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Friday night, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy revealed that The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand was about to report that he was removed from Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff, and laid the blame with Ohio State and head coach Ryan Day.
Portnoy spoke to Front Office Sports about how he found out, what his understanding was of Fox trying to smooth things over with Ohio State and the Big Ten, why he believes Day was so upset about his role on the show, the status of Wake Up Barstool on FS1, and if he has buyer’s remorse after playing a financial role in the recruitment of Michigan quarterback Bryce Underwood.
Shortly before publication, FOS reached out to Ohio State, the Big Ten, and Fox Sports for comment and will update this story with any response.
Front Office Sports: When did Fox tell you that you’d be done on Big Noon, and how did they communicate that to you?
Dave Portnoy: I found out Thursday. They called me and told me on the phone.
FOS: What did they say was the reason?
DP: Ohio State.
FOS: What is your understanding of what channels Ohio State went through to gripe about your participation on the show?
DP: It’s been basically since Day One. When Fox announced the deal, Ohio State objected to it instantly, to the point that Fox executives were in Columbus and were shown a 30- to 45-minute highlight tape of me ripping Ohio State and Ryan Day—all of the stuff that people familiar with me and Barstool have probably seen with the rivalry stuff. So, very upset that I would be added to Big Noon Kickoff.
If you recall, they actually prevented our [Barstool] show from going to Columbus. I went Year One, but our show was denied, and then I wasn’t allowed into the stadium. That became a big story—Ohio State denied that they did it, but really from Day One they were very unhappy with me being on the air. Any time anyone—not only me—would criticize Ohio State or Ryan Day, they would complain.
I believe the chain of action would be to complain to the Big Ten [commissioner] Tony Petitti, and then phone calls would be made to Fox complaining, and then calls would be made to me. I was put on the sidelines for three or four Big Noon Kickoff shows over the course of two years, or go to a different location, like Mississippi State last year, because the Big Ten complained.
That is the chain of command. It never went away. It was constantly like Ohio State [being], “We’re a big partner of the Big Ten, we have this billion-dollar relationship, and we can’t believe you’d do this to us. How can you have Dave Portnoy and Barstool? You must not value the relationship.”
It got worse and worse, to the point where I was supposed to be in Columbus two weeks ago. I was getting ready to go out there, and they told me to stay home because Ohio State had basically said, “If Dave’s there, we won’t cooperate in any aspect of the show.”
So, it just on and on became a more difficult thing for Fox. Kind of like I said, they have a billion-dollar deal with the Big Ten. That contract’s not up today, but it’s not that far off [mid-2030], and they’re trying to do all these things. I think when one of your biggest partners, Ohio State, is saying, “We’ll make your life hell if you keep working with Dave Portnoy,” it makes things difficult.
FOS: Did you ever have any meetings or communications with Big Ten officials to try to say this was all in good fun, or was it just Big Ten and Fox communicating on their own?
DP: I’ve never spoken to the Big Ten or Ohio State. I know it’s been offered by Fox and me, but no, they’ve never taken us up on that.
From what I gather, Ryan Day thinks I “doxxed” him. I’ve heard that a lot from not only Fox people, but people here in Nantucket. I’m not 100% sure he knows how the internet works, and I don’t even mean that facetiously. But like during the whole Harbaugh thing [the Connor Stalions investigation], when it was back and forth in the news every day, there was a story at On3 that said [Day’s] brother was running a spy operation against Harbaugh, which by the way is hilarious.
We talked about it, and I think a) he thinks I made that story up myself—he doesn’t realize it was a huge story already within the Michigan-Ohio State world, but he seems to think I somehow doxxed him with that. That’s the thing I always hear, that it somehow went beyond just Michigan vs. Ohio State, which it never did.
FOS: Fox has had controversial people before. Pete Rose on MLB coverage was able to continue pretty smoothly until other skeletons from his past came up. Were you surprised that they weren’t able to smooth things over here?
DP: No. I’ve said all along, and I think people know me, that if I thought Fox screwed up or could’ve done something differently or if I would’ve done something differently, I’d certainly say it.
I think Ryan Day lost his mind. I think Michigan kind of broke him [winning four in a row from 2021 to 2024], and I know it sounds crazy to say it but I think he lost track of reality. They tried! They tried to smooth it over.
When we did the deal, I remember sitting down, they were like, “We’ll introduce you by having you interview Ryan Day. It’ll be funny to kind of put it together.” I was like, “I don’t know if he’s gonna sit down [with me].”
In the scheme of billions of dollars that’s at stake with them and the Big Ten, to constantly be having to answer your phone every couple days, listening to complaints about why I’m the devil, it’s just like, “What’s the point? For what? What is the upside?” It’s not like all of a sudden Big Noon Kickoff was beating College GameDay because I was on it. I wasn’t even on the show that much, to be honest, it was like, what, 10 minutes of airtime? So it was like, what was it worth?
I got that. I didn’t like getting the phone calls. They didn’t like getting the phone calls. It seemed like Ohio State had half their staff just paying attention to every little thing we say.
FOS: What about Urban Meyer? Could he have been a bridge here? Did he ever try to smooth things over with Ohio State?
DP: I got along with Urban great. I don’t know that he ever tried to smooth it over or anything. I’m very friendly with Matt Patricia [the Ohio State defensive coordinator who previously held that role with the Patriots]. I was hanging out with him this summer and I mentioned to him that Ryan Day had banned me from the stadium. He’s so focused on football he couldn’t believe it. He was like, “Nah, there’s no way.”
I don’t think there was anybody on Earth who could smooth it over with Ryan Day, from what I’ve gathered. This is something that is a core tenet of his—that I’m a major, major headache.
FOS: Content-wise, how do you think it went with you on the show, other than how it ended?
DP: I think this affected everything because there was such a knee-jerk reaction to it from Ohio State that I think the plan was to maybe ease me into the show as we continued. I don’t know. I felt like I was never a huge part of the show, that I was maybe on for 10 minutes. I thought all the other Barstool people were good. But I never thought it was, like, unbelievable.
FOS: What is the long-term status of Wake Up Barstool on FS1 at this point?
DP: Nothing has changed to my knowledge with Wake Up Barstool. We obviously continue doing it every day. I wasn’t shocked, but I was surprised I was kicked off Big Noon Kickoff, so if they called me tomorrow and said, “Hey, we gotta shut the whole thing down,” I guess it wouldn’t shock me. But as far as I know, it’s all systems go right now.
FOS: We’ll get you out of here on this … do you have any buyer’s remorse on Bryce Underwood?
DP: No [laughs], I mean, we wish we were playing better. College sports is basically professional sports now. You sign people to contracts and they don’t always work out the way you want. Certainly, this season hasn’t started the way Michigan would like.
But, he was the No. 1 recruit in the country. You certainly can’t blame it all on him. He’s not playing great, but nobody’s playing great. But I don’t look at it that way with buyer’s remorse.
