Dave Portnoy Calls Reporter ‘D*ckface’ For Asking if Barstool Sports is ‘Losing Millions’
Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy called The Daily Beast‘s Robert Silverman a “dickface” when Silverman asked about Barstool Sports’ financial situation during the coronavirus outbreak.
In a screenshot of an email posted to Portnoy’s Twitter account Monday night, Silverman asked about potential layoffs and an April 6 comment where Portnoy said Barstool is “losing millions of dollars in advertising.” Portnoy emailed back: “I know who you are dickface.”
Good talk Robert pic.twitter.com/g3s4f03Sce
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) May 6, 2020
Silverman’s story ran Thursday morning where he revealed the details of a company-wide email that hinted at potential furloughs or layoffs: “The purpose of this email isn’t to make people worried about losing their jobs. I just wanna be proactive and remind people to spend time thinking about how we can make money for ourselves so we avoid being forced to make the hard decisions we don’t want to make.”
In response to the story, Portnoy tweeted Thursday afternoon, “My guy @BobSaietta (aka – dick face)drops his 18th hit piece today on @barstoolsports. Also today my net worth has increased approx 1 million per hit piece he’s written. Have a day Pageviews!”
My guy @BobSaietta (aka – dick face)drops his 18th hit piece today on @barstoolsports. Also today my net worth has increased approx 1 million per hit piece he’s written. Have a day Pageviews! pic.twitter.com/2TAav85uyY
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) May 7, 2020
A large amount of Barstool’s income — which was valued at over $450 million — came from advertising on digital platforms. Penn National Gaming acquired 36 percent of the company in January, but was confronted with $600 million in losses over Q1 due to the pandemic. Penn National Gaming tweeted on Thursday that Barstool’s blog traffic increased 20% in April.
The story also delved into Portnoy’s finances, including the loss of hundreds of thousands a day when he switched from gambling to day trading during the shutdown. Portnoy told Business Insider on April 20 that his net worth of $100 million is now “literally probably cut in half, maybe more now.”
