The Megyn Kelly Show - Dave Portnoy and Erika Nardini on Barstool's Success, Authenticity, and Helping Small Businesses | Ep. 56

Episode Date: January 27, 2021

Megyn Kelly is joined by Barstool Sports Founder and President Dave Portnoy and CEO Erika Nardini to talk about the success of Barstool, the value of authenticity, trust in the media, politics and Trump, Tom Brady and Roger Goodell, the charges of sexism at Barstool Sports, social media, when to engage with critics, the courage to say what you think in 2021, "Call Her Daddy," the way Barstool is helping small businesses through The Barstool Fund, and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShowFind out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everybody, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Today on the program, we've got Dave Portnoy and Erika Nardini. These are the geniuses behind Barstool Sports. This is way more than sports. It's a sports, culture, comedy brand, really, that is just multimedia in its approach. You've got podcasts and you've got online sites. And I mean, there's no telling where they're going to go because the company now is valued at about a half a billion dollars or more. But this guy, Dave, started it years and years ago as a one man newspaper, which he wrote

himself, which he got advertising for himself, which he stood in the subways of Boston handing out morning and night himself. And now he's turning some of that goodness around and helping people with his money and with donations from others to help businesses who have been crippled by these interminable lockdowns. Dave is the one who founded the company. Eric is now the CEO, as of a few years ago, and they've made a very powerful combo.

We're psyched to talk to them because they really, I would say, if they had a brand logo, it'd probably be a big middle finger, which ruffles feathers. I get that, but also is a little refreshing, right? After all the constant, I don't know, censorship and judgment,

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knows, Dave founded the company. He's the president of the company, and Erica is now CEO of the company. So Dave, she's kind of your boss now. Yeah, you can look at it that way. That is how I choose to look at it. So I knew about Barstool Sports. I had heard how popular it was. I'm not really into sports, so it's like this stuff sort of only crosses into my world when sports news comes into the news world. But I loved the fact that you got an interview with Donald Trump. And I watched your interview and really enjoyed it. It was your very first interview ever. Is that true? Yeah, that is true.

It's the only interview I really conducted. So you started with the president of the United States. Were you nervous going into that? Yeah. I mean, how could he not be? I'd never been to the White House. And, you know, we had like Erica was there. A couple of other people from our team were there, but they really

weren't allowed in the interview area. It was all his team kind of surrounding us. So it's hard not to be a little bit intimidated in that environment, especially, like I said, it's the first interview that I've ever done. So, yeah, it was a little nerve wracking. And you made news. You got him to say that sometimes he regrets his tweets after he sends them. And the retweets in particular are the ones that get him in trouble. Yeah, I think I was one of the only people ever got him to admit that he made a mistake or regretted something. But, yeah, I'm pretty good at making news one way or the other. So I've so I've realized I'm preparing for this. Now, I read that you've called yourself a Trump guy, though you're not partisan.

You're not really a partisan person. So what do you make of Trump now in the wake of the past few months and the Capitol riot and the beating yet again that the media has given him? Yeah, well, and I'd have to, a lot of things that are said about me i probably take out of context i don't even know when like that you just said i called myself a trump guy that that may have been like previous to his first election um you know i he's i think he was an entertainer as president there's some things he did that i agree with there's some i didn't i think both the left and the right kind of suck.

You know, I think he definitely is to blame for a lot of what happened at the Capitol. And he sort of threw a tantrum, I think, in some ways of being like, you know, he had wanted law and order for a long time. And maybe the left is like, no. And then when they wanted law and order, he was nowhere to be found. So I don't know. Everything with politics drives me kind of crazy. So I wouldn't identify myself and haven't for a long time as a Trump guy, neither negative or positive. I just think the extreme left and the extreme right and politics in general suck. There was a poll out this week. I just

tweeted it out that only 18% of Republicans trust the media. So as somebody who doesn't consider himself partisan, I wonder, how do you feel about it? Because you kind of got your start as a newspaper man. Yeah. Do you trust the media? No, no, I wouldn't. I think there's very few and partial. I mean, I think I'm a good example of it for sure has become more jaded because if I read a lot of the articles that people read about myself, which have been generated from a small group of people, like I think I'm Hitler.

Like if I read it, I'd be like, oh, this guy's the worst. But they're so pulled out of context and twisted and taken in the people. A lot of them who write them, I would qualify as nut jobs. There's a lot of things that even outside of my world where I go on different shows or do different interviews and even take the Trump thing, for example. Trump asked me to interview him. We didn't reach out to him. That was a request they put to me. We did it. I know just by affiliation, some people are, oh, this guy is, you know,

again, a Nazi. He hates this. He hates that. They don't listen to anything that's even said. They don't listen to the interview. They don't care that we asked Biden to do an interview so we could get both sides. So, you know, I just think a lot of written, it all comes from an agenda and people don't take the time to do the research or the back.

So, no, in general, I do not trust the media. Well, I know. I mean, I just, in, in preparing for the interview, one of the articles I saw my team gets the stuff together for me is a, a very unkind interview or article about you from the daily beast and it doesn't paint a nice picture, but I've been the subject of so many nasty articles in the Daily Beast. I know exactly what you mean. They decide whether they like you or they don't like you. And then everything you've ever done is painted through the most negative lens

without any context, without any background on maybe the attacks that were launched on you first, you know, like, and then the public is left thinking, as you said, Hitler, it's, It's incredibly frustrating. Yeah. And that's something we've come to deal with. And The Daily Beast is one of those examples. It's a group of writers who really don't care for me. And I can almost pinpoint anything in all the examples, like any hit piece that's written on me. I know the five to six things that are going to be in it before they're written. And I've offered a thousand times, do you want to talk about, go point by point? And I'll detail every accusation. And if anyone with a rational brain listened to that conversation, they'd be like, oh my

God, this is not what it seems at all. But they've never taken me up on that. They've never taken, because they have an agenda. So it is what it is. And we've just come to deal with it. I always say, so we were bought by a casino company. I'm sure we'll get into this. Casino companies regulated every state by the government and whatnot. It's as conservative an industry as there is. They did, when know, weeks, months of back research on everything, and they came to the same conclusion at the end. There's nothing to it. There's just,

they could never do business with us if the things that the people who say who hate us were true. And also, it's a small group. It's like, that's what social media is. Social media is basically an echo chamber for people, and they just like to hear each other talk. But when we go out in the street, and against you ramps up online and then you go out and you lead a beautiful life, you start to realize the disconnect. But I do have to give you props for offering to go through allegation by allegation. I have never done that and I've never really considered that a useful tool because I think the people who write those articles are dishonest brokers and the people who want to believe the bad things about you want to believe them and they're not really going to be disabused. You know, it's like they're not winnable.

So why bother? Why get in the sty and roll around? Yeah, no, that I agree with. I've always said, you know, the people don't like me. I could give them $100 for free. They say, why didn't you give me $1,000? Like that's kind of their mentality. And I agree. There's nothing that you can do to change it i mean we have people we're doing the barstool

fund now helping small business we're having people change that into somehow you know it's just a pr stunt for us which is bananas if you know how it started and even so it's like how else would we raise money if we didn't publicize it but people uh people have broken brains and maybe it'll go away because i do think it ramped up with trump he just he was so divisive and such a lightning rod that almost every single person who had an issue with me or barcel if you look at like their twitter the 10 comments below it would be political it was they're just they couldn't get out of their own world and we're a comedy site and we weren't in that world,

but we got somehow got dragged into it. Like we sold Make America Great hats again, right when Trump like was running and we sold a lot of them and that's what we do. It doesn't matter what world we're in. We sell merch and that's part of our business and whatever's hot in the streets,

we try to make money on. And somehow just because we did that, like before anyone even was really that polarized by people, just the fact we sold those hats, people are like, oh, again, these guys must be racist or whatever. Like, what are you talking about? It's just a different world. Of course, they see it the way they want to see it. And I've told the story before, but in analyzing the presidential debates, this go around, there were only two, as you know. The first one I said, I thought it was close to a draw. So I gave the win to Biden because Trump needed a win. He was behind in the polls. And the second one, I thought Trump won. And as soon as I sent out the tweet, I thought Trump won the second debate. He's like,

how could you? You're a Trump lover. F you. It's like, well, does anyone care? I thought Trump won the second debate. He's like, how could you? You're a Trump lover. F you. It's like, well, does anyone care? I thought Biden won the first one. Does that F me for that too? Like they're just so dishonest. It's really hard to let them get to you. And you've had an interesting approach to the media who attack you, which I definitely

want to get to because I have so many thoughts and questions about it. But wait, before we get to that, can we just start a little bit on the early beginnings of Barstool? Because I think it's a great story. What I read is that you started in the subways of Boston in the early 2000s, handing out homemade newspapers that you made with fake names as your staff, so people didn't think it was just you. Right, so that's accurate. So yeah, it was a four-page and white like newsletter. I did everything. I mean, I woke up at the subway station. It's like 5 a.m. Handed them out. I go home, you know, write articles, call for advertisers. Then later in the day, I go catch the subway rush again, hand out newspapers. I delivered them all. I printed them all. I did everything. It was a one-man show. And to give the illusion that we're bigger, I would have fake aliases, fake ads. You name it, I tried it. You know, it really was meant to be a business that I could run and slowly grew.

And every penny that I had, I just poured back into it. And employee by employee and really fan by fan, we just organically grew. Okay. So what was the goal of the newspaper? It wasn't always a comedy site. No, it started as like a sports and gambling fantasy, like football type newsletter. I was very interested in gambling. I knew I wanted to try or get involved in something that I enjoyed. I want to not hate my job. So I flew out to Vegas, met with all the casinos to try to get in the marketing side of what they did.

It didn't work out. They're basically, I had already had a real job for about five years and they said I had to start as a dealer. So I didn't want to do that. So that's where the newspaper started. I created this gambling newsletter and had like offshore casinos,

party poker, gambling companies advertising in it.inos, party poker, gambling companies advertising in it. But it started really, I wanted to start my own business. It wasn't like, hey, I'm only going to do the gambling. I had three or four business ideas, and I knew I wanted to try to start my own thing. I kind of had that entrepreneurial spirit. I wanted to work for myself.

This is the one I landed on that I thought I could accomplish the easiest. Were you making any money at all back then? How are you paying your bills? I basically had a pretty decent paying job out of college because the economy was gangbusters then. It was like the dot-com boom. I graduated Michigan in 99. I worked for five years, saved money, and then I quit. For about six months to a year, I cold called for advertising for the newspaper. So I pre-sold the newspaper for a year before the first issue launched. So it wasn't making money, but it wasn't losing really money. I was just about staying above. I moved home with my parents in the beginning, and then I had a month-to-month lease so I could always get out of it. But I remember the first $20,000 ad that I sold. It was to a company called Party Poker right during the poker explosion. I was in Vegas with the people who developed the actual software, like the Indians who wrote the software.

And I did everything myself. I had't, I had no real expenses except the printing bill for the newspaper. And I offset that with the ads that I had pre-sold for the year. So I was able to kind of get my sea legs for a year and it grew word of mouth in Boston. And I continued to just sell. And so I always had kind of the break even, but my costs were almost negligible in the beginning. I want our audience to know that this is now over a hundred million dollar company. So just the thought of you having to make up your staff names and doing it all yourself is, is pretty fun to think about. It's an American success story.

Yeah. I mean, Penn who, who bought a minority interest in us, the valuation was 450450 million. And that probably is far greater now than it was when we did the sale. So we're closing on, I think, a billion dollar company at this point. Holy moly. That's amazing. It's a good story. Now, listen, back in the day when I first graduated from law school, I was dating a guy from Boston and I learned a little bit about Bostonians. They love their sports, their backwards baseball caps. They love being from Boston and they love the Patriots. And I've learned enough about you to know that you are very pro Patriots, pro Tom Brady. And I have to ask you how you feel about him now, even though he's a Buccaneer.

Yeah, it's certainly different. You know, I had a little back and forth with him before the season saying he looked old and orange. And he basically was like, come talk to me in January. So he was proven right. I reposted that and he reposted it on his Instagram. So it is different. It's, you know, I'm Patriot first, I'm Brady second uh I don't know it's a little awkward seeing it happen but whatever he's the greatest of all time were you I know I actually watch I don't really know much about sports as I say but I did watch that game last night um with them against um I don't remember who the other team was other backers right so were you you know you're

watching that were you happy he made it to the Super Bowl again while not wearing a Patriots uniform? So no, because I bet on the Packers. And ironically, through the Barstool Fund, Aaron Rodgers, who is the quarterback of the Packers, has been a big advocate for the fund. He's actually been like joining me on some of these calls to the small businesses. He donated half a million of his own money. So I started becoming friendly with him and I rolled with him. I should have stayed with my old love. Yeah.

I follow Clay Travis of Outkick Sports and he was tweeting out comments about why, why would the Packers have given the ball to the best quarterback in the league with just a few minutes to go, you know, giving it over on that last down, even though I could follow that much. But I don't know.

I think there's a lot of hate for Tom Brady because he's incredibly good looking. He's married to a supermodel. He's got a ton of money. You know, it's just like there's a lot of reasons to dislike the guy. But you've been one of his chief defenders. And you loathe Roger Goodell. Loathe Roger Goodell. Why?

Well, I mean, Roger Goodell is a clown. But it started really way back when there was a huge scandal with Brady, the Flakegate, where he was basically accused of deflating football. I'm a Patriot fan. Roger Goodell is basically like Mussolini of Stalin or something. So he basically didn't have due process he convicted brady with no evidence he kept changing the rules and as a brady fan and this was kind of tongue-in-cheek where a comedy site myself and three other patriot fans handcuffed ourselves to each other at nfl headquarters in protest of Brady being suspended. We spent a night in jail, and that essentially began a long, ongoing feud

with the NFL commissioner and the NFL office. I've been dragged out of the Super Bowl in handcuffs. I've been kicked out of media days. I tried to... Basically, this year, Roger Goodell had a promotion for COVID, and it was like, whoever won, whoever bid the most money would be able to watch a game in his basement. All the money went to frontline markers. I won that. I put 250 grand. I won that charity. He denied it. He refused to take the money. I don't think they ever gave that money as charity, to be honest. Um, and then I've offered

with the Barstool fund if he donated 250 grand which is a drop in the bucket for him i would match that as well he didn't do that so he's just uh he's somebody who doesn't see eye to eye with us the flip side is he's so stupid if he just acknowledged us or like played with it or had an ounce of self-awareness, it would be over and it would probably be bad for us. He's managed to let us still have this outsider like pirate ship vibe, even though we've grown into a pretty big media company by still like dragging me out of the Super Bowl in handcuffs. I don't think he's getting anywhere near the appropriate PR advice. I think the PR advice he's been given is absolutely objectively

awful. His PR person, I believe, is married to Savannah Guthrie. So I know a little bit about it. But I watched a video of you when Tom Brady was going into court and there was some security guard who got your face and said, can you please just stand to the side? And you said, no. And the two of you just stood looking at each other. You go, what is this, a standoff now? Maybe laugh about that. Yeah, well, that's kind of back to the media agenda. Like during the deflategate thing,

ESPN was basically the mouthpiece for the NFL commissioner and they were leaking information that was just wildly inaccurate. And it proved to be wildly inaccurate after the fact. And they would never answer it. Like I was just trying to get somebody told just lies. Somebody leaked lies to ESPN that began the Deflate Gates saga. And when the facts came out, everything that was said in the beginning of that was just wildly wrong. There was no truth to any of it. So I want to know where did the information come from? And they

just refused to answer it. I saw you going after some guy, some reporter who had initially tweeted out, you went talk to one of his colleagues who had tweeted out that the, you know, how much the footballs had been deflated by, and it was inaccurate and it took months and months for him to actually take down the tweet but it had already gone viral so people believed that there was a specific deflation on each football and therefore it couldn't be accidental and you were like a dog with a bone with that story trying to you know push all you know the alternate reality which was yeah there it wasn't true wasn't true right and and the alternate reality of what i was trying to put became facts like when everything came out everything i said was correct and everything that was leaked was incorrect and now we're talking about deflate football so it's not

life and death but when you look at the larger subject of that's how the media works. It doesn't matter if it's right or wrong. Once it's out there and it catches steam, it's done. And there's the retraction or the correction is never, ever the same remote size as the initial story. So it doesn't even matter. Damage was done. More with Dave and Erica in just one second. But first, sticking to your New Year's resolution is a matter of making one right decision at a time. If you're looking to institute some healthy habits this new year, and who isn't, and improve your lifestyle in general, check out Super Beats Heart Chews. I'm telling you, they're delicious, you'll enjoy them, and they'll actually make you a bit healthier. Just two Super Beats Heart Chews a day will give you the cardiovascular support

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slash MK. That's GetSuperBeats.com slash MK. Check them out. 2008, you guys went digital. And over time, the Barstool Sports of Today was born. So now it's more of it's a comedy site. It's like a lifestyle site. It was described to me as content by the common man for the common man, sports bars, drinking pizza, sex and women. And I some of the stuff I've read about it made me reminded me of like the old Howard Stern a little bit, like some of the man show ish stuff. I mean, is that fair? Do you think it's sort of

irreverent in the way those two programs? Yeah, I certainly get Yeah, I certainly get the Howard Stern comparisons. I often say like National Lampoon and Saturday Night Live. But yes, it's fair. It's a site that doesn't take ourselves too seriously. But it's from both sides at this point, I would say, and it something like that, I think people would say that's always guys talking about girls. But the raunchiest thing we have is Call Her Daddy, which is a female podcast. It's like the number one female podcast, girls talking about guys. And sometimes they don't go back in our history. It's always been one of the complaints I have when they're like, wellstool sexist it does this it does that there's a girl jenna marbles who is one of the biggest youtube stars there is she's been around for a long time and um i hired her out of a tanning salon and she started this is back before anybody knew who we were and we had a site called stu lala it was just the female version of barstool

and while we would post a hot girl at the end of every day a local girl she was posting a hot guy so it was we were doing it like equally now jenna went on to become a gigantic star she moved to la and we couldn't find anyone to like replace it but that part of our history is just never mentioned. Well, the part of the reason that people call the site sexist is because they sort of, there's things like the smoke shows, half naked college women who are posted in bikinis. I gather they send the pictures into you guys, but I just like some, I'm sure some of the criticism is okay. But to me, women wanting to celebrate their own bodies by posting bikini photos or having you guys recognize them as hot. That's not misogynistic. We've sort of crossed over in feminism to the point where women aren't allowed to celebrate their own bodies or be or enjoy their sex appeal and being desired by men. And that to me is not feminism. And being on the other side of that is not being a misogynist. Yeah, so I agree with that.

And that's been a long standing debate with us. We'll have women who identify themselves as feminists be like, this site's sexist. And then we'll have women who love our site will be like, well, we consider ourselves feminists and we think that definition is who are you to tell us what we think is funny or how we should live our lives. So we've had that debate. And I obviously side

with the women who are like, we're smart enough, intelligent enough to make decisions for ourselves without needing a different person to say, Hey, you can't do this and, or do that. And in regards to the smoke show, yes, they are submitted and then we get their approval and we can't do this or do that. And in regards to the smoke show, yes, they are submitted, and then we get their approval, and we don't do it without. I agree with you. I don't think if a guy says that girl is pretty, that to me is nothing. And it's ironic because the sites, some of the sites, when we talk about the criticisms of Barstool, they were Sports Illustrated.

It was a Sports Illustrated website. It was one of the all-time and it's like they're doing the sport the swimsuit issue they invented it this exactly and they're sitting calling us and it's like what world are we in like i don't right the hypocrite hypocrisy is probably the number one thing that drives me insane and there's a lot of it but But that's a clear example where Sports Illustrated write hit pieces on us about our smoke show of the day when they were doing literally the same exact thing. And this is where I want to bring in Erica. So you you hired you sold half of Barstool, as you pointed out to the churning group in 2016. You guys hired Erica as your CEO. And Erica, the first thing they start saying about you is, Oh, she's a fig leaf. They

hired her cause she's a woman. Uh, you know, she's the one who's supposed to cover for these guys, which is totally, I mean, now that, that is sexist. Totally sexist. Yeah. I mean, they still say that about me today and we've grown this business from, let's say $5 million in revenue to close to 150 in five years. So yes, it's insulting and it's sexist and it's convenient. And it's also just wildly inaccurate as both Erica and I know in the chain of events and how she got hired, it was by accident that we met. So it wasn't like turning guys hired a recruiting firm. And that's the first time we had it. We probably interviewed 70 people, all men, none of them made it to the second round. And then we had an advisor, Betsy Morgan, the old CEO of Huffington Post, who was from my neck of the woods. And we became friendly. And she happened to be at a coffee shop around the corner. She's like, Hey, want to meet for a couple minutes. And Erica was friends with Betsy and happened to be

there. And that's how we met. And we hit it off right away and started the chain of events of her becoming the CEO. But there wasn't some grand plan. I didn't even I did not want you to defend yourself on this. I think it's absurd. I've seen this kind of thing. And it's like, if the shoe were on a different foot, people would not dare say such a thing. Like if, if, if you were a company that was all white and you hired a black CEO, no one would dare say, oh, they just hired him or her because she's black. But somehow women moving up to these CEO roles always get this and it's bullshit. And I do think your success is sort of, you know, the ultimate revenge. But one of the things sort of, you know, the ultimate revenge. But one of the things I read you said, Erica, about the company that which, of course,

does take these hits, it's whatever. I mean, if you're going to be a comedy site, if you're going to go to the places that make people uncomfortable, you're going to get this sort of blowback, even though it comes to, you know, overall, it's a hugely successful company. Is it you said it's courageous to say what you think? Sadly, that's true. Yeah, I think it's a hugely successful company, is that you said it's courageous to say what you think. Sadly, that's true. Yeah, I think it's really true. I think we are a very courageous company. I think it's courageous right now to be authentic. I think it's courageous to have a history. I think it's courageous to actually say what you mean publicly. Making jokes now is courageous. And you talk to any entertainer, you talk to any comedian, you talk to any public persona, you know this.

There is such pressure for conformity and such pressure for a unanimous opinion. Part of what has made Dave and I and Barstool so successful is that we have been so true to the spirit of the brand that he created in 2004. We have been absolutely fearless. We've been very blunt and authentic, and we've stayed committed to our fans. My executive producer was saying one of the things that makes Barstool special is its transparency. And he was saying one example is that you guys literally renegotiated your contract with Sirius in public, revealing what you're being paid, what Sirius offered as a renewal, how off base it was compared to what you'd agreed to. And like, that's amazing and

also kind of scary. And I wonder if it's that kind of transparency is ever scary to you guys. I'll let Erica take that one. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, Dave's always called it like it is. And the funny thing I think that's been amazing about Dave and I working together is we see the same vision for Barstool and we've kind of treated things the same way. So, you know, I don't see any reason why we should hide where we are in our negotiation with Sirius. We were very honest about it. We've

been honest really about everything. And the thing that, the thing that is so different, I think, about us is that in this, in a world that wants constant perfection and, and consensus, the idea of a media platform and a brand and a bunch of personalities and business people being forthright about what's working, what's not working, where we're winning, where we're losing, and honestly, where things are. I think that's part of what makes people root for Barstool because they understand the process and they're bought into that journey with us. We have an expression that's to the moon. The first time we were on television, we're like, this is our first moonshot. Everything we've done, we have this desire to be bigger and better and bolder. And because we're so transparent about the moves we're making to get there, both good ones and bad ones, the more our fans feel part of what we're doing.

And that's by design and we mean it. That does remind me of Howard Stern. You know, he was very open about the fact that he was at risk for being fired and would talk about his bosses, you know, in a very open, the fact that he was at risk for being fired and would talk about his bosses in a very open, probably too open way. But you guys, I mean, what I've heard is you're funny, you're offensive, you're smart, you're wild, you make people feel uncomfortable, you're unpredictable, naughty, I think it's fair to say, unapologetic.

And I wonder, Dave, how does that exist in this era of cancel culture in this woke world where you're not allowed to say anything? story um and what that has built is in very stern like an incredible passionate loyal fan base who knows who we are who knows who i am now they know who erica is they know everybody they know our life stories they know how many kids are employees that they know everything and we've never as a result of that been beholden to advertising. So we don't just sway whichever way the wind blows because we got to save an advertiser. And if you can do that, if you can be true to yourselves and be willing to say to an advertiser, okay, you don't like this, you can walk, we'll just go. That has allowed us to maintain our identity and our authenticity. It's a story I told, like someone said ESPN, they had a meeting,

you know, all these execs in a room. How do we be authentic? That was the meeting. It's like, well, I think you already lost. If you're in that meeting, you're not being authentic.

We've never really planned it out. We don't know what the future holds. But overall, we trust each other and our moral compass and we're just ourselves. And if people want to be part of it, great. If they don't, great. But we'll continue to do what we've done for the last two decades. You once spoke unapologetically about a colleague who at

one point had worn blackface on Halloween. And I read that you said this in 2018, which is when I made my comments on NBC, so I wonder whether it was, it was pivoting off of that whole thing, but they came after you just, just for talking about it. The fact that a colleague had done it and you, you were aggressive in responding, saying memo to the cancel cops. I knew this was coming before you did. And I'm ready. You don't cancel me. I cancel you. I'm uncancellable. I'm big. You're little, I cancel you. I was like, yes, right? So yes, of course I wasn't in that same position, but it did make me want to stand up and cheer. And I, and it made me ask, how can we all become uncancellable? How can Joe Smith at home become uncancellable? Yeah, well, that's hard. That's hard because Joe Smith probably has a boss

and that boss has boss and most people have bosses and the easier thing to do is to just say you know what we're going to get rid of this headache or you're going to apologize and like that example we're not proud of that we wish it was a halloween party that an employee of mine who's a good friend of mine was there and with two friends who are african-american they're trying to be the big three of the celtics three black guys and they were being that for halloween it was a different era and he apologized he felt awful but if you're gonna dig up photos from 20 years ago and try to say that's a reflection of his entire like character and mentality it's unfair it's dishonest you didn't give the context. And I'm not just going to roll over for that. You know, people make mistakes. And sometimes those mistakes are out of just not

knowing better. And that was one of them. But, you know, so it's situations like that, where we just won't do what everybody else does, because it's the easy way out. Well, I think it's consistent, Erica. You tell me with the culture of the company, which is there's no subject that's off limits. We're not going to put the same sort of corral around ourselves that most modern media or other companies do. And if you could just, like I think a great example of this

is the podcast you guys were mentioning a minute ago, Call Her Daddy by Alex Cooper, which I confess I had never listened to it. I had heard the buzz, but I have now listened to Alex. I learned some things. And this woman is the modern day Dr. Ruth, right? She is. Look, I think it's very convenient right now to put things into boxes. I think people and the prevailing majority want things tied into convenient boxes where it's a culture of identity. You either are or aren't something. I think one of the best things about us is that we've really denied and defied being put into a box. It's true in terms of how we think about our content, how we think about our personalities, how we think about the formats that we create, the audiences that we nurture. Alex is a superstar. I mean, she is a unicorn. She is an incredible

powerhouse. We have a lot of female powerhouses here. Do we get credit for that? No. Do people care? No. Will people still try to put Alex, us, call her daddy, Barstool Sports, you name it, in a box? Yes. But the reality is, I used to say this all the time to advertisers and partners, is that advertisers and brands don't come to Barstool to look for the people who don't like barstools. And the reality is we're reaching, you know, 100 million people every month. We are the most influential brand, I would say, for an 18 to 34 year old audience in this country. And people want audience. And what's happening to mainstream media is people are tuning out, people are dismissive, or even worse, they just outright don't care.

Coming up, I'm going to ask Dave about his policy of contrition not being an option. If you go after him or a barstool in any way, he will fight. But before we get to that, let's talk about running a business. He's got a $500 million business. You might just be starting one. And the HR issues can be so distracting, overwhelming. They can kill you. Wrongful termination suits, minimum wage requirements, labor regulations. And by the way, HR manager salaries are not cheap. An average of $70,000 a year.

That's where Bambi comes in. B-A-M-B-E-E. This company was created specifically for small businesses. You can get a dedicated HR manager, craft HR policy, and maintain your compliance. All forget this, $99 a month. Think about that. A lot better than 70,000 bucks a year. With Bambi, you can change HR from your biggest liability to your biggest strength. Your dedicated HR manager is available by phone, email, or real-time chat. And, you know, look, from onboarding, hiring, to terminations, firing, they will customize your policies to fit your business and help you manage your employees day-to-day, all

for just 99 bucks a month. This could be helpful. If somebody does cross an HR line, sometimes it's not so pleasant to have to raise it yourself. If you're the boss, that's where HR comes in. This is literally their business. It's month to month, no hidden fees. You can cancel any time. You know, you didn't start your business because you wanted to spend time on HR, right? So let Bambi help you get your free HR audit today. Go to Bambi.com slash MK right now to schedule your free HR audit. That's Bambi.com slash MK spelled BAM to the B-E-E. I love that. Dot com slash MK. Check it out. You'll be glad you did. And before we get back to Dave and Erica, this is a feature we have on the show called You Can't Say That or Be That or Do That.

Oh, wait, this is America. It's kind of consistent with what we've been talking about with Dave, right? Like, yes, it could be offensive. No, that doesn't mean it has to go away. Not everything that causes you offense has to cease existing. Well, tell that to the stars of our next feature. This time, it's basically you can't read that because there is a campaign underway, which, like most terrible things, started off on Twitter. It's called hashtag disrupt texts. And it was started, according to its website, to advocate for curriculum and instructional practices that are culturally responsive and anti-racist. Right. The buzzword anti-racist. When you look at what they actually mean by that, they basically mean racism the other way. And if you don't sign on to it, then you're racist, even though what they're asking you to do is be divisive by skin color

over which you have no control. In other words, this campaign basically ends up leading to books that were previously taught in elementary, middle and high schools getting booted out of the curriculum. It's a modern day book banning site, book burning site. What kinds of books? Take a guess. Pretty much everything. The Great Gatsby. That's got to go. The Scarlet Letter, even Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss has to go. Of Shakespeare, this site, the Disrupt Texts Advocate writes, quote, absolving Shakespeare of responsibility by mentioning that he lived at a time when hate-ridden sentiments prevailed risks sending a subliminal message that academic excellence outweighs hateful rhetoric. OMG. I don't even know what to, I don't, I, right, I don't. One high school teacher in

Massachusetts bragged last year that she got Homer's The Odyssey banned from her school. Didn't we all read that? Now, I know everyone says it's brilliant, but it is long and boring, so they may have done us a favor there. But still, it seems important that kids read it, even if there's some reason not to. So what's the end game, right? What's the end game here? And think about what we're losing. Pretty soon, our kids are only going to be allowed to read Ibram X. Kendi and Robin D'Angelo. Oh, my God, heaven forbid. But Hamlet, forget about it. You can't read that. Let us know if you have anything that's been banned in your culture or your school because somebody decided that nothing written from a time prior to right now

is readable or anything written by a white man is considered unreadable in some circles. And you can do that at questions at devilmaycaremedia.com. Back to Barstool. Question for you, Dave. When I was reading about some of the sort of back and forths you've had with people online and so on, I felt torn because I love free speech and I hate dishonest media. And my husband in particular was like, I love him for fighting back against cancel culture and the people who are targeting him. Doug, my husband, always wants to fight the dishonest journalists who come after me. And I'm always like, oh, honey, you know, it's pointless. Like, let's not, as I said earlier, get into this die.

But on the other hand, I definitely have been targeted online from, you know, a lot of powerful people. And I also understand how awful that can be, right? So how do you decide when like someone just deserves the barstool wrath and when enough is enough? Yeah, you know, I think I've built tolerance a little bit. One of the things, and I don't, obviously everyone's situation is different. We never throw the first punch so

if people are coming after you um megan like i'd be curious like what the genesis the people that i generally respond to and by the way like respond let's take we're in detroit right now we're launching uh uh our sports book in detroit and it's been overwhelmingly positive. And I saw a blue check mark girl, just say, get the fuck out of Detroit like that. She tweeted at me, Hey, president say, that's my stool handle. Um, I Twitter handle get the fuck out of Detroit. I, I quote tweeted and said, this is my city more than yours. Is that attacking somebody who takes like an unprovoked shot at me telling me to get the fuck out of Detroit? To me, it's not.

It's like you just entered the arena. Now the people who don't like me are going to say I attacked her. That's literally the only thing I said about this woman was, it's more my city than yours. And it is because they're welcoming me here. I went to school here. I'm a Michigan grad and she doesn't even live here. But so that's the fine line.

I never, ever will just pull somebody out of the clouds and be like, oh, I'm going after you. And most of the time that I'm being credited or accused of sicking the mob, it's a response. It's like, who are you? And so for me, I never have a problem with that i tell our people now don't attack but i i don't have to draw flair's blood yeah right and i don't have much patience or compassion for like in this case this woman who you took a shot on a public forum at me aggressively yeah and it wasn't even a shot. It's like, I don't...

Weirdly, and we're talking obviously, I know you guys are both, I attack everybody. Literally everybody. I'd say if you looked at who I go after or who I'm in disputes with at this point, they're probably 90% men, 10% women because I'm very

aware of if I do engage with a female, people are going to say I'm only doing it because she's a woman. It's just not true. There's just no basis to that. Women don't get some special protection when it comes to fights, online fights. That, again, is not equality. But I understand that. Oh, I mean, certainly I could say that as a woman, the, uh, the sort of spigot gets released of misogynistic attacks on Twitter and elsewhere.

And then it's, it's tough to turn off. Correct. There's different in there that they take a different tone. They'll go more to looks and things like that if it's a female, but I like, you have to, you have to escalate to me for me if you're a female like i will let you hit me 10 times before i come back where it's a guy like clay travis you mentioned i go after him every two seconds so it it really isn't but how i decide on whether i if if somebody is well known or has a blue check mark a following or I think is being viewed as someone who's legitimate, not just some crackpot. And you keep coming after me, I will eventually respond. It won't be vicious, but all I have to do is call attention to you and the people who support Barstool will generally respond.

But I have no compassion. I don't feel bad about that. And the interesting thing in what makes Barstool Barstool, not everybody agrees with me in our company. There's some people who absolutely hate when I do that and think it's a bad look and they're like, just let it go. But we let people do what they want in this company. We don't tell people in that regard how to conduct themselves.

For me, I'm a petty, vindictive person. That's my nature. It's always been that way. I have bottles of champagne engraved with my enemy's names on my desk waiting for them to fail. So that drives me. And if you catch me in the right moment, I will respond. I am a petty, vindictive person.

I appreciate your owning it. And then people can decide whether that's for them or not. You know, the answer is not you get canceled or you get shut down or you can't have a program on, let's say, ESPN. The answer is you decide. Let the consumer decide whether they're going to they're going to pay for this product. And I mean, I think what you're doing is the future because people miss even if it can be offensive, they miss authentic talk, especially when it comes to comedy. That's why Dave Chappelle is getting paid $20 million a comedy routine right now on Netflix because he says incredibly offensive stuff. I mean, he touches every third rail you could touch and people are desperate for it, Dave. Yeah. And you know what's crazy? Some of the jokes, lots of them, I wish I could almost point it out. The people who hate me tend to also be like a Larry David fan. In Larry David, you can go look at Curb Your Enthusiasm and there'll be jokes that are

literally identical to what I've made. They laugh at his and try to throw me in jail. It's like, what, what are you doing? Where's the double standard here? But they've decided they don't like me. And it doesn't matter what we say, how many times we say it's comedy. It, they do not care. They just don't care. Now, how, but how are, how, if at all, are things changing given the incredible thing you've done with the Barstool Fund? And just so the audience knows, so just December, it's like a month ago, you launched this thing called the Barstool Fund, which is basically a GoFundMe for local business owners who've been devastated by COVID-19 and the shutdown, the endless, merciless shutdowns. And how much money have you raised now to help these businesses?

$30 million, I think. Probably probably closer to 32 at this point. It's a month. It's you've done this in a month. So let me just start with that question. And then I want to get into what you're actually doing. But have you have you noticed a shift in how people are talking about you and treating you and looking at the whole you? There's a lot more positive comments. And I've seen a lot of say what you want about Barstable or say what you want about Dave Warnight, but this is good. But the people still hate me are still somehow turning this into a bad thing. Most, you know, the biggest change, I said this, our audience, I'm almost happy for our audience. And I'm happy for our

employees in a way, because I feel like they've always known who we are. And to be honest, we've done a ton of, I keep hearing, oh, they did this one act. It's like, well, you've just been out to lunch for the last 20 years because we've been doing charity and I've raised multi millions of dollars for all sorts of causes. You name it, we've been there. Um, And people just choose to ignore it. And this is getting widespread notoriety and publicity. And for our readers, who sometimes are shamed, it's like, oh, you like Barstool? What are you, a loser?

It's a sense of, you know what? This company, Dave, Erica, these are the people we've always known them to be. You know why we were able to raise 30 million? Because they're real people. And they know when it's time to stop joking and try to help and things like that. So it's just kind of like for our fan base, which is large, I think it's nice to be like, told you, told you so, this is who they are. Erica, how many applications for help have you guys received? Oh, it's like, it's heartbreaking. Tens of thousands,

tens of thousands. I think, you know, one of the most impressive things about this fund is we started it on December 20th or 21st. We've raised obviously $30 million. We are paying companies where we've cut through all the bullshit of the application process. If you talk to a small business owner, it is nearly impossible to get relief or to get support right now. We've gotten rid of everything arduous in the process. We've built this whole infrastructure in the last three and a half weeks. We've worked 24-7 on it. We've done it in addition to our day jobs. And we're having a pretty profound impact of companies who've maxed out, business owners who've maxed out their credit cards, who've dipped into their

401ks, who have asked for money from family members just to keep people employed. So I think we've done, you know, what we always do, which is to just figure out how to make impact, how to do it in the fastest, most simple, most streamlined way possible. It's heartbreaking because we can't help as many companies as we want to. And that's the hardest part of this, which is there's just so much need. And then kind of to Dave's point, it's frustrating when people criticize us for this being a PR play. Oh, you can't listen to that. Even if it were just a PR play, who cares? Are the people getting the money? Is it doing good? Like who gives a shit? Talk about focusing on the wrong thing. We pulled a soundbite because I want the audience to hear. Oh, it's sweet. It's emotional. But one business owner, her name is Elizabeth Thompson. She owns

Chick and Bernie's Red Rooster Inn in Philly. Took the business over when her dad died of cancer. And here she is talking to you, Dave. Listen. Oh, my God. My kids are here. I'm miserable. I was freaking out. I don't know how to work, Dave. Listen. Oh my God. My kids are here. I'm miserable. I was freaking out. I don't know how to work this thing. Is this for real? This is for real. This is very much for real.

Oh my God. Just like you don't even know. I don't know. When you feel like you're at your lowest point, you're amazing. I never thought in my eight years. We obviously am calling because we want to help and make sure that we're there for you You're amazing. I never thought in late years. And we obviously am calling because we want to help and make sure that we're there for you to get through this thing.

Oh, my God. You have no idea. Like, my parents have had this business since 1983. I was four years old. This is my life. I grew up in this business. And if I lost this business by my own fault, like if I had done something or, you know, I would put my heart and soul into this, and I just want to keep it going for my kids. Wow. She goes on from there. I mean, Dave, you're personally speaking with each of these business owners, right?

And what's the one condition in order to get the money? So we tried to put two out, and they're not always hard and fast, but I'd say the majority. Number one, we were looking for businesses that had a proven track record of success, whether that be five years, 10 years, 20 years. And the only thing that changed is the pandemic, because then we assume once the pandemic's over, you'll go back to doing what you do. And then number two, we're looking for companies or owners that did the best possible job to keep their payroll and their employees paid. I think Erica alluded to earlier. So a lot of these people had put a second mortgage on their house, sold their car, doing whatever they can. So we want to help not only the business owner, but the employees of the business as well.

So outside of that, those are the only two real requirements. Sometimes the payroll one can get a little iffy because it's like this thing's been going on for 10 months. So if you paid people for seven and then you're just out of money, what do you do there? But those are the two general ones that we look for. And is it true you put your own money in this thing too? Yeah, so I started with 500,000 of my own money and then we just solicited the rest from our readers or friends of mine who I've met along the way who may be more successful. But I think at this point,

we're 200,000 individual donors, which is really remarkable and just kind of speaks to, despite small businesses, you know, being so obviously a part of America, we put a face to it and everybody wants to help. I think one of the beauties of this, I've said it a bunch, there's so much crap in the world right now with politics and everything else. This is a universally, sounds sappy, but pure cause. We don't care Democrat, Republican, black, white, blue, purple. We're just trying to help small businesses.

And there really should be nobody in the world who is against what we're trying to do. It should be something everyone can rally behind. And that's a message we've heard from the business owners time and time again. It's like, this is kind of what America should be about. It's people helping people for no other reason than they need help and they deserve help. This is how it used to be. I remember a listener, Ron Paul, when he was running for president, libertarian, really didn't want a lot of government intervention in our problems or

otherwise creating them or solving them. And he talked about how, you know, we used to have sort of citizens helping citizens, even with medical bills, even, you know, the church would raise the money or the neighbors would help raise the money. And I think as our government demonstrates more and more, it's incompetence, it's inability to get anything meaningful done. We got to do an end around. This is what I consider a massive, really successful end around. And I think to where we began, it probably takes a man of the people, a common man, to think of a solution for the common man. And you're doing it. So I tip my hat to you.

I think it's wonderful. Good for you. Thank you. I'm glad we can help. I mean, I'm almost embarrassed at times when people thank me because it really is just, we have the platform and it's all the readers who are submitting it. Like without them, we wouldn't have the money, but I do appreciate being the conduit. That's for sure. Thanks for coming on you guys and all the best with the fund, the Barstool Fund. And how can people contribute to it? So if you go to barstoolfund.com, that has both things you'll

need there. That's if people want to donate, you can donate there. If you're a struggling business, you can apply, submit an application there. So everything is at Barstoolfund.com. Amazing. All the best. Take care. And we'll talk again soon. Thank you.

Today's episode was brought to you in part by Super Beats Soft Chews. Take two delicious chews a day for the health support and energy you need. Get yours today. Get it right now at superbeats.com slash MK. And don't forget to tune into the show on Friday because we're going to be taking another hard look at COVID shutdowns and the vaccine. We've got one of the great Barrington declaration doctors back again by popular demand. We're actually going to be joined by Alex Berenson, too. He's been a thorn

in the side of the COVID porn lovers. You know, he's he basically just cast doubt on a lot of the narratives that are being pushed. And of course, for that, everybody wants to ban him. Well, welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, where we don't ban people. We talk and we question, we probe, and we might even learn. We might even learn. We're also gonna have a small business owner on

to talk to us about exactly what it's like to have things shut down as these sort of lockdowns continue and actually get more and more severe. Can you imagine living in California right now? Can you imagine living in LA? And New York's not much better. So we're going to take a hard look at all of those things, including the vaccine and whether you should take it on Friday. That great Barrington show we did before that on COVID was one of our highest rated programs. People are obviously seeking information and we're going to do our best to provide truth, honesty, and

skeptical reporting to you that Friday. In the meantime, go ahead and subscribe to the show before I let you go so that you make sure you get it in your inbox and rate the show and give me a review, will you? I've been loving reading them. So many good guest ideas and such lovely feedback. I really do appreciate it. I try to stay off of Twitter, which is pretty much a liberal bastion. And so it's not really my place, but I haven't left it yet because it's just a good way of reaching out to people. And I do like to reach out to people who are on the left side of the aisle too. I feel like most of them are, are, are where I am on a lot of these issues. Not, not, not all of them, but a lot of them. So anyway, the reviews are a good place for me to talk directly with the people who love the podcast and find out what's working,

what's not working and all that. So go ahead and subscribe. And in the meantime, we'll talk soon. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear. The Megyn Kelly Show is a Devil May Care media production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures. you