Photo: Youtube
What you need to know about the Barstool Sports founder.
By Nicole Pomarico — Written on Jul 28, 2020
Barstool Sports has amassed quite a following since it was founded in 2003, but what about the man behind the site? Lately, Dave Portnoy has been making headlines for his beef with The View's Sunny Hostin and his recent interview with Donald Trump, but there's a lot more to know about him than just the fact that he created one of the biggest sports and entertainment sites on the internet (and that it's made him millions of dollars so far).
Whether you're a fan of Barstool Sports or not, Portnoy, who's known by fans as El Presidente, definitely has interesting backstory, and there are a lot of things even the site's biggest fans may not know about him.
Who Is Dave Portnoy?
Dave Portnoy started Barstool Sports as a local venture.
When Portnoy started Barstool Sports, it was actually only created for Boston sports fans and it was launched as a local newspaper, not a website. Portnoy was on the ground, handing out copies to people himself to draw up momentum in the beginning.
He reviews pizza on his Instagram.
Portnoy has reviewed hundreds of pizzas all over the country and he shares his reviews in video form on Instagram and YouTube. He's tried more than 500 pizzas at this point, which might just make him a pizza expert.
Portnoy was the subject of a sex tape leak last year.
Last year, a sex tape that allegedly starred Portnoy leaked, which led him to release a tongue-in-cheek press release on Twitter that he had written himself. He didn't outwardly confirm that he was the man in the video, but he did talk about the "unidentified male" being in "peak physical shape."
Dave Portnoy loves The Office.
During an interview with Tucker Carlson, Portnoy said that he spent a lot of his time in quarantine watching TV — specifically, The Office — since there were no live sports to watch.
"I watch one movie a day, a new one, and then I'm watching The Office over and over, just cycling through the seasons," he said. "It never gets old."
Portnoy was once married to Renee Portnoy.
Portnoy was married to wife Renee Portnoy, though he announced in a blog post in 2017 that they were going their separate ways. It's not clear if their divorce was ever finalized, but they do seem to be on good terms, even now.
"I love her. I will always love her. We both needed a break to figure our sh*t out," he wrote at the time. "Nothing that is happening is behind the other person’s back. She’s f*cking awesome and we both love each other. I’d legit take a bullet for her and that hasn’t changed and frankly who knows what the future will bring for the two of us."
Who is Dave Portnoy dating now?
Though Portnoy has had a few rumored girlfriends (including Jordyn Hamilton, who supposedly cheated on him), right now, it seems that Portnoy is single.
Portnoy thinks breakfast is a "scam."
In a piece about what a day in his life is like, Portnoy revealed that he doesn't think breakfast is as necessary as some people claim it is.
"I don’t eat breakfast. I think breakfast is a scam," he said. "People say it’s the most important meal of the day; it’s just not true. I’m not hungry, I don’t need the calories, I eat way more. I don’t buy into the whole breakfast agenda."
He spends a lot of time on social media.
In the same piece, Portnoy shared that he has a hard time putting his phone down a the end of the day.
"There’s always something going on," he said. "I’m fighting with someone on social media, I’m retweeting, I’m bragging, there’s something that’s going on."
Portnoy thinks he's "uncancellable."
When Portnoy was recently called out for past racist comments, he tweeted that he's "uncancellable," and people shouldn't try ... though only time will tell if that statement is true or not.
Dave Portnoy was kicked out of the Super Bowl last year.
In 2019, Portnoy was escorted out of the Super Bowl in Atlanta by police and charged with criminal trespassing after he was discovered to have created fake media credentials to get in. He may not be cancellable, but Portnoy is still subject to many of the same rules others are — and now, he may not be welcome to the Super Bowl in the future.
Nicole Pomarico is an entertainment and lifestyle writer whose work has appeared in Cosmo, Us Weekly, Refinery29, and more.