Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy is indeed permitted to attend the Super Bowl in Santa Clara after previously being barred from the Big Game, the NFL confirmed to Front Office Sports.
“Mr. Portnoy can buy a ticket to the game,” an NFL spokesperson said in an email.
Responding to the apparent un-banning, Portnoy told FOS, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” in reference to Ronald Reagan’s 1987 speech in West Berlin.
Portnoy’s permittance to attend the Super Bowl was first reported by TMZ.
In 2019, Portnoy, a vociferous New England fan, was kicked out of Super Bowl LIII, between the Patriots and Rams in Atlanta. He infamously mimicked a “dead fish” during the ejection. The forced removal came after Portnoy falsified a media credential for a Super Bowl event earlier in the week and was charged with criminal trespass; longtime Barstool podcaster PFT Commenter also falsified a media badge in Houston in 2017, when the outlet had been denied Super Bowl credentials.
The feud between Portnoy and Barstool and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell dates back to when Tom Brady was suspended over Deflategate. In 2015, Portnoy and Barstool employees John Feitelberg, Hank Lockwood, and Paul Gulczynski protested the suspension outside league headquarters in New York—and were arrested. Portnoy later distributed thousands of T-shirts and towels portraying Goodell as a clown with a big red nose.
Nevertheless, there were some signs that the beef was thawing. After Barstool made a wide-ranging deal with Fox Sports, there were frequent ad reads during NFL games on Fox for FS1’s programming slate, including Portnoy. Barstool personalities Dan “Big Cat” Katz and Michael Katic also did a sketch that aired on Fox’s top-rated NFL pregame show.
Barstool also has a partnership with Netflix, which for the past two seasons has aired NFL games on Christmas. Barstool’s video podcast licensing deal with Netflix is worth more than $10 million per year, FOS first reported.
Portnoy has a close relationship with Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and he sat in the owner’s suite at a road game in Tampa earlier this season.
