Dave Portnoy clarifies shot at ESPN, calls out company's 'corporate weasels'

Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy has been in the news quite a bit this week, starting with an alleged ban from ‘The Shoe’ by Ohio State. But he’s also been vocal about other issues, most notably ESPN’s new partnership with the ‘Bussin’ With The Boys‘ show.

On Thursday morning, after ESPN announced the partnership, Portnoy took a simple shot. He tweeted, “ESPN is officially Barstool Jr.”

It was seen as a shot at ESPN, but also potentially a dig at Taylor Lewan and Will Compton, the hosts of Bussin’ With The Boys. The show was previously platformed on Barstool Sports.

Portnoy reached out to clarify his comments early Thursday afternoon, while Bussin’ With The Boys was making an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show. He made it clear his comments were more about ESPN and a long-running feud than about Lewan or Compton.

“Also, people confuse my disdain for ESPN with the people who work there,” Portnoy wrote. “Pat is a megastar. Everybody knows I love the Bussin guys. I absolutely despise the snakes who run the place. Corporate weasels.”

More on the beef between Dave Portnoy, ESPN

The competition between ESPN and Barstool Sports goes back several years now. One instance was ESPN’s cancellation of ‘Barstool Van Talk’ in a short partnership between the two in 2017, following reaction by management and those at the network to being involved with Portnoy. Portnoy has since said, as recently as this year, that he doesn’t want talent at Barstool appearing on ESPN.

However, as of January, ‘Bussin’ With The Boys’ had no longer been associated with Barstool. It sounded at that point to be an amicable end to their connection, with Dave Portnoy noting that Lewan and Compton had received quite the offer to go elsewhere with their podcast.

As far as these two networks or shows, it’s been a busy past week or so as far as partnerships. ‘Bussin With The Boys’ and ESPN have also each recently partnered with Josh Pate ahead of the college football season. Then, per reporting by Front Office Sports on Wednesday, Barstool is expected to invest in a new media production company from Ryen Russillo, now formerly of The Ringer.

This all comes after Dave Portnoy was in the news to start this week because of his new role at FOX Sports, which also partnered with Barstool back in July. As part of that deal, Portnoy is to appear on their pregame show with ‘Big Noon Kickoff.’ Others around the Big Ten, though, seemingly have taken issue with that, starting with Ohio State seemingly banning him from their season debut on Saturday before revealing that to be a network decision by those at FOX.

On3’s Sam Gillenwater also contributed to this report.