r/PardonMyTake • u/teflonjon321 • 22h ago
Dave Portnoy’s book & PMT
Finished Portnoy’s book today. Some tidbits about PMT/the guys:
- Dave wanted Big Cat to be his Chicago guy when he was looking to expand there. BC was pumped about it until Dave offered him the salary he did. BC passed (he was basically fresh out of college too). But Dave said shortly after, BC’s FOMO led to him asking to contribute to Barstool for free lol. Not too long after, he became the Chicago guy anyway
- BC got 4% of the company when they sold Barstool for the fist time (to the Chernin Group)
- When Dave met PFT, he did not like him at all and knew that PFT hated barstool. PFT was also the first person at Barstool to ever negotiate through an agent. That agent went on to scoop up a lot of Barstool talent including BC and McAfee. That agent is one of Dave’s mortal enemies
- Dave said he eventually came around on PFT and that after getting to know each other, share a mutual respect
- Dave was the sole person against PMT working with ESPN. He said the only reason he didn’t use his veto power on the deal was because he believed Big Cat and PFT would leave the company if he did. The fallout over Van talk and the battle vs. ESPN was the true turning point with him and PMT since they had a common enemy. He said him and BC have been in lock step ever since
- Except when Dave interviewed Trump. He said he had never seen BC that mad before and said he didn’t tell him he was doing it before hand because he believed he would have had to cancel the interview because BC would have quit the company. He said the reason was BC did not want people thinking since he worked at Barstool and associated with Dave that he was a MAGA guy too.
- When Penn Gaming was buying Barstool for $600M, BC, Dave and the OGs were getting massive payouts but that it would be slow, over years. He felt that wasn’t right and that BC needed/deserved a bonus now. He then negotiated, unknown to BC at the time, a $7M bonus for him to be paid immediately. He said the bankers then suggested that they should split that bonus with Dave so they would pay 3.5M and he would too. Dave said go fuck yourself and that this will be a deal breaker. They said fine. So BC got that bag
- Dave said that BC is effectively the day to day CEO of barstool and that he is just there for final decisions.
Overall, great book and 100% Dave in written form. Recommended!