The Genius of Dave Portnoy

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Dave Portnoy is a god damn genius.

Unfamiliar with Mr. Portnoy? Weird, but if so, he founded Barstool Sports and has been the face of the brand since its inception over 20 years ago.

I don’t care if you hate him, or love him, you have to recognize his ability to drive interest and “pageviews” is second to none in the world of media.

I am calling him a genius without really referring to him building a media company from scratch and selling it for $550M and then buying it back for $1. Yes, 100 pennies. For more on this crazy business story, here’s an article.

I am simply referencing to him as a “genius” for his ability to draw viewership on content and keep people intrigued.

I mean his name is literally “Davey Pageviews”, self-proclaimed of course.

So, why am I hyping up Portnoy like a little fan boy?

Well, he’s had quite the week creating diss tracks and (diss) podcasts for one of the world’s biggest country stars, all in an effort to push pageviews to Barstool.

And it’s working.

The Drama

Ok, so… Zach Bryan and Brianna “Chickenfry” have broken up, as you probably know if you don’t like under a rock.

If you and Patrick Star do share the same house (shoutout SpongeBob), here’s a quick summary from my good friend Mr. GPT:

^{The relationship drama between superstar country singer Zach Bryan and Barstool’s Brianna "Chickenfry" LaPaglia took the internet by storm, especially after LaPaglia revealed Zach tried to enforce a $12 million NDA to keep things private—something she turned down. After denying the NDA, she alleged emotional manipulation and control, describing their time together as “toxic.” Barstool’s Dave Portnoy also became part of the conversation in support of Bri dropping a diss track and several social media posts attacking Zach Bryan’s character.}

Or yeah, I guess you could be like this person and have no clue what’s going on:

I am NOT here to discuss the crazy details of this relationship. I’m here to applaud Dave Portnoy’s response.

But I will say this on the relationship drama… I was obsessed with Zach Bryan’s music, been to a concert and literally the only thing I listen to in the car against my GF’s will. Although, all of the stories coming about him from Bri (if true, which I believe they are after a $12M NDA was offered and turned down by Bri, make him look like a d-bag and certainly taints the music for me. Will he lose a ton of fans? Maybe a few. But he’s definitely not the best guy. And I wasn’t a Bri fan prior. But she has won my respect turning down that money. And I will still be listening to Zach’s music, most likely. But still team Bri here.

Dave, The Rapper

Enter Dave Portnoy.

Maybe the best big brother Bri could have ever asked for. And shoutout Josh Richards for the awesome little brother energy.

READ ONLY IF YOU LIVE UNDER ROCK: Dave, Bri and Josh all have a podcast together called BFFs.

So, after news broke about the NDA Zach Bryan sent to Bri, and other details trickled out, Dave Portnoy and Josh Richards decided to launch a Diss Track ripping into Zach Bryan.

Besides the song being pretty catchy and good, Dave and Josh unloaded a bunch of unknown details in the drama in the lyrics of the song with them holding absolutely nothing back.

The song was called “Smallest Man”. An ode to Taylor Swift, who Zach once chirped on Twitter.

Dave and Josh were RUTHLESS.

Warner forced YouTube and other streaming platforms to pull down the song, so here’s a weird channel that somehow still has it up in the original form:

This thing went completely viral. MILLIONS and MILLIONS of eyeballs in 24 hours.

It was the perfect tee up to leave consumers guessing more about the details between Bri and Zach’s relationship.

So, what does Davey Pageviews do next?

Has his Barstool employee Bri wait to give out all the juicy details everyone wants to hear on their BFFs podcast.

AND bang, more viral content.

This puppy had more views in 3 days (over 3M) than any piece of content the YT channel has posted in four years of its existence.

Guilty as charged, I was streaming it live as it dropped it, while watching the Thursday Night Football Ravens/Bengals game on mute.

Dave got his views, he should be all set and happy, right?

Nope, he’s not done yet!

He released ANOTHER solo diss track called, “Country Diddy”. Hilarious name.

It’s been less than a week since all this has gone down, I doubt Dave is done capitalizing on the drama.

It’s been one of the ways Dave has kept Barstool relevant for so long, exploiting internal drama at the company between employees knowing consumers love to follow it.

We’re not all just tuning into Barstool for the great sports content they produce, we love the drama between the “characters” and you know it.

Ok, that was another edition of TMZ Daily.

Tune in next week for a breakdown as Hawk Tuah releases who “pookie” is. JK JK, although yeah, she is letting the world know, and I’m curious.

Shoutout Dave for being really smart.

See you next week.

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