Inside the Sports Site That Terrorizes Women

The other week, Dave Portnoy, the founder and chief of content of the sports blog Barstool Sports, did what he and fans of his site always do: ratcheted up an online spat to a fever pitch, transforming their collective rage at a perceived enemy into content. Even if it meant leaning into the type of social-media harassment and misogyny that Barstool is infamous for.

This particular roiling conflict dates back to October 2017, when ESPN announced it would be bringing in two Barstool personalities, Eric “PFT Commenter” Sollenberger and Dan “Big Cat” Katz, as hosts of a televised version of their wildly popular Barstool podcast, Pardon My Take. Sam Ponder, the host of ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown, was less than thrilled.

She tweeted out screenshots of a 2014 Barstool blog post in which Portnoy called her a “BIBLE THUMPING FREAK” whose primary job requirement was to “make men hard.” In a podcast that same week, Portnoy went on a rant while Katz egged him on, calling Ponder a “fucking slut” who should “sex it up and be slutty” instead of talking about being a working mother. ESPN canceled the TV show, Barstool Van Talk, after one episode, thanks in part to an internal pushback by more than a few ESPN employees, according to Sports Illustrated.

On Sept. 11, Ponder added a new allegation: Portnoy had said in a video that her daughter should have been aborted. Further, she claimed to have never wanted the network to pull the plug and was willing to make an appearance on their now-canceled show. Portnoy vehemently denies ever having made the abortion comment—though he and Katz admit they made disparaging remarks about Ponder’s daughter—and both Katz and Sollenberger insist Ponder had no interest in speaking with them and very much wanted their show gone.

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