By Lucas Schoeppner
News Staff
The founder of the blog Barstool Sports, David Portnoy, spoke to a room in Richards Hall packed with hundreds of students Tuesday night. Seven years ago, Portnoy, known as “El Presidente,” created a local sports and gambling newspaper, since transformed into a blog. Barstool Sports features a blend of sports, weird stories, girls and attitude. The event was a particularly high-profile weekly meeting of the Northeastern Entrepreneurs Club, whose members bring business leaders to speak at their meetings every Tuesday. Portnoy spoke with The Huntington News after the event.
Huntington News: So, Barstool Sports started out as a way for you to break into the gambling industry. Do you think those casinos that closed their doors to you seven years ago are regretting it now?
David Portnoy: No, defintely not. I don’t think places like the MGM Grand give a [expletive] about me, I don’t think they have a clue who we are. Casinos print money, so they’re defintely not worried about us.
HN: Why is it so hard to find a writer in new cities? It seems like there are more people out there on the internet writing blogs than there are people to read them.
DP: The only thing I would say is that I’m really picky about it. I know when I see a guy that I like. I’ve seen a lot of people, but it’s our brand, so I can’t 80 percent like a guy, I can’t 90 percent like a guy. I have to be 100 percent sold. They have to have the voice. And it’s a combo. For our model, they can’t just be a great writer, or what in my mind a great writer for Barstool is. They have to be able to be a front-man to a degree. They have to be able to throw parties and events, so they can’t be introverted. So, we’ve been able to find people who fit the bill for writing, but they’re not who we want to be out [representing us].
HN: It’s interesting that when people write for you, they have to be writing exclusively for Barstool, especially when so many places are trying to cut their costs by using freelancers and things like that.
DP: I think it comes back to how our biggest strength is how people connect with our brand. We have Barstool readers who just come to Barstool for the writing. We’re ass-backwards in a way, because there aren’t a lot of blogs that are real companies making money, but we really put everything behind the writing. We could push sales and making money to the top, but it’s the writing that I attribute to us getting this far, and we’re not going to change it. We’ve tried the freelance, but it’s always in the back of my mind that I’ll see something good they wrote on someone else’s blog and I’ll think, “That’s really good, why isn’t it on ours?” It drives me nuts. So when you’re writing for us, you’re writing for only us.
HN: You said that Barstool’s readership grows because you guys write about what people say they like.
DP: I would write stuff that was unusual, that wasn’t our business model. Like at the beginning, when it was about gambling, we put in unusual articles, and people would say that is what they liked. That’s kind of where we shifted towards. It doesn’t seem like a formula, but it’s a combination of wacky stories, girls, sports and then one or two serious stories. So that’s the formula that I think works, and that’s what we stick with. But within that, we write about what we want. I like reality TV, so I write about reality TV, and people criticize me for it, but that’s what I do, so it’s a reflection of that, so that’s how we get the balance.
HN: How did you get the initial readership? Was it a “build it and they will come” kind of thing?
DP: We were early to the game. That made a huge difference. As far as I know, in our genre, there were really no other blogs doing what we did. If we did what we did now, and just started it with the same exact content, I don’t think anyone would know who we are – but we had a long head start.
HN: Any final words for Northeastern?
DP: Not really. I always feel a little weird in these situations, because I’m like the opposite probably of what business professors or entrepreneurs would do. But I guess it is the same thing that I said earlier – it’s real easy to talk about doing something, that’s why schools drive me nuts, because there is so much talk. But the easiest way to figure out if something will work is to just do it. Our idea we started out with – a newspaper for sports and gambling – probably did not work. But it opened doors, and we slithered along until we found out where we did fit. I guess that’s the Nike quote, you know? Don’t talk about it, just go out and get your feet wet.
