Dave Portnoy Slams New York Times “Hit Piece”

A series of spicy stories by The New York Times about Dave Portnoy and the sports betting industry stirred the proverbial pot in recent days. As time goes by, more details surface. The Dave Portnoy story has had some developments but are they actually bringing up more questions than they answer?

Portnoy’s Tucker Carlson Appearance

Dave Portnoy – the Barstool Sports founder – appeared on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight show on Monday. He talked about New York Times’ “hit piece”, as he called it, in which – as he puts it – the Times is trying to make him look like a “scumbag”. He also showed rather compelling evidence that contradicted some parts of the report.

According to clearly legible screenshots of the conversation the founder of Barstool Sports had with – presumably – the author of the Times story, Emily Steel, he had initially offered a face-to-face interview. The New York Post reportedly received information from a Times spokesperson disputing Portnoy’s claim. According to the Post’s report, Portnoy had been given an opportunity to respond more than a week before the Times piece was published.

The clearly legible screenshots show Portnoy indeed asking for a video and audio-recorded interview. Portnoy said in his appearance with Tucker Carlson that he then reminded Steel of his offer a few weeks later. He also said that “she went ghost” for several months after that.

This puts Portnoy’s offer well before the Times’, so the relation between the two offers for a sit-down happened in completely different periods and contexts.

Both Sides Conflicting Each Other

There’s also a conflicting detail in the amount of time in which Portnoy had to react. According to the Post’s report, the Times had given him more than a week. Portnoy said in his appearance with Carlson that he had 48 hours to respond to the Post’s allegations.

The date on the first exchange between the two parties which informs Portnoy of the deadline would clarify this but it hasn’t been made publicly available as of writing this story.

According to Portnoy, the author “never had an interest in telling the truth”, and the report’s aim was to “build a case against” him. Tucker Carlson and Portnoy went on to speculate whether the reason for the report was that Portnoy was becoming “politized a little bit”. Moving on, Portnoy said that the Times is a “liberal rag that’s just like everybody else.”

The Times’ response to this was to clarify that the video showing the text exchanges was selective. If this is indeed the case, it might mean that while Portnoy was ranting about the Times not showing the full picture, he himself might have been doing the same.

According to the Times’ statement, multiple occasions on which the outlet had tried to reach out to Portnoy weren’t shown either. Also, contrary to what Portnoy said about the Times not wanting to listen to his side of the story, the statement clarified that there were indeed statements from him in the final piece.