Jay Mariotti Says Dave Portnoy Must Be Cancelled For BLM
Jay Mariotti says Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports must be cancelled for the sake of the Black Lives Matters movement.
In Mariotti’s estimation, Portnoy is “hatemongering” and his attempted apology last week for actions that some people found offensive were not enough.
“As always, Portnoy excuses his racism as comedy and satire, a copout Charles Manson could have tapped, I suppose,” he wrote in a column entitled “IF BLACK LIVES MATTER, DAVE PORTNOY MUST BE CANCELLED.”
“Like other megalomaniacs, he is too far gone for help.”
Mariotti then called on media partners working with Barstool to take steps against Portnoy and the company he founded.
“Peter Chernin, a film producer and former Fox TV executive, enabled Portnoy by buying majority control of Barstool in 2016,” he continued.
“ESPN, in another hazy stab during the John Skipper era, tried a late-night show called “Barstool Van Talk’’ that lasted one episode following a Bristol revolt. Inevitably, a gambling company chased the same crude-dude demographic, with Penn National Gaming Inc. spending $163 million in January for a 36 percent stake.”
Mariotti also highlighted Barstool’s relationship with NASCAR.
“Then there’s hypocritical NASCAR, which spent millions last year on a Barstool marketing partnership and only bought itself a perception crisis at the worst possible time,” Mariotti continued.
“The circuit took a historic step in separating from its racist past in the recent drivers’ march that supported black racer Bubba Wallace, yet the relationship with Portnoyism continues, somehow, which is akin to tying a noose in Wallace’s garage.”
It will be interesting to see if Mariotti is ultimately still relevant enough to warrant a response from Portnoy, who is immensely more popular these days.
Mariotti used to be a notable sports personality in his own right, but a messy scandal in his personal life essentially turned him into persona non grata.
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A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
