Dealing with Cancel Culture & Haters, Podcasting & New York Sports I KFC Barstool DSH #357

So speaking of Drake actually, did you see Bobby Altoff got divorced?

I don't want to,

you know, start a rumor.

No, no, no, not that.

I just, I don't want to like kick anybody when they're down.

I went through a very public divorce myself and it absolutely sucked.

But I will say, I hate to say it, but like

saw that coming about a million miles away, man.

A million miles away.

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All right.

Finally got him in Vegas, guys.

Took a year.

It took a year, dude.

I was just talking to the guy in the lobby.

I said, you know, you reached out a year ago.

And I was like, when, when we're...

When we come to the Super Bowl, I'll be out in Vegas.

And I was like, he's going to forget.

It won't materialize, but I'm happy it did, man.

No, I'm like that, man.

I'm on top of it.

I appreciate that.

I'm very happy to do it.

I actually don't do many appearances.

I'm so used to having other people on my show that it's kind of nice to be

on the other side of things.

I noticed that, man.

I actually did notice that.

I want to start off with sports, man.

That's what you're known for.

So you're a Jets, Mets, and Knicks fan.

Yes, sir.

Which team do you see winning first championship?

Right now, I mean, the Knicks kind of came out of nowhere with this trade for OG, which had to be one of the best trades I think I've ever seen.

I know a lot of Knicks fans were so had their hearts set on RJ Barrett and IQ being like homegrown guys.

But I mean, the instant change on that team now, you know, he goes down with an elbow injury.

I think the Knicks almost, I'm almost, I don't want to say this, but I'm almost like a little happy.

Like, I don't want to, this happened with the Mets too.

When you get too good too quickly

and you think you're a contender, but you're not really yet.

Like this happened with, in the Mets in 2006, they went from like 85 wins to 97 in a year.

And it was like, we went from like, oh, maybe make the playoffs to like, we need to win the World Series.

And I think we needed to have a little more of like a smooth ascent, you know?

Yeah.

And I think with the Knicks right now as well, they have been smooth.

And all of a sudden people this year are like, can we win this year?

And I'm like,

it's a long road to get to, you know, to beat the nuggets, to beat the Bucks, to beat the top-notch dogs.

So I'm almost like,

you know,

don't trade away anything.

Don't go for broke in the short term.

Trust the process.

It's working.

Leon Rose has turned everything around.

So like, just keep moving.

I'd have to say it's them, you know.

But the Mets would have been my answer, you know, a couple years ago, but they took a

back, you know, took a step back.

I still think Steve Cohen will, when the time is right, just drop the wallet on the table.

I think he's biding his time, waiting for the right time.

The Dodgers right now are just like dominating everything.

So I feel like,

and I guess you could say, I guess right now for the first time, it's not all that bad being a Mets, Jets, and Knicks fans because you got Aaron Rodgers coming back, back, hopefully.

So at least there's a little bit of hope.

But in my experience, I'm 38 now.

So, you know, let's say about 30, 30 something years of a cognizant sports fan.

Anytime I've gotten hope is when I just get

crushed.

30.

So I try to, yeah, it's getting up there, man.

Like when you can, when you can start, you know, you start watching and really understanding sports around like eight, nine, 10 years old.

So like three decades of getting my hopes up or this is the year.

And I always say, for guys like me,

what are you a fan of?

I was a Giants fan when I lived in Jersey.

Okay.

And Yankees.

So, yeah, like for me, I always think we have it maybe the worst in all of sports because we have bad teams.

And in our own city, we have the Yankees, the Giants.

And, you know, right now, those teams are not shining.

But I got my hopes.

I have the hopes with the Rights.

Right.

You got two.

And they're the two best Super Bowls of all time.

Yeah.

You know, beating the Patriots.

And the Yankees had their dynasty when I was growing up.

I was born in the Bronx.

So I was a Mets fan in the Bronx behind enemy lines my whole life.

So people don't realize that when you're a fan of the little brother teams in New York, you're not even welcome in your own city.

So like I know that Detroit, the Lions have it bad.

I know that the Minnesota fans have it bad, but you're not.

When you guys lose, you all lose as a city.

You're all together all the time.

When I lose, I get dunked on by 75 of the population you know so we're the minority in the city we're the losers in the city it's just that's wild so you haven't witnessed a single chip i was 80 in 86 i was one was the when the mets won it so like i what i get worried about is that like does that count if there's sports gods up there are they saying well technically he got a championship in his lifetime because i worry man i'm sometimes like it out this long means you're a true fan it is it is getting hard yeah it's it's i am slowly as i get older and as they keep losing a lot

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A little bit of me dies each time.

We're like, especially this,

the 2022 Mets, I put my heart and soul into that team.

I was on the podcast twice a week.

We were doing, I watched every game.

We're doing live streams.

I'm following that team every single pitch.

And I was like, this is our year.

It's going to happen.

Something special's in the air.

And then it all fell apart.

And I was like, I had to check myself.

I was like, it affected me so bad

emotionally.

I was like, I will never let that happen again.

I will never let, I'm a grown man letting my own like emotions and feelings and mental well-being be this affected by a bunch of random guys I don't know playing on the field.

I was like, I can't do this ever again.

So that's your life, though, man.

I guess for living.

I guess so.

The only thing I'll say that's good is most of my brethren back home who are all rooting for those guys, when they lose,

It's just horrible.

For me, at least it's it's content.

I can turn it into something good.

You can buy it.

Yeah, so at least there's a

you know silver lining there so I got that going.

Yeah, you've been at barstore for what now 20 years not 20 I owe nine so we're pushing like 15 years.

Did you see this growth?

Hell no.

Hell no, man.

I came out of college.

I went to Fordham got my MBA.

All my friends were doing like, you know, finance route

and I got a job as an accountant at a school.

And I was just going to go like the finance route and kind of, you know, not that I

took some business classes, but like I have no idea what I'm talking about when it comes to making money or markets or anything.

But

so I was miserable at it.

I was a terrible accountant,

always on the verge of getting let go.

And so I started my own blog for fun.

I had been reading Barstool as like, you know, on the side at work, like when I'm goofing off.

And right around when I started to really read it was when Dave Porternoy was like, I'm looking to hire new writers in new cities because we've basically conquered Boston at this point.

And he was like, the first city I want to go to is New York.

That's our second biggest readership.

And so that just happened to line up with me starting my own blog.

And that, I mean, it was tiny.

It was just friends of friends of friends reading it.

So like maybe a thousand people were reading it.

But somebody, a bunch of my friends, sent it to him being like, you should check this guy out.

He liked it.

And

it actually was great because I wasn't sure about leaving my job because it was good pay, good benefits, all that.

But it came down to me and one other guy, K.

Marco, Keith Markovich was.

You still remember his name.

Oh, yeah.

No.

I mean, so we were partners for a while because he

he was like, I like both of you, but I can't decide.

How about you split the money, you split the workload, and you guys can keep your old jobs.

Wow.

Which was perfect for me because I was already blogging on the side.

So I just blogged for Barcelona now.

I was getting double income.

And so for two years, I was an accountant and a blogger.

And nobody at my accounting job knew that I was blogging.

And none of the readers in the Barcelona world knew that I had an accounting accounting job.

So I kind of double life.

Yeah, it was like a

Batman swing type thing.

What's that?

Was it under a different name?

I go by my initials

on, which is not exactly the most,

you know,

the best secret name, code name.

But I just didn't want it to be like Kevin Clancy because I would have got caught up on that.

So I said, just go by KFC and

the rest is history, man.

But it's cool to see you adapt because obviously blogging is kind of dead now, but you were able to pivot into podcasting.

Yeah, I still believe that my strongest suit is blogging.

I really believe

probably like 2012, 13, like 11 to 13, I feel like I was.

That was your peak.

Oh, man.

I was MVP of the league at that point, man.

I was blogging.

I was like just seeing the Matrix, you know?

But yeah, I knew

I knew I.

I put all my eggs into the podcasting basket.

We started

the podcast in 2012.

Wow.

That's early, man.

That's a Rogan week.

Yeah.

Rogan, Kevin Smith, Combat Jack,

there's a few guys, Bill Simmons were ahead of me as far as big names.

But

I'm up there.

I'm up there as far as the early adopters for sure.

And I didn't even, it's the worst podcast name in the world, KFC Radio.

So bad.

I just, I never thought, Again, like you asked, did I see this happening?

To answer your original question, no.

I was just kind of like f ⁇ ing around.

whole thing was, I just want to get out of the cube life.

Yeah.

So, once Barstool was solid enough for that, Dave gave me, you know, it was probably 50 grand.

I was like, I'm good.

I don't know.

Everything else after that is icing on the cake because I just don't want to go back to that miserable corporate life.

And then the podcast, I was doing it with my brother, who's my producer.

So it was kind of like fun as much as it was work.

And I was like, I don't know what to call it.

I don't know.

You know, KFC radio.

At that time, I listened to WFAN radio in New York.

So I'm like, I got the letters.

I'll just call it radio.

And now it confuses everybody.

They think it's about chicken.

They don't know if it's a podcast.

Is it radio?

Is it podcast?

It's the worst name, but I'm in too deep now.

I get asked if you eat KFC every day.

All the time.

Finally, just this year, right now in Vegas.

for the Super Bowl was the first time KFC finally sponsored us.

No way.

For years, I was like, come on, guys.

It's right there.

And I think they were a little cautious of us.

They're so corporate, right?

Yeah, we get a little wild on the podcast.

And they finally like eased in and

bought into us for a couple episodes as a presenting sponsor so that was a bucket list item checked out that's a huge bucket list

kfc on kfc man love that i mean you made the right choice man these podcasts are getting acquired for eight nine figures now nuts it's crazy watching the watching the the gold rush you know um

are you interested in coming on the digital social hour podcast as a guest we'll click the application link below in the description of this video we are always looking for cool stories cool entrepreneurs to talk to about business and life click the application link below and here's the episode guys.

Because, you know, we've been around for a while and I like to think that we paved the way for a lot of the Barcelona podcasts.

I'm sure you did.

You know, guys like Pardon My Take and Spitting Chiclets and Foreplay and Call Our Daddy, Chicks in the Office, all these other shows we have just

skyrocketed.

And we, you know, we're in the comedy realm, which is a lot of competition and a little bit more of, you know, our niche.

But watching those guys just erupt into, you know, megastars and seeing some of the numbers being thrown around in the podcast game are

insane.

the rogan is re-signed for 250.

dude i thought

i thought what is what is that about do you i mean i don't get it 250 and your audio and video can go on apple and youtube like i don't get it what are they getting other than just their name is still somewhat attached to him yeah i don't understand it for a quarter of a bill there's got to be something going on there no

the fact that they let alex coopero just completely walk yeah and threw 250 at rogan for non-exclusive is like maybe it really just speaks to the power of Rogan, where it's like, I know he's the top dog, but maybe he really is just the top dog.

That was interesting because Cooper's number one still, right?

Yeah, I think.

I mean, in terms of viewers, she's interesting in that a lot of her value to, I shouldn't speak for her because I don't know her business anymore, but when she was at Barstool, her merch was like crushed crazy.

And while I'm sure she was making a lot off of ad reads and partnerships, merch and live shows now that she's doing, so it's not necessarily just the actual video product.

But I think it was actually an interesting play by Spotify.

You know, Rogan was 2020.

Cooper was 21.

I think they just made their, they went all in to get that market share.

Yeah.

And it worked, right?

It became, I think, number one in streaming.

And then I think they were kind of like, the job is done.

So like, go do your thing, Alex.

But to be like, but we're sticking with Rogan.

And he, I mean, imagine that.

You go to the table and you're just like, yeah, 250, but I can still post it everywhere.

And they say, okay.

It's crazy.

but cooper won too she still made 60 mil and she has to walk away now and now to have to have all your rights back if she does youtube right she'll be i actually i think spotify did retain the video on that actually oh they did but when she you know the day that she can be fully fully independent and uh you know she negotiated the ip from barstool like a like a gangster uh and the day that she can just be on youtube if they do that correctly she'll you know she's gonna take over the world anyway but even more so you know yeah i know your drake post went viral what did you think of i mean mean, that whole incident?

I mean, listen, you think it was a net positive for him?

See, yeah, that's the thing.

It's easy to say that as a couple guys sitting here did not have a video of them masturbating me.

It's, you know, I don't think it's the worst thing in the world when you are a single guy

and the world finds out that you got an absolute hammer.

But I'm sure, you know, you could be blessed with an absolute wrench and still not want the world to see you in that position.

So

it's probably like a business-wise and like internet-wise net positive.

But I'm sure if he had his way, he'd rather that not be out there.

Yeah, he seemed pretty upset.

He's still that cruel guy.

Yeah, you just told me that.

I mean, that to me is the lowest of the low.

When you leak.

Leaking sex tapes, sex, even just texts.

Anything really meant to be private.

But when you, unless you've done something illegal or truly heinous where you need to be exposed, if you're in a relationship or

whatever it may be and you're doing something that's supposed to be private,

anybody leaking that, whether it's the person you were with or a third party, is just, to me, it's the lowest of the low.

Yeah, it's happened to a lot of slugs.

It's happened to Dave a few times.

Yeah, yeah.

Federal crime.

It's a federal crime.

Oh, it is to leak it?

Yeah.

Well, that was Dave's, Dave, anytime.

He kind of had some fun with it.

Dave's a good example.

Like that video, he always said,

I didn't look too bad in it.

So it's not the worst thing for me.

You know, it depends on if you've got a family, you've got kids.

It can be very different for a lot of different people.

But he was like, I don't know.

It doesn't bother me.

Yeah.

It didn't affect sponsors or anything?

You know, I shouldn't say that.

I don't know exactly the ins and outs.

I don't think sponsors really bail because I think that can almost be a bad look for them where it's like, I'm the victim here, and now you're going to

unless it's if I think if you get leaked doing something, again, something illegal or bad.

But technically, that's just a private moment that he was having.

So I don't think he lost sponsorships.

Dave is a lightning rod.

I think there are sponsors who just, in general, stay away because polarizing.

Yeah, you know, maybe there is another sex tape that pops up and we don't want to deal with that.

Or maybe you do say something crazy.

And

we all have a little bit of that at Barstool.

I mean, Dave is kind of

the top dog of it.

I would say I kind of am second in line when it comes to maybe being a little bit.

Yeah, you and Big Cat are definitely outspoken too.

Yeah, yeah.

Dan's pretty smart about it.

Dan, Dan picks and chooses his spots.

You put me in front of a microphone and I just get going.

I just can't help myself.

I don't know if it's the New Yorker in me or if I just don't, I don't know, I don't care.

Yeah.

I reached a point, it was like, probably like three or four times that there was a legitimate attempt to, you know, quote unquote cancel me or whatever.

And

once I made it through those, I was kind of like, all right, I got an, I have a loyal enough fan base that like they're sticking with me.

Yeah.

I don't want to say like I'm bulletproof because nobody is, but as long as I don't do anything terribly stupid, I feel like anybody who comes at me for a joke or a segment on the podcast or something that I went over the line, it might be a couple weeks of bad headlines and people bothering me on social media, but my core audience.

At this point, when you're in it for 15 years, people know whether you're a true

who's a bad person or

behavior, or if it's just like, yeah, you said something stupid or that joke aged poorly or whatever it is.

If you can skate on that, you can skate on anything, man.

So,

but I mean, yeah, I think it's authenticity at the end of the day.

It's like, if you are posing to be one thing and then there's,

you know, video or something that comes out that shows you like the exact opposite, it's like, well, now we don't believe anything you say.

But if it's kind of like, yeah, I don't know, this is who I am and who I'll always be, they're just like, okay.

Yeah, if you own it, like Theo Vaughn owns all his jokes, even though some of them are wild.

Sure.

I mean, don't cancel them.

I mean, jokes are, if you get bent out of shape about jokes still, I don't know.

You know, you guys had your moment, you know, for the last five years or so getting upset about jokes.

I think the world has finally kind of come back around a little bit on that.

We couldn't even say gay jokes for a while or use certain words.

And it's like, again,

if you don't look at the context or intent,

it's like you just, you're viewing it through

the most childish lens

in the world.

It's like, why aren't, why aren't, why does that not matter?

Obviously, certain words and certain things are completely out of, you know, off-limits, but anything else is like, did you listen to the whole conversation or did you listen to the context it was said in?

Yeah, you could clip out any five seconds of any interview and find something terrible.

And especially, I mean, I've done, I don't even know how, I don't even count episodes.

So, I mean, two or three episodes a week for 15 years.

You're talking a couple hours a day, a couple hours an episode.

I'm going to say, dumb shit.

I'm going to be wrong.

I'm going to age poorly.

I'm going to, you know, all that shit.

So when there's these new podcasts who have been around for a minute and they're throwing stones, it's like, well, give it a decade and go through a couple different, you know, political administrations, go through a couple different,

you know, movements of paradigm shifts and whatnot.

And you'll probably sound stupid 10 years ago, too.

For sure.

Athletes get in trouble for their tweets from 10 years ago.

All the time.

And it's like, I think, you know, you don't want to be like a flip-flopper or a phony, but if you haven't changed in 10 years, if your sense of humor is the same at, at you know 21 as it is at 31 as it is at 41, you're probably a douchebag.

You're not evolved.

Yeah, you got to you know grow a little bit and part of growing is also being wrong or you know changing styles or whatever it may be.

Absolutely.

So speaking of Drake, actually, did you see Bobby Altoff got divorced?

I don't want to

start a rumor.

No, no, no, not that.

I just, I don't want to like kick anybody when they're down.

I went through a very public divorce myself and it

absolutely sucked.

But I will say, i hate to say it but like

saw that coming about a million miles away man a million miles away and and not even i know i know people speculate that like her and drake hooked up yeah yeah

i really don't even think that is the case i just think it's when you're married and you have kids and you have your life and it's just set in a very normal cookie cutter kind of expected way

And then you go mega viral, mega quick.

I mean, she went, I feel like viral gets tossed around pretty casually these days.

Like, oh, your tweet got a lot of retweets, fine.

Like, viral is like your life changed, you know?

Right.

She went from, I made TikToks, funny TikToks about breastfeeding with my kids to I'm in bed with Drake in like a year.

Not even.

Not even, right?

Like a matter of months.

And I mean, that's just so much for a relationship to take on.

Right.

You got to be rock solid.

You got to have the perfect partner.

Sure, it's tough for a guy to feel that way.

You know, probably these weird emasculating issues.

And all of a sudden, you're the breadwinner and you're the famous one, whatever it may be.

That felt like a lot.

It's a sad scene because I know they got kids and it sucks.

I don't want to speculate why, but

I do know myself having gone through a divorce, like if you don't really address the fact that like

I kind of put my head in the sand and was just like, all right, this is not a normal job, but I'm not going to be famous.

I'm not going to buy into it.

I'm not going to drink the Kool-Aid.

I'm just a normal guy.

And it's like, you're really not.

You got to accept it and like address it because if you don't, you're going to, it's just going to like, it's a juggernaut.

It's, it, once things start to really get cooking and everybody knows you and you, you know, people recognize you in public and people start to search your family and DM your, you know, like that.

It's just, you got to really make sure you work at it and handle it.

Absolutely.

And, and that, you know, it was a fraction for me and 10 times 10,000 for her.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm not as famous as you, but yeah, my girl gets some DMs sometimes and it's super weird.

Bro, if you are a person who has a,

you're a fan of somebody and you ever like seek out their family, girlfriends, boyfriends, kids, parents, and then even just to find them and follow them is a little bit weird.

But there's a couple people I probably do that with.

But to DM them,

even if you're nice, it's crazy.

And then harassing them, you're the biggest f ⁇ ing in the world.

I mean, that is.

Oh, they were harassing your ex-wife?

Yeah.

I mean, all sorts of people just sending rumors that aren't true.

And I mean, just terrible shit.

It's like, what is wrong with you animals?

Yeah.

We hide all her stuff.

Like, she's private.

Yeah.

Well, again, that's like, if I could do it all over again, this is early, you know, 2010, 11, 12, 13, where it's like

it was not this, you know?

And I probably should have had a little bit more foresight.

But we were, you know, public and Instagrams and pictures.

Public relationships, man.

I feel like they never work out.

Dude, it's tough.

It's really tough.

And I wish, I really wish I had known that and I would have operated very differently.

But that's kind of always been my thing is I'm like, my fans are kind of watching me grow and go.

I mean, I started as a 25-year-old, like single dude who has gone through, they watched me get married, they watched me have kids, they watched me get divorced, they're watching me grow professionally, personally.

So

I definitely don't have the blueprint, but I can tell you, you know, what I did wrong before it.

So yeah, it is.

That's one thing I can definitely tell you if you're doing this shit.

Keep your shit private.

Absolutely.

Especially when, even if you get the itch to be like,

let's go public, let's make it official.

You can't go back on it.

Once it's out there, it's out there.

So even if you think the moment's right,

you can't undo it.

It's tough, though, because you want to show your love and posting on social and stuff, but it's like,

I mean, I've always been like an open book.

So I'm like, I do want to show if I'm, if I'm with somebody, I want to show it.

If I'm not, if I'm single, I want to show it.

And I'm like, I just kind of leave leave it always ambiguous because uh it's just not worth it for that person or the headache that comes with it I mean Barcelona's a little different too Barcelona can get pretty

you know it's they're they're probably

I was thinking about this the other day with Pitchfork and Sports Illustrated went down in like the same week after every other media outlet over the past few years.

I'm like, Barcelon almost feels like one of the last ones left.

That's like a website and a media company that's not just like individual influencers.

Yeah, ESPN, Barstool.

I can't think of many more.

Yeah, and even ESPN is such like a corporate, you know, like they're so tied into sports television where it's like.

That doesn't even count.

Yeah.

And

so we have, you know, this very rabid fan base that is amazing and can make us, you know, very wealthy and open up opportunities, but are also a little bit weird when it comes to the personal shit.

So you got to give and take.

Well, it's because all your lives are filmed, right?

You're filmed at the workplace.

So they're like invested in your life.

Totally.

I mean,

it's almost like sports in a way.

Like you have the guy, like the teams you root for, the guys you root for, the shows you like, the people you don't like.

You want to see your guys succeed.

You want them to be bigger than the guys you don't like.

New players come in almost like rookies.

There's the veterans.

It's almost

a little bit of sports.

And I say it's almost like a little bit like...

Kardashians for guys, you know?

Whenever we talk about that pop culture,

Bravo type shows or the Kardashians,

guys are always like, who cares?

And I'm like, you realize you do that with us.

You gossip about us and our personalities and what we do.

So don't act like you're above it, man.

Absolutely.

You guys must have one of the biggest podcast networks in the world because

yeah, no, I mean, we literally do.

I remember when that first started.

It's still weird now.

I don't even know how you measure.

It's still the wild, wild west when it comes to measuring podcasts.

There's Pod Track and there's Apple rankings and there's the rankings so weird though.

They're all still so Fugazi, man.

It's like, you know, this show's number one because they are brand new for the moment, but then they settle in and,

you know, this show's not measured by this company, so we just throw that out there.

Dude, it's so weird.

I'll be number one one week and then 100 the next week.

It's like,

I really try not to look at that because it's just like, again, I've seen so many podcasts come and go.

And maybe they were number one when we weren't, and now they're totally gone.

And we kind of just stayed, you know, where we're at.

So we got that longevity.

But yeah, I think literally we're,

I think for sure, like top 10, maybe top five of the shows.

I mean, some of your shows are getting millions in episodes.

Yeah.

Caleb's crushing it.

Caleb is one of the most recognizable people on the internet.

Busting with the boys.

Bustin is well on their way to kind of doing that McAfee thing.

Part of my takes, obviously, like Top Dog and King.

We got chicks in the office in the female space.

Dave's got his show, too.

I mean, yeah, Dave just launched another one with Ryan Whitney from Spit and Chickless, which is another juggernaut of a show.

They've got their own liquor.

They're dominating the NHL.

Breonna Chicken Fry is probably going to be bigger than all of us combined when she really starts to hit her prime.

It's always the girls, man.

They crush it.

It's almost, I'm jealous of it because I watched those girls come up and I actually feel like out of all the male shows at Barstool, KFC Radio probably has the best split of male and female.

I think most people think Barstool is like 95% men and it's really not the case.

But particularly with KFC Radio, I think we're close to like 60-40.

It's almost like half and a half.

That's probably like 70-30.

But even still, there's a very big chunk of girls who watch it.

But when they finally got actual female shows to relate to, they were just like so happy and relieved.

I think that's why Call Her Daddy became the phenomenon it was.

And then

all these live shows that the girls do, I mean, the fans show up with signs and they dress up and they're screeching and screaming for them.

They just love them.

So I think it's kind of a little bit, they like to see, you know, the girls hanging out with

the girls dominating the guy space.

They really rally around that.

It's very cool to see.

Absolutely.

What do you think the next wave is?

I know live streaming is getting huge right now.

Bro, the streaming is, the streaming is the one thing.

So like I said, I feel like blogging is my biggest strength.

But I was like, I'm pretty good at podcasting.

I used to be very awkward on video.

I hope that I've gotten better.

I work at it.

As far as the apps, like I was, we

very heavy Twitter company is Barstool.

And then we got onto Instagram.

And I found TikTok very hard for me to like crack that nut and adapt to that.

Streaming is another thing where I feel like it might be old dog new tricks.

Like, I don't know.

I don't know if I have that in me.

I mean, it's very, it's interesting to me that these kids will just turn on a stream, turn on a camera, and just kind of f around.

Play a video game, play some music.

You know,

when the lights are on, there's a mic, I feel like I need to like perform.

I need to have a rundown.

I need to like not have any dead air.

You're locked.

Yeah, I need to keep it moving.

And it's the wave is much more like, just chill, you know?

And

that's very foreign to me.

So I don't know if I can, I don't know if I have that in mind.

It feels like being signed in that space here.

It's crazy.

So do you think like all the Aiden Ross that happened last couple weeks feels

part of me is like it could be real because these guys are making money hand over fist and we're talking about rappers and streamers who all are very famous now.

But also a lot of it tends to be like, it could be very scripted if it, if, if, if you wanted to.

Yeah, there's so many coincidences some of them have to be scripted right yeah and like you know handing a duffel bag of cash to to playboy cardi for two million dollars i'm like was that is that real like was he gonna take that was that was kick gonna sign him to a two million dollar deal and they said hey let's make a spectacle of it you know like that so i'm a little bit i'm a little bit skeptical because i've seen every wave on the internet and i know which ones you know are real and stuck around and i've seen which ones have been fake and kind of faded out um they're eating at Twitch, though.

Kick and Rumble.

Didn't Barstool sign with one of those?

Yeah, we, we, uh, we have a deal with Rumble right now for the year.

Uh, all of our shows now live on Rumble.

Oh, all of them?

Yeah, everybody.

You can't post on it.

No, no, it's not exclusive, but it's like everybody, uh, it's kind of like a almost like a rate of first refusal.

Like, everything goes to Rumble first, a little bit of an exclusivity period.

So it's not a full exclusivity, but they get a little preferential treatment.

Um,

yeah, I mean, Twitch was top dog, right?

And I feel like, you know, Kick kind of, where's Kaisinette?

Is he on Twitch?

He's either on Kick or he's on, he got banned on Twitch.

Right.

That was the thing.

I feel like Twitch got a little too big for their britches where they were like, they banned Aiden.

Right.

And I think that was a bad move.

I think, uh, I think there was a couple guys who did some fed up stuff that I understand,

especially they got a younger audience, right?

But there was a couple like things that were like, that wasn't, you know, the best, but not bandworthy.

Yeah.

And then you, you know, you go to a competitor and next thing you know, you lose that market.

You lose it.

There's two corporate because Amazon owns them.

And I think Barstool has done a great job at being independent, right?

No one tells Barstool what to do.

We've had two companies that,

two like corporate groups that, you know, bought into us.

We had the Cherning Group, which is a production company out in L.A.

The initial time that we got like real money.

Yeah.

And they were amazing.

They were like...

hands-off.

They very much understood if you buy into us, but then change the people, what's the point of buying Barstool?

And then Penn was a casino conglomerate out here and all over the country.

And they, when, once gambling got legalized,

that was a big time accelerator.

I think Dave always said he's like, was waiting for the

legislation to change on gambling.

And he thought it was going to happen 10, 20 years down the line.

And it happened within five.

And so they bought us,

I think the final number was like

$640 million.

Damn.

to work with their sports book and promote their

wild.

We used to talk about like almost as a pipe dream like hey man wouldn't it be crazy if one day we sold this thing for like a hundred million dollars yeah and i used to be like

no way

and then uh i'll never forget dave uh was like can you grab a coffee tomorrow morning it was at the super bowl in miami so like four years ago whatever it was And I thought I was in trouble.

I think I had just sent a tweet that was going viral for the wrong reasons.

And he had texted me the night before being like, why the f ⁇ did you send that tweet?

And then he was like, let's go get a drink.

Or let's go get a coffee.

And I was like, I'm out like he's never

i've gotten like slapped on the wrist but he's never been like we have to talk about this so you thought you're i was getting in trouble and then he was like so we've been sold i was like

and he kind of paused and he was like um

the number's pretty good and i was like word i think initially he told us it was like 450.

yeah and then there was like a

A bonus.

Yeah, something if we hit certain numbers went up to 600.

So I think I ended up $600 million.

And I was like, bro, for a guy who, again, like never thought I was going to be in media, never thought I would be famous, never thought any of that shit, never thought I would have a fan base of any sort

to be a part of a $600 million ride is like crazy.

And you were there from early days, like early days.

I believe I'm employee number three.

Damn.

Dave is one.

He has his right-hand man, Gaz, who was like, he was the original sales guy who then turned into like our social media guy.

He's kind of like...

He was

Dave's wife at the time, like her friend.

And so he was just kind of around.

I wouldn't even count that.

You're basically the first.

Yeah.

And, you know, I shouldn't say that because

when Barcelona was in Boston as like a newspaper, there was

a couple guys who were Rear Admiral wrote about hockey.

Jerry Thornton, this guy wrote about the Patriots.

Pete Manzo, there was a couple guys who were predated me, but once it was like Barcelona Sports, the website, I was the first expansion content guy.

That is so cool, man.

Yeah, it's a cool thing to be in on the ground floor of, I got lucky, but it was,

I don't know how I would have lived if I didn't have a job that I was like passionate about.

So it's been a fun ride to, it's been good professionally, but it's been good, you know, a lot of opportunities, a lot of cool shit.

It's been

good.

Love that, man.

Well, what are you working on next, and where can people find out more about you?

So, right now,

we are

kind of at a transitional period in Barstool.

Big Cat went out to Chicago.

Dave's in Miami.

So, I'm kind of the last one left in New York.

And I'm trying to kind of rally

the office there to put out some content.

So

I'm kind of trying to launch like a Barcelona origin idea where every month there's about four different videos coming out from the Barcelona New York office with all the employees there that I'm kind of like overseeing, hoping that works out.

Right now my bread and butter is kind of in the comedy space.

And we got a couple ideas for

almost like a tiny desk.

at NPR, but for comedy instead of music.

I really want to work with the new like up-and-coming comics in New York.

I think that's going to be a big hit.

But the podcast is KFC Radio.

We've got Answer the Internet, which is our YouTube stream.

My co-host, John Feidelberg, has a sketch show called Out of Order.

And I'm on social media doing my one-minute man videos, which are just like the news updates of the day.

So

I'm all over the place.

It's KFC Barstool on all social media.

KFC Radio is the podcast, and the streaming channel is on Rumble and YouTube.

So

anything KFC, that's it, man.

Love it, man.

I appreciate it, bro.

Thanks so much, man.

Absolutely.

Thanks for watching, guys.

See you tomorrow.