David Portnoy

David Scott Portnoy (born March 22, 1977) is an American businessman, and social media personality.

He is the founder and owner of sports and popular culture company Barstool Sports.

Portnoy grew up in Swampscott, Massachusetts, the son of Michael, a lawyer, and Linda, a high school teacher.

He is Jewish.

After attending Swampscott High School, where one of his classmates was ESPN's Todd McShay, Portnoy graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in education.

While at Michigan, Portnoy founded thegamblingman.com, a website where he published his sports betting picks.

After college, Portnoy moved to Boston and began working at Yankee Group, an IT market research firm.

In 2004, Portnoy left the Yankee Group and founded Barstool Sports.

The early iteration of Barstool was a four-page sports newspaper that Portnoy handed out on subway platforms and street corners in Boston.

The paper was meant to appeal to young men and rejected political correctness.

Early advertisers in the newspaper included offshore betting websites such as partypoker, which was operating in the United States illegally.

The contents of the newspaper was originally solely written by Portnoy, but freelance writers, including Todd McShay, joined the paper.

At first, the paper struggled, but gained traction in 2004 when Portnoy began placing photos of women in bikinis on the front page of the newspaper.

In 2007, Barstool expanded to a blog.

Portnoy gradually cultivated his persona as "El Presidente", a blunt and candid character.

His writing was well-received among young men and the publication subsequently became a mainstay of bro culture.

He became known for his unapologetic and brash attitude.

In 2013, Portnoy launched an unsuccessful campaign to become the mayor of Boston following the retirement of mayor Thomas Menino.

During the race, Portnoy identified as a libertarian.

After raising more than $17,000 in campaign contributions, he failed to submit enough nomination signatures to qualify for the ballot.

In a 2015 blog post, Portnoy said "I am voting for Donald Trump. I don't care if he's a joke. I don't care if he's racist. I don't care if he's sexist. I don't care about any of it. I hope he stays in the race and I hope he wins. Why? Because I love the fact that he is making other politicians squirm. I love the fact he says shit nobody else will say, regardless of how ridiculous it is."

Peter Chernin's The Chernin Group purchased a majority stake of Barstool in January 2016.

Portnoy began his show with the goal of reviewing every pizza place in Manhattan in 2017.

In addition to Portnoy, some reviews feature celebrity guests.

Portnoy rarely ranks a pizza above 9.0, but some of those he praised have experienced a transformative growth in popularity, going "viral, becoming a can't-miss attraction for legions of young, loud, and often inebriated Barstool diehards."

In August 2023, Portnoy was involved in an altercation with Charlie Redd, the owner of Dragon Pizza in Somerville, Massachusetts, after criticizing the pizzeria's pizza as "a floppy mess."

Portnoy and Redd then entered into an expletive-laden exchange.

Portnoy and Barstool Sports hosted first inaugural One Bite Pizza Festival in September 2023 in Brooklyn, New York.

Portnoy identifies as "socially liberal" and "fiscally conservative."

Portnoy opposed COVID-19 lockdowns saying "When did this become...'flatten the curve' to 'we have to find a cure or everyone's going to die?

In January 2017, Portnoy separated from his wife Renee.

From March 2021 to November 2023, Portnoy dated model Silvana Mojica.

In 2020, Penn Entertainment purchased a 36% stake in Barstool Sports for $163 million, including $135 million in cash and $28 million in Penn non-voting convertible preferred stock.

Penn acquired the remainder of the company in February 2023 for $388 million.

Portnoy re-purchased Barstool in August 2023 for one dollar, non-compete agreements in the gambling space, and a clause that if Barstool were to be sold again Penn Entertainment would take 50%.

One Bite Pizza Reviews is an internet show by Portnoy, in which he reviews pizza from restaurants around the world, ranking it on a scale of 0–10.

In 2020 Portnoy interviewed Trump at The White House.

However, in 2022, he said it is "dangerous" to vote for Republicans because they will appoint Justices who are too conservative to the Supreme Court.

Portnoy criticized the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision by the Supreme Court, which overturned Roe v. Wade.

Portnoy said: "To me, this is just pure insanity, pure insanity. We are going backwards in time. We are literally going backwards in time! It makes no sense how anybody thinks it's their right to tell a woman what to do with her body."