Barstool Sports' $650M Rise
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A story about how Dave Portnoy started Barstool Sports from humble beginnings.
"Barstool went into sports media which was dominated by ESPN, and they started with nothing. Dave Portnoy was writing a newspaper himself and then going down to the subway and handing it out to people before they got on their morning commute. Not even a blog - a physical newspaper. He was handing it out like the paper boy, and he was the writer and editor.
That's how they got started, and then ultimately they sold for around 650 million dollars. They approached sports media differently than ESPN - they weren't focused on news, information, and analysis. They didn't bid for game rights or own any NBA or NFL games. Instead, they focused on entertainment and making people laugh. They were an entertainment company first, trying to make people have a good time."
Shaan Puri
Host of MFM
Shaan Puri is the Chairman and Co-Founder of The Milk Road. He previously worked at Twitch as a Senior Director of Product, Mobile Gaming, and Emerging Markets. He also attended Duke University.