Here’s a hot take: Stoolies are the life’s blood that keeps this engine running.

I’ll explain what I mean to some, but most of you already know what I’m saying.

BARSTOOL SPORTS is a special place to work. With very few exceptions, Dave and Erika give the content people carte blanche to be creative… Some of the ideas hit and hit BIG (PMT immediately jumps to mind), while others wind up falling WAAAAY short of the mark (fill in the blank here with whatever failure you may remember). But it seems lately the biggest successes within this hive of content are the ones that detail the failures of the content providers. And that “rooting for failure” is probably the most profitable part of our identity right now.

Dave is not the biggest example here, but he is close, so I will start with him.

When my boss expressed interest in betting $250,000 on Texas Tech earlier this week, I promptly did two things:

1) I prayed to God that Dave would not be able to get such a large bet in, and thankfully God, in all of her boundless charity, granted my prayers when Dave only got in a measly $20K… Which he instantly lost as if he threw it into a bonfire.

I don’t think I am overstating that hundreds of thousands of people were rooting against Dave that night… Car crashes are infinitely more interesting than car washes, so the aptly named “electric chair” that Portnoy has sat on so many times in the past year is a fascinating vehicle for thousands to watch my president get the life zapped out of him on every bad beat.

2) The second thing I did when I heard Dave was looking to place a quarter million on TT was I went and bet whatever I could find on Virginia because… Hey… Who doesn’t like free money, amirite? And when Dave is running cold and Marty Mush is on the same side, there isn’t a better contra-indicator on where to invest your hard earned dough. That isn’t said with malice. That’s just a fucking fact, unfortunately (for them).

And with the mere mention of my friend Marty, you know that he has to be touched on next.

My view may be from 30,000 feet, but from that vantage point, I can confidently say that Dave Portnoy is a wealthy man who has money to burn.

From that same crow’s nest, I can also confidently say that Marty Mush is on his last legs and that every loss he incurs puts a little more space in between the blips on his EKG.

BLIP!…. BLIP!……. BLIP!………. BLIP!…………

I mentioned my tendency to pray earlier, and my most recent prayers are that Marty makes it out of the NBA playoffs without flatlining.

……. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

Whereas Dave seems to have an unlimited amount of funds, for the life of me, I can’t figure out how Marty stays solvent… Perhaps Mush is selling his own semen by the teaspoonful on the black market to lesbian surrogates with low self-esteem. It’s my only theory.

And getting back to my opening statement- You’re all enablers because you are EATING THIS SHIT UP, and, in the process, you are providing Dave, Marty, and the rest of Barstool (including me) with something that we crave almost as much as money… CLICKS!

Gambling is an addiction.

It ruins marriages.

It ends lives.

It destroys friendships.

But it also gets pageviews.

As a result, we are packaging up more and more gambling-related content for you at home to sink your teeth in to. And I guarantee, for every person you are rooting for to win on his/her predictions, there will be five that you are hoping will shit the bed.

And you think it stops with gambling?

Oh, no… It does not.

Where else does the average stoolie get a front-row-center view of a content provider’s ruination?

To prove I am not hypocritical, let’s go straight to one that hits home for me… I am a fucking alcoholic, and I am dragging the whole morning radio crew down with me.

I co-host Barstool Breakfast every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And Friday has now become what I have dubbed “Gentleman’s Friday“… Gentleman’s Friday consists of dried meats, aged cheeses, scattered homemade snacks, and BOOZE, BOOZE, BOOZE.

Small wineries and small breweries have been very generous in sending us samples of their offerings, and we have been more than happy to try out every single fucking thing that people send along.

– Moonshine

– Jerky

– Jams and Jellies made with different alcohols in their base.

– Pickles

– Weed

– Kosher BBQ

– CBD

– Cheeses

– Dried Sausages

– Microbrews with 12% ABV

– Small batch vodka

– And a SHITLOAD of different vinos

Everything so far has been a home run. And Francis, Wille and I have been having a fucking ball once that second hour rolls around and the chemicals start to take hold. As a result, we are packaging up more and more alcohol-related content for you at home to sink your teeth in to. And I guarantee, for every member of the Breakfast team you are rooting for to “just say no”, there will be five that you are hoping will (literally) shit the bed.

Alcoholism is an addiction.

It ruins marriages.

It ends lives.

It destroys friendships.

But it also gets listeners.

Let’s speed the rest of these up because I think you get the point…

– Glenny Balls is dancing the same line I do whenever he puts another burger down his throat, and Big Ev is getting the most views when he tells us more about being “Big” than telling us what it’s really like being just “Ev”.

– Clem is bucking the trend after losing 40 pounds on some keto bullshit, but I hate him for it, to be honest. I want to see Clem complaining about new snack technology instead of avoiding carbs altogether.

– Mantis has a clothing line called “BENT”.

– Clancy had an incident at home that got too many clicks.

– Nate saw a surge after being assaulted with a cream pie.

– I like watching clips of Riggs working a 6 iron left-to-right, but I love seeing pics where his eyes are going left-and-right. (sorry Riggs)

– Smitty almost took a paintball to the temple and it got picked apart like the Zapruder film.

– Tommy does a ton of funny shit, but Dave emasculating him at a betting parlor, on a TV set, or in a Vegas pool gets the most traction.

– I’m confident there are thousands of Daddy Gang members waiting for the girls to get swept up by Marco from Tropoja and sold on a yacht to some Arab prince who doesn’t put a premium on virgins.

But their profitability is soaring, so if Marco is reading this, know that if you do touch either Sofia or Alex…

– I am not in Ellie’s demographic, but I think people like it when she cries.

– KBnoswag has a huge Twitter following and a respected role here as a blogger, but his social resume had maybe 3 bullet points before he may or may not have decided to ride the white dragon in Las Vegas.

– Subsequently, KB’s Halloween cocaine pic got some traction after the Vegas incident, but not nearly as much as Gaz’s Halloween blackface pic from 20 years ago.

My point is- For a company that has a LOT of fans, there are a LOT of fans waiting to see some carnage, and Barstool does not mind it one bit.

Nero could’ve picked up a bucket of water, but instead, he picked up a fiddle and the powers that be at this “firm” recognize that. They are embracing it and they are adding a closet full of fiddles to fit every curious fan.

So I am going to embrace it also.

Chaos is a ladder and we live in a desensitized world where people cant get hard without a little bit of intrigue.

So let’s raise a glass and toast this “profitable negativity”… Your glass may be filled with the tears of my co-workers but mine is filled with an earthy cabernet… After all, it is 8 AM on a Friday.

Enjoy the weekend everyone and drink up!

Take a report.

-Large

Programming Notes: The Barstool Breakfast crew is doing a bi-weekly segment on BarstoolGOLD called “Welcome On Back” and another Extra Large drops at 10 AM today…

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I co-hosted Lights, Camera, Barstool this week and shat all over Shazam…

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I also shat on a little girl named Summer on Podfathers with Chaps and Clem but ultimately took it back because I was an asshole…

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Game Of Thrones is back this Sunday…

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And Emily Rajktajkojski went shopping for gum…

TAR.

-L