stocks will always go up. Like so unlike sports gambling
Speaker 1: where the clock strikes zero and the game's over and
Speaker 1: you owe, the stock market really doesn't do that. It
Speaker 1: keeps going, so as long as you have time on
Speaker 1: your hands and patience, which I don't. But if you do,
Speaker 1: then you're always going to get it back. So you know,
Speaker 1: I lost a million dollars, I don't know, like last week,
Speaker 1: that didn't bother me at all. I didn't lose like
Speaker 1: an ounce of sleep. That's the game. That's just the game.
Speaker 1: So so let's stick with stocks only go up. That's
Speaker 1: true if you're brought buying broad indo indexes or buying
Speaker 1: broad asset classes. Hey, stocks as a hole always go up.
Speaker 1: But as we've learned over the years, individual stocks can
Speaker 1: go to zero. How do you balance that when you're
Speaker 1: trying to decide what to trade. Yeah, and that's a
Speaker 1: fair point. I think there's a misconception about the stocks
Speaker 1: I'm involved in, Like Shopify is not going to zero,
Speaker 1: Amazon's not going to zero. A lot of stocks I'm in,
Speaker 1: I'm not in panic stocks. And if I am a
Speaker 1: Panics are small stocks. If I'm in stocks like that,
Speaker 1: I'm not holding him very long. So those aren't going
Speaker 1: to zero. You could get killed quickly. But a lot
Speaker 1: of my stocks of brand names and I am buying
Speaker 1: and selling them, So those are what I'm referring. If
Speaker 1: you're going with a penny stock or something that's you know,
Speaker 1: under five bucks, clearly there's a risk involved and things
Speaker 1: happen like Nicola the other day. Obviously the guy got
Speaker 1: accused of fraud, the CEO and he steps down and
Speaker 1: that take the bath. So you take that risk. But
Speaker 1: by and large, as long as you're not you know,
Speaker 1: dealing in high volatility. If you buy what was, it
Speaker 1: hurts when they're bankrupt or Kodak and you think those
Speaker 1: those I'm not saying as who knows that those but
Speaker 1: those I'm in and out of the stock that I'm
Speaker 1: saying always go up. Our stocks that truly always go up.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned traditional Wall Street hasn't really been very welcoming.
Speaker 1: Who on the street has reached out to you? Who
Speaker 1: do you have a good relationship, who's got some longevity
Speaker 1: in finance and says, hey, here's a new guy. Journal
Speaker 1: lot of attention. Let's let's get in the hands. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I should clarify, I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: in Wall Street actually love it. I get so many
Speaker 1: comments that people working on All Street yount refreshing at
Speaker 1: the breast, fresh air. Even though you're making fun of us,
Speaker 1: we find it funny. The clowns on Wall Street and
Speaker 1: Finch with the Fince with guys are really the ones
Speaker 1: that I would say haven't been welcoming because they're used
Speaker 1: car salesman. They're the ones trolling thin give up. They're
Speaker 1: trying to get They need money. They need to convince
Speaker 1: people that they're smarter than you, and you can't invest
Speaker 1: your own money. And the only way to be safe,
Speaker 1: you know, a roth Garber. You're gonna give roths Garber
Speaker 1: your money or else you're gonna lose it all. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's a clown. But the people who are doing this
Speaker 1: the right way, I feel like they've been pretty inviting.
Speaker 1: Jim Kramer has been super super friendly from the beginning
Speaker 1: and welcoming to me, and you know, most of the
Speaker 1: networks are. But the issue is the guys who have
Speaker 1: been saying the stock market is gonna crash for the
Speaker 1: last six months and it hasn't is gonna end in tears,
Speaker 1: and you better give them their money because you don't
Speaker 1: know how to spend your money. Those are the guys
Speaker 1: that don't like me. And I don't know why people
Speaker 1: do that, By the way, I don't know. That's one
Speaker 1: of the things that found interesting is there's a lot
Speaker 1: of these talking heads who are seemingly rooting for the
Speaker 1: stock market to crash, like they want people to lose money.
Speaker 1: I don't understand that. I feel like everyone should be
Speaker 1: on the same seat. The stock market goes up, everyone
Speaker 1: should be happy. If everyone's on the same team. Who's
Speaker 1: going to take the other side of your trades? Well,
Speaker 1: that's something that I'll have to let the scientists and
Speaker 1: the mathematicians find out, right. So so so it's fascinating.
Speaker 1: But by the way, I've been on the street long
Speaker 1: enough that I've seen this debate take place. I saw
Speaker 1: it in oh six oh seven, before the crash. There's
Speaker 1: always a contingency that missed the run up and they're
Speaker 1: waiting for the next big move down so they could
Speaker 1: make up what they lost. And then some people philosophically
Speaker 1: are more intrigued by the idea of a crash. It's
Speaker 1: just their personality. They think markets get she lacked, and
Speaker 1: you know that's when everything becomes more intriguing. I can't
Speaker 1: explain the psychology behind it, but I can tell you
Speaker 1: it's been there for as long as markets have been around.
Speaker 1: I believe it in the in the thing that I
Speaker 1: find well, it's just funny to me is for six
Speaker 1: months I've been told on it. It's gonna end in tears.
Speaker 1: People have been listening to me, are gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: ruin them. First of all, I'm only trading my own money,
Speaker 1: and I'm very clear to do what you want. But
Speaker 1: if you were listening to me, you'd be up in
Speaker 1: the second the stock work, it has one bad day
Speaker 1: or two bad days in a week. It's chirping me
Speaker 1: that from the cheap seats, being like, I told you,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? Still way up? I don't know.
Speaker 1: It went down for a couple of days. That happened,
Speaker 1: so but they go silent. Their crickets star just going up.
Speaker 1: It goes down for a second and they come out
Speaker 1: of the wood nuts and and let me let me
Speaker 1: put some numbers on on that. From the march lows,
Speaker 1: the Nasdaq one hundred is up seventy seven percent, and
Speaker 1: over the past couple of weeks it pulled back almost
Speaker 1: eleven percent. You're still way way ahead if you were
Speaker 1: bullish from the lows forward. There's a wheeze to go
Speaker 1: before the bears can declare victory. Correct. Correct. So I'm up.
Speaker 1: Were all over a million right now, and I was
Speaker 1: before I started my comeback, I was down three, So
Speaker 1: I went down big in the hole right away. How
Speaker 1: big the comeback was, that's how strong the talk market was.
Speaker 1: So so, you've interviewed or been interviewed by a number
Speaker 1: of interesting people. You mentioned Jim Kramer. How did the
Speaker 1: interview with President Trump come about? That's absolutely fascinating to me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't have a good answer to that all I
Speaker 1: it was the same week I was on vacation, and
Speaker 1: I think I did the interview on a Thursday, if
Speaker 1: I recall, and one of my guys worked for me
Speaker 1: called me late Wednesday, like President Trump wants you to
Speaker 1: interview him in the Oval office and or in the
Speaker 1: Rose Garden, excuse me? And I was like, what that was?
Speaker 1: Basically my reaction. It wasn't like a previous conversation or anything,
Speaker 1: because okay, is that serious. I'm not an interviewer. I
Speaker 1: really have never conducted an interview, but it was the
Speaker 1: President of the United States, and to be honest, we
Speaker 1: had to give a thought because he starts a lightning rod.
Speaker 1: There's very few people were like, I'm neutral on him.
Speaker 1: You know, you either despise them or you love them.
Speaker 1: Seems to be the case. And I've always said, almost
Speaker 1: like old Michael Jordan's you know, blue states and red
Speaker 1: states by T shirts, I want everyone to like us.
Speaker 1: So that was the only thing going in. It's like,
Speaker 1: this is half the people are gonna be great. Half
Speaker 1: kind of people. I'm gonna say I'm the devil just
Speaker 1: by associating with him, even though he's the president. Um.
Speaker 1: But it was a no brainers. It is a huge Yeah.
Speaker 1: What what was the experience like showing up at You
Speaker 1: show up at the White House, You get to the
Speaker 1: gate and you say, they asked for I D take
Speaker 1: us through the rest of the day. What what was
Speaker 1: the highlights of that? Well, the whole thing was the
Speaker 1: real So I've never been to the White House, um,
Speaker 1: and it's hard to put it into words. You're walking
Speaker 1: through the giving you the history lessons. They're telling you
Speaker 1: everything I felt like back in high school, getting the
Speaker 1: entire you know description, And then, to be honest, it
Speaker 1: was fairly intimating because and I don't get intimated easily.
Speaker 1: I've been in a lot of situations, but you know,
Speaker 1: they limit how many people can be there, Like Erica,
Speaker 1: our CEO wasn't allowed to be in the rum and
Speaker 1: it's all his people around you in a circle. And
Speaker 1: I hadn't met him before the interview started, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to conduct, you know, a good, interesting, fair interview,
Speaker 1: not overly political, because I'm not, but you know, a
Speaker 1: good interesting thing that people would be interested in. So
Speaker 1: it was a surreal, surreal experience and one that I'll
Speaker 1: really never forget. But yeah, it's hard to believe that
Speaker 1: had happened, to be totally honest, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of people share that sentiment, and I
Speaker 1: found it to be absolutely fascinating. So I have to
Speaker 1: talk about I'm gonna pivot now from the White House
Speaker 1: to something that everybody uniformly loves, and that's pizza. How
Speaker 1: on earth did one bite with Davy page views come about? What?
Speaker 1: What was the thinking I want to I want to
Speaker 1: review every pizza place in Manhattan. Yeah, so this this
Speaker 1: would probably be if someone wants to describe how barstool
Speaker 1: stumbles upon upon ideas. This the pizza thing, maybe the
Speaker 1: most afropo example. Essentially five years ago, myself and another
Speaker 1: employee got in a debate. If you can only eat
Speaker 1: one food the rest of your life, what would you eat?
Speaker 1: I said pizza? He said burritos, And you had the
Speaker 1: right answer, by the way, I agree, and so we
Speaker 1: actually like, okay, we're gonna do it. So for about
Speaker 1: a month, that's all we ate morning, breakfast, lunch, dinner.
Speaker 1: I just ate pizza, and I'm doing it, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm eating so much pizza, I might as well start
Speaker 1: ranking these things. So I tell you, I just say,
Speaker 1: here's my knee jerk, I'll take one bite, here's the store,
Speaker 1: and you know it start catch and on. People were there,
Speaker 1: they were they liked watching these things that we were
Speaker 1: in Boston at the time. And then we're moving to
Speaker 1: New York, like, all right, New York's known for what pizza.
Speaker 1: I said, I'm gonna try every every place. When I
Speaker 1: went there, it was kind of an off handed comment.
Speaker 1: But when we arrived. I did a couple and the
Speaker 1: response is overwhelming. Everybody loves pizza. Everybody like debating about pizza.
Speaker 1: It also the fact that I just happened to walk
Speaker 1: out in the street and do it. There you start
Speaker 1: running into all these characters from New York and it
Speaker 1: became almost more than the pizza. Became a lifestyle thing
Speaker 1: because you got to see the citizens of New York
Speaker 1: and and it just exploded. It is by far the
Speaker 1: most popular thing we do. It's what I am best
Speaker 1: known for. And it spans every age, every demographic, and
Speaker 1: I always see different stats on it. People like it
Speaker 1: got two hundred thousand views on YouTube. Very rarely are
Speaker 1: people adding up. It's on every social media. It's it's
Speaker 1: probably about three million unique views across all the platforms
Speaker 1: every single day. It's insane that that is insane. Not
Speaker 1: some of them that stood out to me. Well, one,
Speaker 1: you have the cast of Tag, including John Hamm and
Speaker 1: Ed Helms, and a girl recognizes you, she doesn't recognize
Speaker 1: anybody else walking down the street, a young woman and
Speaker 1: she starts talking to you. Then she recognizes John Hamm
Speaker 1: and you you bring her into the review and say, okay,
Speaker 1: take a byte. You know the rules, one bite? What's
Speaker 1: the score? Don't forget the decimal point? And then bang,
Speaker 1: suddenly she sees elm ed Helms behind her and has
Speaker 1: a meltdown. What how surreal is this when people New
Speaker 1: York has just come up to you on the street
Speaker 1: while you're doing a pizza. Yeah, I mean, well that
Speaker 1: was an ego boost obviously, the one you just said
Speaker 1: when you're standing with you know, five a lists bars,
Speaker 1: than the girl recognizes you amongst the hall. I'm you it.
Speaker 1: I've always said that this, but it's not just pizza
Speaker 1: to our sales people and when we're selling ad if
Speaker 1: you actually want to see the power of bar Stool Sports,
Speaker 1: just come walk around the streets with me, Like, come
Speaker 1: walk with me, Come walk with a couple of our guys.
Speaker 1: We've become very well known, approachable people, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's always astounding to people don't really get the power
Speaker 1: of our stool when they see us out and about
Speaker 1: just how many people love the brand, come up to it.
Speaker 1: I don't leave my apartment anymore at all. I I
Speaker 1: know the people I just walking in the street are
Speaker 1: gonna come up and say hello. That's just it's been
Speaker 1: a wild ride from working in my parents basement and
Speaker 1: being embarrassed or not embarrassed. But when someone asked me
Speaker 1: what I do know that to have to explain, well,
Speaker 1: it's a little newspaper I hand out, and I know
Speaker 1: you're not gonna know what it is too almost recognition
Speaker 1: now wherever we go. It has truly been an insane
Speaker 1: ride to this point, to say the very least. Have
Speaker 1: have you crossed a thousand pizza reviews? Yet? What number
Speaker 1: are you up to? I think we're probably like seven
Speaker 1: or eight hundred we have, which is, by the way,
Speaker 1: the best way for anybody who wants to find good
Speaker 1: pizza to go to the app for one Bite dot app.
Speaker 1: People can upload their own videos, their own scores. It's
Speaker 1: I use it myself. It is the best way to
Speaker 1: find good pizza near you. So so let's talk about
Speaker 1: not just good pizza, but best pizza. What's your best
Speaker 1: favorite slice in New York? And then I'm gonna ask
Speaker 1: you a twist on that and see if I can
Speaker 1: throw you. So, what's your favorite slice in New York?
Speaker 1: I know the answer, It's one of mine. Say it
Speaker 1: out loud, John's a bleaker that that is such a
Speaker 1: safe bet. It's such fantastic pizza, you simply cannot go
Speaker 1: wrong with that. Tell Us here's the twist question. Tell
Speaker 1: us a slice that you really enjoyed, that was a
Speaker 1: giant surprise that you weren't expecting it to be that good,
Speaker 1: or a very less known pizza place. M you know,
Speaker 1: there's a bunch in Pennsylvania they have like these tomatoes.
Speaker 1: I'm trying tomato pie pizza knocked. Just so many ONNA
Speaker 1: draw a blanket what they are. I know, I love those.
Speaker 1: There's was one of Minnesota. There's so many. I this this.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna draw a blank on the best slice that
Speaker 1: is surprised by. Yeah, I don't know. I that my brain,
Speaker 1: I think is slowly dying. I've done so many the
Speaker 1: I can't think of that. I can't think of the
Speaker 1: surprising one. You know why because most of the time
Speaker 1: I can't be surprised with pizza. The audience and it
Speaker 1: is always correct. So if a lot of people say, hey,
Speaker 1: go to this place, go to this place, go to
Speaker 1: this place, it's gonna be great. It generally is great.
Speaker 1: There is one that I thought was a little now
Speaker 1: that I'm thinking about the drow of like, oh, Little
Speaker 1: Vincent's is an overrated one. I don't meet the crust,
Speaker 1: crush them with the you know, cold cold cheese on it.
Speaker 1: And Huntington's that was one that tongues of people. I know.
Speaker 1: There's one in I want to say, Park Slope that
Speaker 1: I didn't give a great review too, and the people
Speaker 1: are still passionately said they killed me if I've ever
Speaker 1: went back there. Kind of joking, kind of not l
Speaker 1: B LMB. In Brooklyn, I thought it was a little
Speaker 1: bit overrated. I guess my brain is starting to go here.
Speaker 1: I don't like to throw out the overrated ones, but
Speaker 1: I guess I just did. So you'll travel, You'll go
Speaker 1: to the outer Borrows, You'll go to Brooklyn, Queens elsewhere.
Speaker 1: And you did a great I don't want to obsess
Speaker 1: on pizza, but you did a great. Um a review
Speaker 1: with somebody I've had as a guest on the show,
Speaker 1: John Taffer, It's the first time I've seen you genuinely
Speaker 1: surprised by one of your reviewers ability to really explain
Speaker 1: exactly what was going on in a ice of a
Speaker 1: slice of pizza. Yeah. Well, I love John. I mean,
Speaker 1: when we've had a long relationship with him. Uh, years
Speaker 1: and years and years ago, we did like a mock
Speaker 1: bar rescue where he was saving barstool sports. We went in,
Speaker 1: he was screaming at us. It was the first time
Speaker 1: we met him in The relationship is really blossom. He's
Speaker 1: the only guy who has done to review. That's how
Speaker 1: That's how much I actually love him. I've been on
Speaker 1: bar rescue before, so he's he's the best. John Taffer
Speaker 1: is the best. Yeah, he's he's terrific. I know we
Speaker 1: only have you for a limited amount of time, so
Speaker 1: let me jump to our speed round. These are the
Speaker 1: five questions we ask all of our guests, so we
Speaker 1: have a little bit of a baseline to compare everything.
Speaker 1: To tell us what you're streaming these days. Give us
Speaker 1: your favorite Netflix shows, Amazon Prime or whatever podcasts uh
Speaker 1: you're listening to. I was catching up on Schnith Creek
Speaker 1: who won all those awards actually the other night. But
Speaker 1: I don't watch much TV. I watched sports and my
Speaker 1: favorite show which is not on TV right now. I
Speaker 1: love successions. Interesting. Tell us about some of your mentors
Speaker 1: who helped shape your career, whether it's in publishing or
Speaker 1: trading or anything. Nobody I would say, I haven't really
Speaker 1: worked for anybody that my I will say. When I
Speaker 1: did my first deal with Turning Group, they asked who
Speaker 1: were the business inspirations or who did I want to model?
Speaker 1: So I guess this would answer it, and it was
Speaker 1: Jimmy Buffett and Rob Geared, two widely different people, but
Speaker 1: two guys who basically took a small thing that they
Speaker 1: did and turned it into a lifestyle brand. So Jimmy Buffett,
Speaker 1: you know things about beaches and bars, and turned it
Speaker 1: into yeah, exactly, So taking something one concept, Rob Gardick
Speaker 1: was eight boarding and really making an entire lifestyle brand
Speaker 1: that you can sell across every channel. So those that
Speaker 1: those are my two inspirations, I guess or models. Interesting?
Speaker 1: Have you been doing much reading under lockdown? Tell us
Speaker 1: tell us some books or other things you're reading that
Speaker 1: that you can enjoy you now, reading is for suckers.
Speaker 1: I'm one of those guys that believe, you know, TVs
Speaker 1: were invented before books. Books wouldn't exist, So I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's like if you drive around on on square wheels,
Speaker 1: like why why would you do that? That? The circle wheels?
Speaker 1: That's very funny. What sort of advice would you give
Speaker 1: to a recent college grad who was interested in becoming
Speaker 1: an online entrepreneur. I always say, just do it. I've
Speaker 1: met so many people. Uh, and even when I started,
Speaker 1: all my friends like, hey, we're gonna do this idea
Speaker 1: with you and everyone Hendon Hall and had a uses
Speaker 1: in this and that there's nothing like doing it. There's
Speaker 1: nothing better than just getting up and doing. Don't talk
Speaker 1: about it, don't make excuses if you fail. You fail.
Speaker 1: There's a million different reasons why something can't be done.
Speaker 1: But in today's age, especially with the Internet, there there's
Speaker 1: no reason for you not to be doing it. Like
Speaker 1: prove it. Do it. Don't do it for money, do
Speaker 1: it because you just need to do it. That is
Speaker 1: my best advice. Just get out and start. You don't
Speaker 1: know where it will take you. Like I didn't know
Speaker 1: Barcelo would end up being this. You just got to
Speaker 1: get your oars in the water. I like that expression.
Speaker 1: And our final question, what do you know about the
Speaker 1: world of investing stocks and trading today? You wish you
Speaker 1: knew back when you were first getting started, not the
Speaker 1: short stocks and stocks always go up. I'd be probably
Speaker 1: three million dollars richer. Thanks Dave for being so generous
Speaker 1: with your time. We have been speaking with Dave porton Ay.
Speaker 1: He is the founder and l president A of Barstool Sports.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this interview, we'll be sure and check
Speaker 1: out any of our prior three hundred such conversations. You
Speaker 1: can find that at iTunes, Spotify, overcast that you're a
Speaker 1: cast wherever final podcasts are found. We love your comments,
Speaker 1: feedback and suggestions right to us at M I B
Speaker 1: podcast at Bloomberg dot net. Be sure and give us
Speaker 1: a review at Apple iTunes. Check out my weekly column
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg dot com slash Opinion. You can sign up
Speaker 1: for our daily reads at Ridholts dot com or follow
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at Rid Halts. I would be remiss
Speaker 1: if I did not thank the crack staff that helps
Speaker 1: us put these conversations together each week. My recording engineer
Speaker 1: is Charlie Vollmer, My producer is Michael Boyle. Atica val
Speaker 1: Bron is our project manager. Our research director is Michael
Speaker 1: bat Nick. I'm Barry Ridhults. You've been listening to Masters
Speaker 1: in Business on Bloomberg Radio.