Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy turned an ABC News interview on its head when a reporter from Philadelphia affiliate 6abc suggested that he and his company — and white men in general — were truly the ones at fault after patrons held up a sign that read “F*** the Jews” at his bar in Philadelphia.
Portnoy, who is Jewish, shared a video on X detailing the incident and saying that after the story about the sign went viral, numerous outlets had reached out to him to talk about it. He agreed, and was talking to a reporter from 6abc when the whole thing went sideways and he caught the entire exchange on video.
“So @6abc begged me to do an interview about the incident at our bar. Since it was local I agreed. Then the reporter tried to say Barstool and I and white men were responsible for the incident. Austin started recording once it got contentious,” Portnoy captioned the clip.
WATCH:
So @6abc begged me to do an interview about the incident at our bar. Since it was local I agreed. Then the reporter tried to say Barstool and I and white men were responsible for the incident. Austin started recording once it got contentious pic.twitter.com/ug8CX83HHp
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) May 5, 2025
Portnoy explained that he’d been happy to do the interview initially, but that the outlet had pulled a “bait and switch” by pitching one reporter and then having a different reporter do the interview. The new reporter had then blindsided him with a quote claiming that Barstool Sports had created a “culture of harassment” and was therefore responsible for the hateful sign displayed by patrons — and things only went downhill from there.
“Then she shifts. Then she does what a media scumbag does,” Portnoy said. “She’s like, well, she pulls a quote out of her a** from like, I don’t even know, a made up journal?”
Portnoy cut to video from the actual interview then.
“Here’s who I would say is causing that type of environment: all these colleges who let Jewish kids get harassed on campus 24-7. I’ve been speaking out about this since it started. So these professors, I’d love to know — first of all, that sounds like a made up — I don’t know what that quote is,” Portnoy said to the reporter, asking where the professors were from.
The reporter pushed back, suggesting Portnoy was wasting time by asking for background information, but eventually revealed that the quoted professor was at the University of Virginia.
Portnoy then challenged the reporter directly, asking, “Who’s creating more hate right now in the world, would you say Barstool Sports and white men or college campuses?”
After a long pause, Portnoy clarified, “That was a question to you.”
“I’m a journalist, I’m asking the questions,” the reporter protested.
“I don’t play by those rules. What does that mean, you’re a journalist?” Portnoy shot back. “I’m a journalist. I run a big media organization. I just asked you a question … I asked you a question, you answer the question. You answer the question.”
The reporter continued to object: “You’re not running this interview.”
“All right, then, the interview is over,” Portnoy said, closing his laptop.
Cutting back to his direct video format, he added, “This piece of s***. ABC, the person who set it up, gave me one reporter, bait and switch to the other. F*** ABC! F*** ABC! … I forgot how much I hate f***ing journalists. This f***ing piece of s***!”
