Dave Portnoy said Barstool Sports hires unusual, talented people and lets them run their own shows, a setup he linked to the company’s creator pipeline before the Tuesday release of Cancel Me If You Can. He also tied that philosophy to Pat McAfee’s exit, saying the split came after a dispute over the business side.
Portnoy said, “We look for unusual, different, talented people.” He added, “And then we just kind of let them run wild and do their own thing.” That is the operating model he described for Barstool: hire first, then give talent room, rather than putting producers in front of the work. For a media business built around personalities, that means the company is betting on voice more than process.
Cancel Me If You Can
Portnoy said he agreed to write the book partly because “ego—the idea of walking into an airport and seeing my book in the window, or in bookstores—appealed to me.” He also said, “Well, it was kind of twofold.” The project moved fast enough that a ghostwriter wrote the entire book in around six to eight months, though Portnoy said the first paragraph immediately set off alarm bells: “Oh my God, this is not going to work. It’s not my voice. It’s not me at all.”
That detail puts the release in a sharper frame. The book is not just a personal project; it is another example of how Barstool’s founder packages his brand, from a title built for bookstores to a talent system built for output. Dave Portnoy Watches Bitcoin Rebound Near $61,000 sits in the same wider ecosystem of Portnoy commentary, but this book is the more direct business move.
Pat McAfee’s Exit
Portnoy said McAfee’s departure came after the former Barstool personality felt the business side disrespected him. “He thought the business side disrespected him, so he felt he had to leave, was his version of events,” Portnoy said. He also said, “It had something to do with, he was late getting paid on something, like a commission check.”
Portnoy’s version adds a contract-level wrinkle that matters for how creator deals work inside a media company. He said the agreement with McAfee was a 50% split on some sales deals, with Barstool taking the other 50%, while Barstool would get 100% of sales made for Pardon My Take. In other words, the dispute was not about talent alone; it was about who controls revenue, who gets paid first, and whether the sales arm can be trusted to treat every show the same.
New York City Office
Portnoy also discussed how much longer Barstool will keep its office in New York City. That question hangs over the company’s footprint, but the more immediate story is the structure he says made Barstool work in the first place: recruit oddball talent, give them autonomy, and keep the business team from crowding the on-air product.
My read: the book matters less as memoir than as a map of how Barstool still operates. If Portnoy’s system works, it is because it trades polish for output and control for scale, which is exactly why the McAfee dispute landed so hard.
