Barstool Sports has gone from getting laughed out of LA pitch meetings to landing deals with Netflix and Fox Sports in the span of a decade. Dan Big Cat Katz has been there for all of it, and Baker Machado gets into exactly how Barstool evolved from a scrappy independent operation to a content engine that the biggest names in streaming are now coming to them to work with. The Wisconsin NIL situation has reportedly cost Madison up to $68 million in game day spending, and Big Cat has been trying to get involved for years.
He also started a coffee company named after his rescue dog that has donated nearly a quarter million dollars to pet adoption, and is now putting a hundred percent of ready to drink can profits toward funding a thousand pet adoptions nationwide. Pat McAfee, Alex Cooper, Will Compton: Barstool has launched some of the biggest independent sports media careers in the business.
Baker asks what it is about Barstool that keeps producing breakout talent, what the future looks like for Big Cat personally, and where Diana Russini fits into the independent media landscape after leaving The Athletic. Plus his honest take on the Bears potentially moving to Indiana.
