WHOOP Podcast - Erika Nardini, trailblazing CEO of Barstool Sports, discusses authenticity and tuning out critics

Episode Date: November 18, 2020

Erika Nardini is one of the most influential women in sports. As the CEO of Barstool Sports, she has overseen the company's growth from 12 employees to hundreds and has helped establish the brand as one of the most recognizable in sports and beyond. Erika discusses her journey to Barstool (2:11), landing her dream job (5:12), working with Barstool founder Dave Portnoy (6:46), growing the brand authentically (10:13), creating a playground for personalities (15:59), cancel culture (22:19), political correctness (25:20), pushing back against naysayers (29:19), trusting her WHOOP (34:46), and how she identifies talent (36:47).Support the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

Hello, folks. Welcome to the WOOP podcast. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, the founder and CEO of WOOP, and we are on a mission to unlock human performance. That's right. We build technology, hardware, software, analytics that's designed to measure and improve your health. And you can check out a WOOP membership at WOOP.com. And you can get 15% off if you use the code, Will Ahmed, W-W-L-L-A-H-M. M-E-D. For those of you excited about new accessories, our Lux kit was just released, and we've got a sunset series, which is back in stock. So check those out at shop.com. And we have an amazing guest, the trailblazing Erica Nardini, CEO of Barstool Sports. Erica is one of the most influential women in sports. She has overseen Barstools' growth from 12 employees to

hundreds and has helped establish the brand as one of the most recognizable in sports and beyond. We discuss how she landed her dream job in a male-dominated field, what has been like working with Dave Portnoy and the team of personalities at Barstool, her views of developing talent and allowing them the freedom to express themselves an authentic way, dealing with a barrage of criticism and why Barstool isn't deterred by cancel culture, and how she uses Woop in her life. I have to say I found Erica incredibly authentic. And I think it speaks to Barstool Sports that she is at the helm. She's driving the company to be exactly what it is and not something else.

And I think you'll find that when you listen to Erica, talk about her growth in becoming Barstool's CEO and where she sees the company going from here. So without further ado, here is Erica. Erica, welcome to the Whoop Podcast. Thanks. Thanks for having me. So you've had a fascinating career in and out of marketing roles and a variety of successful roles. And you are the CEO of Barstool Sports. Now, is it always obvious to you that you'd land at a place like Barstool?

No. I was so lucky to come to Barstool. I thought I would, like, toil in the day. trenches of marketing forever. I got to Barstool really by chance. I've been here four and a half years. I love it. I truly loved every second of it. I started my career pretty traditionally, I guess I would say. I worked at Fidelity Investments. I worked at a bunch of ad agencies. I then moved over to publishing. I worked abroad for Microsoft, then worked at Yahoo. I helped take a company called demand media public. And I felt really lucky when I learned about the Barstool opportunity because

I felt like it was so many things that I loved and was interested in. And they had all these things I didn't know. And then what they needed were things that I had been doing for 15, 20 years at that point. So it kind of was a really good partnership that way. So you joined Barstool in 2016, right? At what point did the role kind of get on your radar? Maybe you meet Dave Portnoy. Talk about just sort of the recording process. So I learned of the role. I was working in music. It was part of a neat startup called Backstage, an interesting startup. And we had, what we were trying to do is bring music artists closer to their fans. And the idea was that music artists are the most captivating people on social media, right? When you look at social media, you know, the people who generate the most attention.

Not any, I would say that's changed a lot with TikTok and changed a lot in the last five years. But when you look at social media, the people who are most captivating are music artists or who historically have been most captivating, unless you're like a Kardashian, have been music artists. But their monetization is controlled by the labels and the promoters. The social platforms take all their data and they enjoy the time spent with their fans and audiences, but nothing ever goes back to the artist. And what I really felt was, and what we felt, was that creating a direct-to-consumer business for music artists was good for the fans, it was good for the artist, it was good for the ecosystem, and it was good.

the best thing about it was that the internet and technology could bring artists and fans actually closer together. And we had gone to see the Chironin Group to raise money and I sat in a meeting and they said, this was January 2016. And they said, hey, we just invested in this company you've never heard of called Barstool Sports. And I was like, oh, I've heard of Barstall Sports. I pulled out the app and I basically just wouldn't shut up about Barstool Sports. I was like, oh my God, this is everything I love about Barstool Sports. I'm obsessed with barstool sports. Here's why I like it.

Here's why their technology sucks. This is like the jankiest piece of shit. Like here's everything that they could do. And I left the meeting feeling really jealous because I felt like they would go find, you know, an MBA or someone who came from sports or a white guy to go run it. And about, I don't know, four months or so later, maybe less than that, actually, And I got connected to Dave through a mutual friend. I had a woman named Betsy Morgan who I was very close to.

She went to Colby College. I went to Colby. She was kind of in my women's mafia. Yeah. And she was an advisor to Dave. And she connected. I like begged her to get a meeting with Dave. Got a meeting with Dave.

I thought I would meet like a terrorist. I wasn't sure exactly what I was, you know, getting in for. But I loved him. And we clicked from the very beginning. and then the rest has really just been history. What was that meeting like, right? Because you're going in, you're meeting the creator of this thing. You know, it's this cult-like following.

I mean, even in 2016, it was probably quite a big following. Obviously, you guys have taken off since then even more. You know, Portnoy is famously the Prez and a big face of it. How did you get a feel that even in working with him that you'd actually be able to be CEO and be able to run it, right? Because there is a risk to that too, right? totally that was the question you know where yeah i loved dave when i met him he we met in a coffee shop and then you know we met like at a restaurant like we met all around new york city

so a few meetings it wasn't just a few meetings yep for sure a few meetings and the thing i loved about dave is that he was extremely humble about barstool sports and he anybody who's really met dave would say dave is very honest and very direct and i i love that about dave and the thing that's great about Dave, if you have the, like, good fortune to work with Dave is that he, he has this rare quality where he doesn't pretend to know, he knows a lot, but he doesn't pretend to know what he doesn't know. And he doesn't have interest in owning things for the sake of owning things or control. Like, he actually was like this, like, fantastic combination of someone who was so brilliant and such a good promoter and who had built something he was so

proud of and had like given his life to life to for like the last you know 16 years at that point 15 years at that point um but he genuinely I think wanted someone to help him get it to the next place and I think one of the hard things I mean I'd be curious your answer on this is I think one of the hard things when you meet a founder and you're the business person or you're the partner like do they really want a partner like are you an equal partner like how that dynamic is so important. I think that dynamic is like the first and easiest thing to fail. So I felt I got a really good feeling from Dave and about Dave from like from that initial meeting. Like we, I like loved him from the jump. I thought he was incredible. And I thought that he

sincerely wanted help. And that's what I trusted and believed and it's paid out. You know, I've talked to a lot of entrepreneurs since then. And, you know, You talk to different co-founders. You talk to founders. At some point, anyone who's raised money from someone, that investor will say, like, have you brought on the person who's going to help you do blah, blah, blah. And I don't know that it's every founder that actually wants that person. And I think that's an interesting dynamic.

I think Dave genuinely did. And we've made it obviously work pretty well ever since. Well, as an outside observer, both of Dave and of Barstool Sports, I feel like the thing that really is obvious to me is the authenticity. Totally. You know, I think he's very authentic and I think you as a brand are very authentic. I wonder how much you have to protect that and advocate for it versus how natural it is over time.

Like I can imagine as you get bigger and as more advertisers from time to time will question a certain segment of this or a segment of that, like how much do you feel like you personally have to bang your table, bang your hands on the table and be like, hey, we are authentic. That's what we do versus it's already just happening. You don't even have to think about it. It's already happening. I think

the coolest thing about Bar School, because of the qualities that Dave had is that he kind of is a live and let live kind of guy. If you come at him, that's like a whole different story. That's like probably a whole different podcast. But he is a live

and let like he kind of, even when they were back in Milton or even as he was starting barstool like he he has a very high standard he is not he he is interested in doing the work himself at the same time as you or whomever the person is but he isn't like a big control freak so as a result like one of barstool's authentic because it just grew up chaotically and organically and haphazardly and even when I got here and we added a little bit of structure it still was kind of haphazard and chaotic, and to this day, it's haphazard and chaotic. And that's, I think, what makes something authentic is because there's no, like, top-down

missive on, like, it is this or it's that. Like, the shield of bar school sports matters. It has to feel bar school. It has to be true to who we are. But who we are is a collection of people who want to make other people laugh. And a collection of people who want to grow audience and connect with people and do interesting things who aren't afraid, who are creative, who have weird brains. Like, that's the, that's what personal sports is. Yeah, I think the other thing that you guys nailed is the pace at which you move.

You know, I've realized this in Building Whoop. You have to consciously make a decision between control and pace. Totally. And, you know, I remember, like, reading the Whoop Twitter a few weeks ago, and I realized we'd announced something I didn't even know about. And there's this initial reaction you have like oh my gosh like what how did this partnership come to be why is it on the and then you realize oh actually this is great right the thing is going so fast that we're doing big partnerships i don't even know about how do you feel about that well i i myself like control but i also like pace a lot more i think especially for a technology business the pace at which you move uh can be a massive differentiator and for whoop we're also a subscription so we're trying you know we're actively

fighting for that dollar every day, every week, every month. And as a result, I think it's our obligation to get features and get analytics and everything really out to our customers as fast as possible. And I do see an analog in the way that Barstool has built, in the way that you've built this business, in that prior media companies talking about similar things, they had a lot of, they had almost an excessive amount of polish around the way that they would talk about things. And one, it was slower and two, it felt less authentic. And I remember vividly seeing the way that Dave announced the blow-up ESPN. I don't know, you guys had to deal with ESPN

and it fell apart. And he did this brilliant video in front of a water cooler that was probably shot on an iPhone. And it was super transparent into what it just happened. And I remember thinking to myself, the fact that he did that so fast and put it out so quickly is a huge differentiator for you as a brand to be able to speak that directly to your core audience or whoever's whoever's out there listening because they can feel it completely i i think you're a hundred percent right which is you can choose we we choose pace and we choose relevancy right like our business it's a game of relevancy like how relevant are you when when something happens who are you looking at for their opinion um and that's what's happened in news media and just in the internet

in general, which has just become opinion, which is so cool, like that's what the future is going to be made of from a content perspective. Now, what's interesting about that is you have traditional companies that don't want opinion, right? Or they are afraid of opinion or it's only a corporate opinion. The problem with that is that the other thing we've been the beneficiary of is that when you look at traditional media, everything was scheduled. So when Sports Center came on at 11 like that's when sports center is on like you like you used to have to wait to sport on sports center to get the highlight or to get the headline now you just go on Twitter and then at the same time when you're on Twitter you want big cats you know you want big

cat's opinion of lebron winning the title like you want like the internet has created so much immediacy but it is it is also democratized whose content and point of view that you're getting in that immediate fashion. And what we've prioritized is, look, you've got to be on it and you've got to be fast. It's the same like for you guys. Like I love your product because I think you've been so sophisticated and intuitive in how you use the data, right? You're like, okay, you want to know a vital signal on your health. How do you serve that up to someone in a way that's immediate, but that's digestible and that ultimately for them is actionable? Yeah. Not that different. We're just doing it in a way that makes people laugh or gives them an escape or gives them a point of

view on something that they care about. How do you like to manage talent, right? You're the CEO of this organization that has really interesting, really talented people, and they're constantly putting things out into the world. And those things are controversial at times. Those things are probably very successful at times. How do you personally think about that? I love talent. I love working with talent it is it's like heartache and headache all the time like yeah we're really lucky in that we have great talent here and we're lucky in that we have talent who has helped to build this thing and has been a part of this thing like you know almost all of the early guys who you know helped create bar school to begin with are still here to this day which is i think such a great

testament to being part of something that's mission driven and that's being being part of something that's lasting. But, you know, we kind of let them go for the most part. I mean, we have our eyes. We have checks and balances. We have systems in place. But for the most part, you know, what I love about Barstool, if I'm a creative person, you know, and we have a crazy amount of creative people here is that we've created this playground for them to be very, very free and to create as what they see fit, as they see fit, how they see fit. And I don't think that exists in most places in content because people are afraid of controversy or they're afraid of the advertisers or they're afraid of perception or their rights, right? Like, we're not afraid of any

of that because, you know, before me, it was even more extreme. But like when I got here, I think we had like five advertisers. We had like two million dollars. We had five advertisers, a P&L. And we were kind of like, fuck it. Like, let's see what we can make with this thing. And I think the more we hold true to protecting those creative people in that playground, that's what I think is really important. I think you have to protect your talent. And the more I'm exposed to traditional media and even traditional digital media, you see how unprotected talent is. And I think that's partly, we've created a safe place for comedy. And I think that that's actually something that you see less and less of now. So that's an interesting point. You've seen that talent is

unprotected. What do you mean by that? What's an example of that? Like, I mean, you, you see it now. Like, if a shock jock or a radio personality says something that the advertiser doesn't like, or the higher ups don't like, or is not PC, you see a pretty immediate backlash. And the first thing that happens is they pull that person off the air. Now, we've had our instances where we've done that same thing. So I'm not saying that we don't do any of that. But here, there's a very big discussion about when that happens, there's a very big discussion about it. It's also a very public discussion. And that's another big difference of us is, you know, what you talked about, Dave, when we got fired from ESPN. Like, we had an emergency press conference. We got fired, I don't know,

8 a.m. or 9 a.m. in the morning, probably earlier than that, actually. And then we, the press conference was up by noon, you know? So we're not afraid to embrace like, hey, this person is one of us. If they mess up, they mess up. If we did something great, we did something great. I think what I mean that talent isn't protected is that I think, well, I think there's a couple things happening actually. One is that the station or the channel or the platform is very afraid. They're afraid of advertiser, they're afraid of their distribution partners, and they're afraid of their source of revenue. And we're fortunate and intentional in that we've really sought to diversify our revenue. So we've created a way where we can move and be adaptive and still make money as a company.

I think the other thing that is happening in terms of the protection of talent is that what you're seeing right now with agents and what you're seeing right now with personalities is if you are a personality, if you were Chris Collinsworth or Al Michaels or anything, you spent 20 years someplace. Yeah. Chris Berman spent however many hundreds of years at ESPN. Like he was an ESPN guy. Yes.

You're not seeing that anymore. There's probably not a hundred years left of ESPN. So you're not like seeing the long-term singular contract. What you're seeing is more akin to like what Pat McAfee is doing or what other talent are doing, which is like your radio shows over here, your YouTube is over there, your podcast strategy is here. So like, no one is on any one platform fully or employed by anyone brand exclusively. And so as a result, when something goes wrong, the guy or the girl isn't really yours. Right.

So you don't, like, how much skin off your back are you going to put for somebody who does one thing with you, but 10 things with somebody else? So I think that's kind of changing how the, it's kind of like rented talent versus grown and owned talent. And we're kind of a grow and own talent type of place. Like the people who do best here are like all in on bar school. Right. The other difference is that like what you're seeing right now is because everybody's out to get a,

you know, out to get a buck as you see, talent is very beholden to a very specific contract. So they'll do one thing, but that one thing. but that one thing is it. And when that thing is done, it's done. We have people in like 10 different shows at all times. They're always creating something new. They're always doing something new. And as a result, you get to know the characters much better.

You get more engaged with them. It's good for us from a monetization perspective because we can do any number of things. Like our contracts aren't like you're only going to do this one thing. So that's to me the other piece is you have to have, if you're going to be as ballsy as we are, you have to have some flex built into your business, how you make money, where you put people, like you've got to be able to move in that.

Yeah, no, it's really smart. And listening to you, it's so clear how, I mean, well thought out it is. You know, I think from the outside in, what makes barstool fun is it sort of seems like a free-for-all. Oh, it looks like a total shit show. Yeah, but on the inside, you know, you're pulling all the strings. And of course you are. So what do we do with cancel culture, right? Because it's, if I'm in your shoes, I imagine I'm getting an email every day about why fill in the blank talent is racist or sexist or misogynistic or, you know, fill in the blank. Totally. I got told I was misogynistic this week because I supported the evolution of the women's hockey league.

So it's like people will say anything about anyone at any given time. I think cancel culture is tough. I think it's tough right now to be in comedy. Really tough, I think. Really tough. Like, you looked, I don't know if you watched Saturday Night Live with Bill Burr. Bill Burr had an opening monologue that made you think and made you uncomfortable. And people didn't like that.

Like, that was by and large, not well received. And, you know, the thing I, the thing about cancel culture that's really depressing, I think, is that there's just this desire for perfection and there's a desire for uniformity and there is a desire for silencing. There is a desire to have things or people or ideas that you disagree with just like completely eradicated. And I think that's very dangerous because then you're you're in a culture where there's no debate, there's no disagreement, there's no dialogue, there's no friction and friction like so you know this from building a company like progress comes out of friction and i think that's a very i think that's a very dangerous place to be i also think that you know one of the hard things

about cancel culture and like twitter culture in general or culture with twitter in general is that like things get so hot so fast yeah hard to if you're not used to that it's very upsetting You know, we've worked with brand partners who were just so, you know, we had an advertiser a couple of years ago who I think he got seven mentions from like Twitter eggs saying they hated Barstool Sports and they were like, oh, like we're canceling Barstool Sports. We can't work with Barstool sports. Wow. Like, but your customer loves bar school sports. And if you're going to dictate your strategy because a Twitter egg said that like you suck for working with Barstores. school sports, then I don't think you're strong enough and you don't deserve what we can do for you. So that's kind of how I think about it. The other thing that seems brutal about cancel culture is, and this is even tougher for comedians, I'm curious how you feel about this. A joke

that was funny in 2002 might be completely inappropriate today, right? And I don't know that it's necessarily fair to criticize that retrospectively. What do you think? I mean, is that, is that, yeah, like, I'm not, I'm personally, like, not a believer in that, you know, like, uh, Burr was talking about like John Wayne. John Wayne died, I think in 1979. Like, everybody's going after John Wayne. Like, everyone in John Wayne's era was like sexist and racist. Like, that's like pretty much a fact. Yeah. They just were. Like, if you talk to your grandparents, grandparents, like I guarantee like they had some like rampant discriminatory behavior about them like because that's just the way the world was you and you don't even have to go back that far like

if you look at like 80s and 90s movies like if you go back and watch a 90s movie right now or an 80s movie like try it like I watched what did I watch I was watched like 21 Jump Street the other day and I was like holy shit you would never ever ever get away with saying any of this stuff now. And so it's like, and I like, you know, it's some of the way, you know, in some ways it's really great, right, where you're, the level of sensitivity is evolved, the social conversation has evolved. We're creating more opportunities for more people, from more places, like that's all

awesome. Yeah, totally. I don't think that 80s movies should disappear. I don't think that John Wayne was a bad cowboy because, you know, he was a jerk and what he had to say like yeah look i think i think people are human and they're fallible and they are had moments of greatness and moments of tyranny and moments of horribleness like by the day and you can't erase that and culture and society is made up of people so it's like that times you know hundreds of millions you know like it's just that's just what things are like so yeah i just don't agree with it but

That's interesting. Well, you have an openness, which I find refreshing. It feels like, especially in the world of building businesses today, there's such a PC feeling. It's very easy to complain and lob bombs on Twitter, or like put selfie photos indicating a cause on Instagram. That's not very hard to do. It is much harder to go make something. We're trying to make something here. So, like, people criticize us all the time. Like, there is not, like, people love shit at us all the time. And I'm like, I hear you. That's fine.

Like, that's your opinion. But we're trying to build something and do something and evolve. And if you, you know, it's kind of like we're damned if we do sometimes and we're damned if we don't. But that's okay. Like, she's kind of rolls. You strike me as someone who has a really great attitude towards life and towards everything that's coming your way.

Like, I feel like when I first, so I started whoop when I was 12. 21 years old. Okay. And such a child, like one of the big things that I overcame and started the company was this feeling that everyone was telling me I was going to fail. Yeah. And sort of this relentless criticism of why are you even trying at doing this? And I felt like over time I built up a sort of a stubbornness to it.

And now looking back on it, it was sort of a healthy mechanism to have to go through to now be in a position where today I'm sort of completely fine if people want to agree or disagree with me because I've been on both sides of that coin. How has it been like for you and sort of, and I feel like you're the, what's come at you is almost more challenging in some ways because it's, it's coming from a lot of different directions, I would imagine. I don't know. I think it takes so much courage to start something.

Like, I hand it to you. Thank you. It's so great to found a company. Like, that's the best thing. And for it to succeed. like you're so rare in that like you're really rare in that and you have a company that has like crazy advocates for your progress for your product like I had lunch I interviewed a candidate it was actually hilarious I interviewed a candidate and I was curious I was curious to see how he would

talk to me about like how does he use data how does he use modeling like how how does he think and what we ended up talking about was who oh cool he was he was showing me you know, what Whoop did and how he would apply that to Bar School, which I actually thought was like pretty, like it was a good leap. It was kind of an interesting conversation. But I think it takes so much courage to start something. And I'm like, I have so much respect for founders and entrepreneurs in general. Like I think what you're doing is awesome. I think in my case, look, I came into something that I thought was a unicorn. And I had so much respect for dating. and the guys who built it.

And I had so much, they made me laugh. Like I loved, I had like a heart for it. You know what I mean? I had tasted. But I also knew I was coming into something that most conventional people didn't like. And they felt was a very bad move for me career wise. They felt that it was not premium or that I was making a misstep.

You know, as a CMO of AOL, then I left to go to the startup. up and then she's going, you know, then she's going to bar school sports. Like, what is she doing? And that was also good for me because it made me, when someone pushes against you, it gives you something to push back against. Do you know what I mean? That's right. Yeah, that's right. That's a good of putting it. And it's good to have resistance. It's like, it's good to have resistance. It made me feel like I had only one choice, which was to succeed, which I think could be healthy, unhealthy in other ways. I think there's like a there's a high tax for that, but it made me feel like I couldn't ever look back and that I was not ever going to give up. And I think it's propelled me. I think all the nays

airs on barstool and all the like hiccups along the way have had been our resistance that we've pushed against. I think resistance keeps you sharp. Yeah. When I talk to other founders who were earlier on in the journey, I tell them that a lot of the challenges they're facing are things that they're going to train themselves to be able to overcome. And the moment some of those challenges are gone, it feels like you've gone from running into the wind to running with the wind at your back. And then you're just kind of blown away by how fast you're going. Yeah. It's awesome. I agree with that. Yeah. How do you evaluate your own performance? Are you someone who kind of keeps feeling like, I could have done this a little better, could

done that a little better? Or are you someone who's got, you know, sort of a great cheerleader in your mind? No, I like hate myself. I am very hard on myself. I think I fuck most things up. I am very happy when we do things right and we get a win. It's way easier for me to cheerlead somebody else than to cheerlead myself. And I try to, not cheerlead, but I try to do that a lot.

I'm very critical. I'm very, in general, I'm very critical. And I'm very critical of myself. I also have this like very annoying habit where when things are going great, like something really good happens, you know, like we had a company invest in us this year. Like we had a couple of friends. Like I'm like what, there's going to be something bad that's going to bring this back down. So I have like a little bit of that kind of.

of thinking. I think that's healthy though. A little bit of paranoia. I found that I'll often embody sort of this feeling that is like the opposite of what the company in general might be feeling. Yeah, I'm the same. So when things are kind of down, you're like pounding your chest. Like, no, it's coming. We got this. Yeah. And then when everything's good, you're kind of like, what am I, what don't I know? Yeah, what am I getting soft on? Like, what am I missing? What's missing? What storm is coming? Yeah, I'm the same way. And I think, and I'm the same way. And I think that any look I think any good entrepreneur or anyone great who's building something everyone probably feels a lot like that I think that you know in some ways like it's easy to be

ambitious and like insecure at the same time like Barbara Corcoran always talks about this like ambitiously insecure yeah I think it's a nice way of putting it it's like a good way to keep checking yourself like am I doing enough and are we going fast enough um i'm not really a worrier but i'm always worried like not i'm always like what do we need to be doing differently like what are we what are the skills we have to build how do we transform what we're doing and my biggest frustration i think is when i if people don't want to go on for that ride yeah you strike me as someone who's thinking about bar stool in the shower and like in those little quiet moments. I'm the same way. I'm always thinking about who I've been for 10 years, practically.

But what else do you want to be thinking about? It's such a thing. It's the exciting thing, right? It's to get to build this and have the opportunity. I mean, I find that I'm constantly, you know, I constantly want to prove to myself or really anyone that I'm, I, you know, deserve to be building this thing, you know, and CEO of a 300 plus person company or whatever. So it's like. A 21-year-old being like, I can have a business. Yeah, that's right. And, like, you probably always will be. Yeah, I think that's right.

But that's healthy, too. The best. Now, you've been on whoop for a little bit. What are you doing with your whoop? Well, so right now I'm very behind on training for a half marathon, which is coming up in five weeks, which I'm woefully, woefully I'm prepared for. You strike me as someone, though, who's, like, kind of off the couch fit

when you need to be, though, too. I don't know. 13 miles long run. I don't know. I'm like, I'm trying to do too much. You're college athlete, right? College athlete, but I'm like trying to do too much. I have like a vendetta, vendetta, so I'm playing tennis. Then I've got my hockey thing. I'm trying to play hockey. And now I'm trying to run and work and try, like it's hard. That's a lot. Yeah. Actually, that's why I like my whoop because I think whoop is is still ahead of me, like in terms of whoop could be very telling about what I should and shouldn't be doing. And I'm, I'm, like, just learning to trust my whoop. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, you're still in that. No, I don't know. You're still in that phase. Yeah, I'm in that phase.

But I like it and I like how much data it gives me. You know, I'm learning to trust it. Like, I like, whoops like another relationship. You know, I like that, you know what I mean? It's a good way of putting it, yeah. It's another relationship. So you're like, all right, am I giving to, like, I'm going to give to you. You're going to give back to me. But I like that it's more than, you know, just how many steps did you take? And I like the price coin. I think it's like way more affordable for people and it's a really high quality, sophisticated product. What do you think about Apple rolling out the phone with no charger?

I mean, look, this is where big companies are full of shit, right? They tried to frame that as an environmentally-friendly move. Oh, that's like 6% margin for them. Yeah. I mean, you can't outwardly tell every consumer, that you think they're dumb. Yes. And that's essentially what they just did to us.

Like, yes, I have an iPhone. Yes, I think Aval makes great products. But don't feel like I'm an idiot. Yeah. You can just say there's an abundance of these cords in the world, and for that reason, we're not including them. Yeah, there's enough. But don't tell me you're saving the environment.

There's enough cords. Yeah, no, I agree with you on that. So what's next for you? Are you planning right now for a bunch of new partnerships? I mean, I think the sports book things could be huge for you guys. Yeah, sports book things will be huge for us. Look, all right, we're coming at the end of the year. We're like in our Super Bowl season right now.

Like football season is like our prime time. You know, we've brought a bunch of new personalities into bar school. We're like getting them up and running. The sports book is massive. I think we're crushing it. How do you decide to bring on a new personality? Like what sort of attributes will you be looking for when you meet like a, I don't know, a Dion Sanders? There's no like, oh, we're looking for this type of person.

I mean, we hired Dion Sanders. We hired Frank the Tank, who's like been hanging around the rim here. He's like this maniacal crazy Mets fan from New Jersey. We hired a guy who looks like a fictitious NCAA 14 coach that Big Cat plays as. We hired a guy who looks like him in Florida. So like there's no, you know, part of it's just funny, funny part of its audience. part of it's, you know, how can we find people who can move us into conversations we want to be in or to create opportunities or, you know, or a point of view that we don't necessarily

have. Now, will you have talent, interview talent? Or is it mostly like you working with like? Oh, when they join? Yeah. If you're a create, if you're a content person, it's a lot of it's Dave. Like Dave is, Dave has a, you know, I think I would say Dave Gaz is, um, was Dave's first hire they both have very good gut for talent same with big cat yeah um so every but i would say every person is different right some people are more commercial than others some people are edgier than others some are sports betters which are really important to us right now so it's it's kind of like what are we looking for right now and who lands on our lap right like we found caller daddy by a you know a three minute clip on i think we found it on twitter like it was we weren't looking

for two girls we weren't looking at you know at that time two girls we weren't looking for an entertainment slash sex podcast but here they were and so we got them so we're we're very so what was the decision right to go out and get that podcast right because at first blush it almost seems like a little bit out of out of center but maybe it's not through the lens that you're looking at it I think that there's no like it it's like people make fun of us and they're like barstool sports you know like we're not about sports enough, but like talent is talent. And, you know, in that case, we found two people who just had it. They were electric. It was like two gorgeous girls talking about sex in a incredibly woke and raunchy way. Like it was like nothing anyone had

ever seen. Yeah. We had to have them. Like that was the like we had to have them. So the calculus is just, is it great? Is it great? So through that lens, you could almost have any, virtually any show. right any show which is empowering i mean it's really cool it was interesting i saw that dave interviewed the president yes now what's your calculus and saying go or no go on that i mean we couldn't not go you don't in my opinion as bar school sports get invited to the white house told that you have an exclusive uh but you had to be there the next morning uh you just don't for a company we have 250 people we are not CNN or Fox or MSNBC or CBS or NBC or any of those guys, New York Times. So, you know, I think at a company of our stage to get that opportunity to interview a sitting president of the United States, like Trump is the third rail, like beyond the third rail.

But if Obama had invited us or Nixon invited us or Clinton had invited us or Carter, like, you. you, I think you have to take that opportunity. It's telling to me how obvious it was to you. Like, I'm sure that there are other organizations that would have been more, you know, political about it, which I think is empowering. Like, we caught a lot of shit for that interview. And there's a huge backlash internally around the interview. Like, I think we went on a Wednesday or a Thursday.

Friday night, there were two simultaneous trending topics on Twitter. One was that we interviewed the president, Barstool Sports Interviews the president, and then the other was everyone's reaction inside of Barstool to Dave's interviewing the president. And like, to me, that's the glory of Barstool is that like you can have those two things happening at the same time. Most sane organizations would not let that happen

because it's essentially fighting with one another. It is super risky. What would you have done differently about that interview? I think there's a bunch of things. I would have told more people that we were doing it. We held it pretty close to the vest. I think we underestimated a lot of the internal reaction to it. I think we underestimated that.

So almost like more transparency around the decision of doing it. And why? Yeah, that makes sense. Where can people find your podcast? And if people want to learn more about Erica, where do they go? All right. So first you should check out bar school sports. You can find bar school sports at bar school sports.

or really on any social media platform. We have an awesome podcast network. Woop is a proud sponsor, so that's great. We love having them on board. We're lucky to be a sponsor. You've got a podcast? Oh, yeah. So I have a podcast.

You can find my podcast is called Token CEO, which is what people called me when I came to Barstlesports. I love that. Well, I mean, I don't love that people call you Token CEO, but I love that you're right. I think it's great. And you can find me at E.K.A. Nardini on most social. Awesome. Well, this has been really fun, Erica, and I look forward to meeting you one day in person.

I can't wait. Thank you for everything. Yeah, likewise. And best of luck to you and team. Okay, great. We'll see you later. Thank you to Erica for coming on the WOOP podcast. Reminder, you can use the code Will Ahmed, W-I-L-L-A-H-M-E-D to get 15% off a W-W-M membership.

You can follow us on social at W-W-P at Will-A-Mad. and stay healthy and in the green folks.