Barstool is the future of sports media. It's just time to accept it.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

ya i'll short that all day

Barstoolsports.com web traffic has tanked 32% over the last two years. They're declining, if anything.

The only other sports blogging site I can find that also had reduced traffic in that time period is deadspin. Bleacher Report, Fansided and others have increased traffic.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Barstool is in effect a startup company and is treated like one. They seem to be desperately trying to find a new way to grow which is normally a bad sign for the strength of the core business. They are trying to become a boxing and pay-per-view company, and by boxing and pay-per-view company, it's more like "Amateur boxing tournaments streaming on a website for cheap so basically bumfights with people with houses(probably)".

That's not to say they are failing. They will always have a niche, but they are dangerously close to having their talent poached by the bigger guys and they know it.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

they are persona driven, appealing to a younger audience... and the "presidente" is in his 40's and other key players are approaching their mid 30's...

yup. they're just a glorified podcast network dependent on a few aging men stuck in adolescence.

That seems to be a big difference between Barstool and Deadspin. Barstool is Portnoy. Deadspin has a distinct voice, but the people change all the time. Other than Magary, everyone else is grist for the mill, and no matter who comes and goes, the posts called "This Dumb Team Is Dumb For Being Dumb" continue.

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Their podcasts continuously top the charts, they sell a lot of merchandise, and brands continue to partner with them thanks to their audience being the prime market for advertisers.

The company is worth over $100 million dollars and is turning a profit, which is quite rare in digital media. Heck, their Barstool Gold already reached its year 1 subscription target within 3 days of launch. They are doing fine. You cannot say the same for traditional media.

I know this message board skews a little older than their target audience, but they own the 21-35 male demographic at a time where that demo is very tough to reach. That is the key to Barstool's success.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

Podcasting is not really a great business to be in. Who are the big names in podcasting?

Being worth $100 million in "whatever an investor will pay you" isn't really saying much. There is a reason they are shifting to the up and coming "amateur boxing tournament streaming" market and not just growing as to what got them to this point.

To me, they remind me a lot of the sites that were "the next big thing" and then kind of just leveled off and then went away. I'm guessing they do well enough to survive but it is concerning that they've had to take $25 million in funding and basically are still valued the same way as that one person had them valued.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

valuation is in the eye of the beholder (investor)

A couple of things. Barstool is very different than deadspin and Bleacher Report in that they have insane brand loyalty, and that their content strategy is based around the personalities themselves, not the substance of what they are covering. A lot of their readers have been with them since like 2011 (and even earlier for people in Boston),. As part of that, their core personalities have been interacting with their users on twitter and letting them into their personal lives for close to a decade, which allows them to feel more like friends and relatable common men (regardless of whether you agree), as opposed to deadspin, which is run by SJWs and people who have no appeal whatsoever to the typical non-pussy male 18-34. In that sense, Barstool has become more about the personalities' take on the content (usually news/sports pop culture stories), than the content itself, and the content experience more like a reality show than a sports content distributor. As such, to many readers, the Barstool personalities feel a lot more relatable and "common-man-esque." Because of the brand loyalty barstool has built (which will be undoubtedly be put to the test by the roll-out of Barstool Gold), their sustainability is far stronger than deadspin. While deadspin might not piss as many people off, they don't have even close to the brand loyalty that barstool has, which is what matters when comes to being able to monetize and grow your brand. In today's day and age where people have more choices than ever in content options, mild, "PC," mass approval entities (like deadspin) not nearly as profitable as polarizing entities with hardcore, loyal fanbases. Quite simply, many males 18-34 who disdain SJWs are more likely to enjoy barstool and find their guys to be relatable than what can be said for deadspin.

Sure, there are 18-34 male SJWs out there, but there aren't as many, and even of that group, they don't possess the same level of brand loyalty for deadspin that comes close to what barstool has cultivated. While it is true that there there are plenty are of 18-34 SJWs out there, a very very small minority of them are hardcore sports content consumers, which is not the case for non-SJW "common man" 18-34 males, which is who Barstool cultivates. Barstool is not expecting to convert their entire user base to Barstool Gold; they are hoping to convert a portion of their core base, which is probably realistic. There is no comparable "core base" for deadspin in terms of size and consistent site interaction (as evidenced by average numbers comments per article and twitter replies per site tweet.

Also Bleacher Report is not really in the same content space as barstool or deadspin, as they've sought to become a neutral, journalistic entity. They're moreso competing against likes of ESPN.com, and the Athletic. A buddy of mine (also 24), was spot on in my opinion by saying that The Athletic is "Bleacher Report for adults."

Great, they're still all trust fund kids just like Deadspin.

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Again, there has always been (and will continue to be) a side that likes them and a side that dislikes them. This is a surprise to literally nobody. But that the end of the day, the argument about business sustainability is an objective one.

and then these guys grow up and have bigger priorities than seeing if j-rad hit chad in the nuts during happy hour facebook live bro talk.

then the the next wave of 18-35 year olds will consume what the older loser guys are not

I agree that Barstool's problem is going to arrive when their core guys become too old to have appeal to the 18-34 demo (which is why you see Bill Simmons trying to hire as many high-personality young writers as he can (because his brand is facing the issue that will inevitably confront Portnoy and Big Cat in 10-15 years). However, I'd venture to say that your description of Barstool is a pretty gross misrepresentation and indicative of someone who has only encountered them on social media (which is admittedly catered toward college kids and a different experience than most of their content). If you listened to 10 minutes of redline radio, I don't think you'd would get that impression whatsoever. I'd also point out that literally zero of their core personalities were in fraternities in college, and that they had less than 10 employees for the first 6-7 years of its existence. It started out as a physical newspaper that Portnoy and one other employee were literally handing out to people at the Boston train station.

But regardless, my point stands that the fact that somebody (such as yourself) doesn't like Barstool and finds their podcasts "trashy" is literally a surprise to no one and doesn't change the fact that being polarizing as a media brand is no longer the threat to financial viability that it once was.

They are clearly concerned given they seemingly want to be an amateur boxing ppv service.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Are you aware of how small of a part of their company Rough n Rowdy is? Are you also aware that it costs relatively nothing to produce, and has been a profitable venture thus far? What is the downside to having one more profitable venture as part of your company's arsenal? They don't lose anything by having it or take anything away from their content by having it so long as it continues to be profitable. This would be like saying the Bears are clearly giving up on (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky seeing as they're running Tarik Cohen from the wild cat a couple of times a game.

How small it is the reason it is concerning a 100 million dollar company who supposedly is growing rapidly feels the need to do something with no logical connection to the core business.

The reason a startup that is still actively taking capital creates a second unrelated product is because of a belief the main product won't be growing enough to keep investors happy.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

They were valued at $100 million at the time of Peter Chernin's most recent reinvestment. That was before they acquired Rough n Rowdy, before their podcasts have grown to the point they are at now (which are quite high), and before they rolled out their premium service, which hit its year-end subscription goal within 3 days. If one were to offer Chernin $100 million for Barstool currently, they would get laughed out the door. Barstool is absolutely not perfect, and they do face significant growth challenges going forward likes all rising companies do. But to say they are trying to turn themselves into an amateur PPV boxing company was a really inaccurate statement that I felt like rebutting.

10 more pages...

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That subscription goal was laughably low. That is why they did it in 3 days.

Why not just post as Ogie?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Hey man if that's what you want to fixate on, so be it

Do you realize who you are talking to?

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Let me know how much revenue Barstool gets from comments per article and twitter replies per site tweet.

Deadspin has higher ad revenue from a more active website. You may discuss brand loyalty all you want...maybe Barstool sells a lot of bumper stickers. But Deadspin simply has more traffic, and more ad impressions. Furthermore, Deadspin has the entire Gizmodo Media Group behind it. The commission revenue from Kinja Deals alone is significant.

How many Barstool Gold subscriptions have they sold for $100 / year?

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

YUP

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This might shock you, but I'm not the only Barstool fan here.

As for the company, their boxing events only occur about every 2-3 months and it makes money for the company. Barstool isn't pivoting into boxing so much as they happened to uncover a niche which provides additional content for the company while also attacting more eyes to the brand.

Their biggest moves this year have been their new video shows on Saturday and Sunday. They are all gambling themed and with major sponsorships. The company knows their audience, targets them well, and then creates an environment where ad buyers pay big bucks to be featured on their various shows and podcasts.

You may thing ads on a podcast are not a big deal, but when the target demo is not listening to radio and there is a podcast with 2-3 million listeners per episode, then you can bet that brands will shell out to reach that audience in a medium that where ads cannot be skipped and where the audience is loyal to the content producer.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

Oh yeah they have the mighty Gizmodo Media Group behind them, which just laid off 15-20% of their workforce (including 20% of Deadspin's staff)

Meanwhile, Barstool is hiring and expanding. The new Chicago branch is a symbol of that expansion.

Tell me, which company is actually generating revenue growth and a profit?

heck, Univision is looking to possibly unload GMG, and they won't get anywhere near what investors would pay for Barstool. In fact, Gizmodo has imploded so much over the last few years that Univisoin is going to take a hefty loss when all is said and done.

As for Barstool Gold subs, Barstool reported that 81% of the subscriptions purchased have been for the $100/year package. I'm not even among them as I've been too busy to listen to much Barstool content over the last few months as I'm in my busy season. I expect I'll be buying the subscription in a few months when I actually have time to utilize it.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

Disabling comments because too many stoolies are racist!

They are brand loyal though.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

As I've said, Deadspin writers have colleagues, but Barstool writers have fans.

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and watch the comments end up returning as a Gold perk.

Dave will be laughing all the way to the bank.

Another thing to note re traffic, Barstool has spent the last 2 years encouraging people to use their app so the most loyal stoolies are consuming their content via means outside of the regular site.

I don't think Deadpsin has an app.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson