STEVE INSKEEP, BYLINE: Dave Portnoy says it was irritating to write his new book. Portnoy is the founder of Barstool Sports, a website and podcast empire that covers three big topics, sports, gambling and guys saying whatever comes into their heads. Often, that guy is Portnoy himself, getting into sudden arguments like one with a caller over a golf match.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
WINDY: Don't blame me. Keep my name off your lips, Portnoy. Shut up.
DAVE PORTNOY: Let me tell you something, Windy (ph). If you would listen to the program, I did blame the USGA.
WINDY: Yeah, what are you going to tell me you dumb - what are you going to tell me, you moron?
PORTNOY: I blamed the USGA and then I blamed you.
INSKEEP: Portnoy says his book, unlike his podcasts, forced him to edit. "Cancel Me If You Can" still includes the same persona, a man who built a successful business and drew a big audience calling out pizzas he likes and people he does not.
PORTNOY: I definitely have always relished in vanquishing my enemies. There's some in this book that I still feel the score is not settled, but a lot are. I guess I've always had a chip on my shoulder. I always said I was going to do, at the end of my career at Barstool, like, Dave Portnoy: An Evening of Hate, where people...
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
PORTNOY: I try to sell out Madison Square Garden, and I just let it rip on people that I have issues with.
INSKEEP: Like his fellow podcaster Alex Cooper...
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "CALL HER DADDY")
ALEX COOPER: What is up, daddy gang? It is your founding father, Alex Cooper. We call her daddy.
INSKEEP: ...Whose hugely successful podcast was part of Barstool until a disagreement.
PORTNOY: It all came to a boiling point during COVID. The two girls showed up at my apartment. And I basically offered them what I still say is the best deal I've ever offered anybody in Barstool.
INSKEEP: As Portnoy's book tells it, Cooper and her cohost, the women making the podcast, demanded even more money.
PORTNOY: I was like, well, we're going to sue you. Like, how in the world do you think you're going to do that? You're pretty ironclad locked up to a three-year deal with us. And she's like, the plan is that we were going to say there was sexual harassment involved and a toxic workplace to get out of our contract with you. I think that was their plan to get out of the contract.
INSKEEP: Do you think that you would've been vulnerable to that kind of accusation?
PORTNOY: Oh, my God, 100%. If they went public, saying we're going to leave Barstool and the reason is they are sexually harassed or toxic, whatever the phrase is - it was all going to be in that vein - 100%, their fans would've believed them. And they wouldn't have believed us.
INSKEEP: I mean, people would know that, I mean, you call them girls. You tell a certain kind of joke. They would think, oh, that makes sense for the Dave Portnoy I know.
PORTNOY: Totally. It would've fit the brand. Even, I mean - (laughter) never mind the fact that they didn't come into the office. So I'm not even sure how that's possible, to be, like, harassed when you're not in the office in the first place. But yeah, it would've been a disaster. There's no doubt about that.
INSKEEP: We reached out to Alex Cooper and her former cohost, Sofia Franklyn, about Portnoy's allegation. They have yet to reply. Dave Portnoy draws a big audience of younger men, the kind who swung to Donald Trump in the 2024 election. When we talked with Portnoy last year, he said he voted for Trump largely as an answer to Democrats he considers scolds. Portnoy says he's still mostly on Trump's side because of the rise of democratic socialists.
PORTNOY: I stay up at night a lot worrying about politics. And I'm a Jewish guy, so I think a lot of that probably plays a factor. I think antisemitism is running wild, but I very much love the United States. I don't say it's perfect. But candidates that seemingly despise this country and want to turn it into a socialist company - country, I don't get at all.
INSKEEP: Young people, traditionally, the majority of them have voted for Democrats. President Trump did very well with young men, the kind of people who are probably a big part of your audience. But in the last year or so, in surveys, his support among younger men has eroded. Why do you think that would be?
PORTNOY: I think the war, certainly, with Iran. You know, he supports Israel. And I think that is a hot-button topic right now for all people that it is not a popular thing to support Israel, to support that government, you know, and not say it's a genocide. I don't think it is, obviously, with my views. But that manosphere have all kind of flipped on him. And a lot of it, I do think is on this one particular issue.
INSKEEP: When we last spoke, you were pretty open about the idea that there's corruption in the administration. You talked about cryptocurrency deals and so forth. In the last year, there's been arguably a lot more. I mean, there's the airplane from Qatar, there's his family's deals in the Middle East, there's buying stock in companies that the government is affecting. We could get a list of things. Does that bother you still?
PORTNOY: A hundred percent. And I think it's all true.
INSKEEP: What would you do about that?
PORTNOY: I don't know. Like, I don't think politicians should be able to trade stocks, period, buy crypto, period. I don't think a politician should be able to change their net worth a whole heck of a lot by getting into office. Like, whatever your net worth is when you get into office, put in inflation, put in normal salary, and you should probably leave office with a similar. I don't think many politicians do. Like, yes, I agree with everything you said about Trump. Do I think that's a Trump issue versus an all-politician issue? I think it's an all-politician issue...
INSKEEP: I think there's a lot of people...
PORTNOY: He probably takes advantage of it the most.
INSKEEP: Yeah, no, there's a lot of members of Congress who've traded stocks and so forth. But this is at a whole new level, don't you think?
PORTNOY: Absolutely. Well, he's taking advantage of, like, the crypto and even, like, his son with Kalshi and things like that. No doubt. No doubt. In the scheme of everything that I'm worried about, I wouldn't say it's top of the list, but I don't like it.
INSKEEP: Is it - I'm just thinking through your situation. You don't like it. But your feeling about the Democrats is such that Trump can just say, well - you don't like it? - there's nothing you can do about it, there's nobody else for you to support.
PORTNOY: Well, in the scheme of a guy, like, making a ton of money on crypto - and I think that's probably the prime example, the stock market - versus another candidate saying they want to overthrow Western society, they're just on much different levels of my concern.
INSKEEP: I want to ask one other question, and it's about the experience of writing a book, which we mentioned was so challenging. Do you feel you learned anything about yourself by writing at length about yourself?
PORTNOY: Interesting question. You know, I've been pretty open throughout my career. I don't know that I learned anything else. This isn't so much learning. I feel kind of lucky, I guess. It's been a 23- or 24-year journey that I can't believe it happened. Like, that's the feeling that came out of the book. It's like a pinch-me fairy tale. So I don't know that I learned anything new. I was just kind of grateful for the experience.
INSKEEP: Dave Portnoy's new book is "Cancel Me If You Can." Thanks so much. Good talking with you again.
PORTNOY: Thank you. Take care.
(SOUNDBITE OF FAT JON'S "624 PART1") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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