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Barstool Set To Top $200 Million In Revenue, Enter New Categories

“Fewer businesses are scared off by Barstool and more are looking to leverage their audience.”

Published

1 day ago

September 23, 2021

This year has been kind to Barstool Sports. According to Erika Nardini, the company’s revenue is set to grow by 33% this year.

In an interview with Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports, the Barstool CEO says she expects the company to top $200 million in revenue by year’s end. That is double the $100 million the company had generated by January 2020, when Penn National gave the company a $450 million evaluation.

“Whether it’s finance, sports, lifestyle, entertainment, military, parenting. We’ve really disrupted so many great categories. We create content that is funnier, smarter, sharper, shorter, more dynamic than most anybody else out there,” Nardini explained. “That’s the reason our brand and our company are growing so quickly. That’s the reason we perform so well for our advertising partners.”

She detailed some of the company’s upcoming projects at last night’s Upfront presentation for the advertising industry. They are diverse to say the least.

Barstool will enter the virtual kitchen arena with Barstool Bites menus distributed to restaurants nationwide and available to diners exclusively via delivery services. The One Bite frozen pizza line will also hit Wal-Mart stores later this month, being made available in 3,600 stories nationwide. Barstool also plans to open up branded bars later this year in Chicago and Philadelphia, and the company has already signed thousands of college athletes to Name Image and Likeness deals.

Additionally, the company will make its second entry into live sports with the arrival of The Barstool Hockey Cup. Barstool plans to put women’s hockey on display by pitting women’s hockey teams from Canada, the U.S. and Europe against one another for a weeklong tournament. Barstool will run the tournament without any outside help.

These moves follow recent announcements such as the company landing the rights to the Arizona Bowl and launching the Barstool Sportsbook in nine states. The company is now live in New Jersey, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Virginia, Tennessee, Arizona, and Colorado.

“Barstool is bigger than ever, I would say it’s hotter than ever and there isn’t really a category that we haven’t disrupted, except for live,” Nardini told Adweek.

The business world is no longer scared off by Barstool. In fact, they’re looking for more ways to work with the popular sports brand due to its ability to deliver a large audience, especially harder to reach younger male and female fans.

“The world is opening up for us,” Nardini told McCarthy. “We’ve gotten to a big enough scale where someone like Walmart says, ‘Hey, we want to sell more pizza. We want 22-year olds to come into Walmart.’ So what’s the best brand to work with if you want a 22-year old to come into Walmart? I think that’s us.”

BSM Staff

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Audacy & MLB Partner On Cubs World Series Podcast

“I believe this moment of the Cubs winning was the last pure, joyful, optimistic moment in the history of this nation,” Spiegel jokes in the trailer for the show.

Published

7 hours ago

September 24, 2021

BSM Staff

The Run: 2016 Cubs is the first collaboration between Audacy’s 2400Sports and Major League Baseball. The show will tell the story of the year the Chicago Cubs broke the curse of the billy goat and finally won the World Series.

The podcast has some real name recognition working for it. It will be hosted by comedian Roy Wood Jr. and 670 The Score afternoon co-host Matt Speigel. The series is being produced by Jody Avirgan, formerly of ESPN’s 30 for 30 podcast series and FiveThirtyEight. David Ross, Theo Epstein, and Joe Madden are all set to make appearances on The Run as well.

Not only will the show follow the Cubs, it will put the championship run in historical perspective. Segments of episodes will be dedicated to what was happening in Chicago and around the country during the playoff run as America was nearing the contentious 2016 presidential election.

“I believe this moment of the Cubs winning was the last pure, joyful, optimistic moment in the history of this nation,” Spiegel jokes in the trailer for the show.

Starting Monday, September 27, The Run: 2016 Cubs will break down every moment, game, and controversy the team endured in route to its first title in 108 years. There will be ten episodes in total with new shows being released every Monday.

BSM Staff

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Bloomberg Questions Adam Schefter’s Investment In Boom Entertainment

“O’Brien asked the company if they have a conflicts-of-interest policy, and they declined to answer.”

Published

21 hours ago

September 23, 2021

Russ Heltman

Courtesy: ESPN Images

The Walt Disney Company is ready for ESPN to start diving deeper into sports gambling, but one of their well-known employees is already wading into the space with an investment.

Bloomberg’s senior columnist Timothy O’Brien noticed that ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter was part of a recent investment round for Boom Entertainment. The company helped develop NBC Sports Predictor and is using the latest funding round to expand into “real money gaming products.”

Among the other investors is NFL owner Robert Kraft, sparking questions as to whether or not the investment is a conflict of interest for Schefter as he continues covering the league.

O’Brien had this to say on the matter: “That information is also valuable to gamblers — or anyone who might own, say, a sizeable stake in a newfangled gambling company interested in digital sports betting. Viewers, and Schefter’s 8.5 million Twitter followers, might end up wondering whether he will shade his opinions or bury important information if he directly or indirectly has money riding on games and athletes. It gives a whole new meaning to “NFL Insider,” but ESPN seems unconcerned.”

O’Brien asked the company if they have a conflicts-of-interest policy, and they declined to answer.

ESPN dove headfirst into gambling in recent years and have reportedly been hard at work on a $3 billion licensing deal with Caesar’s Entertainment and DraftKings.

“There’s a long way between embedded into the ESPN business model and licensing out,” Disney chief executive Bob Chapek said to investors at Tuesday’s conference. “Let’s just say that our fans are really interested in sports betting. Let’s say that our partners — with the leagues — are interested in sports betting. So we’re interested in sports betting.”

ESPN is ready to embrace gambling, and it looks like one of their most well-known employees is as well.

Russ Heltman

Russ Heltman is a daily news writer for BSM. He is the morning host and producer for 89.3 WMKV in Cincinnati, OH. He also works in gameday communications for FC Cincinnati and additionally contributes to the AllBengals blog for Sports Illustrated. Russ can be found on Twitter @RussHeltman11 or you can reach him by email at Heltmandm@yahoo.com.

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The Athletic Hires Firm To Facilitate Sale

“The Athletic boasts 1.2 million subscribers and had previously been in talks to merge with Axios or The New York Times, but those deals fell through.”

Published

1 day ago

September 23, 2021

Russ Heltman

Courtesy: The Athletic

The Athletic is back on the market after hiring a new firm to find a buyer at a $750 million evaluation. The Information reports the sports media company hired LionTree to expedite the sale process.

The Information confirmed that The Athletic has raised $145 million in funding since 2016 and was valued at $530 million last year. Their revenue has been healthy as well despite the sports shutdown in 2020. The Athletic is projecting $80 million in revenue this year, a 50% jump from the same 2020 figure.

By hiring the LionTree firm, the company is showing a more serious and defined approach to eventually being sold. The firm is looking to have initial bids submitted for The Athletic by October.

The Athletic boasts 1.2 million subscribers and had previously been in talks to merge with Axios or The New York Times, but those deals fell through.

“As a general matter of policy, we do not comment on rumors about potential acquisitions or divestitures,” a Times spokesperson told TheWrap at that time, while an Athletic representative echoed similar sentiments: “The Athletic does not comment on rumors or speculation in the market.”

Reports also surfaced around Fanatics being interested in The Athletic, but those never came to fruition. Talks with the New York Times dissolved because the two sides couldn’t agree on how to offer the site’s employees equity in the company.

Next year, The Athletic expects revenues to increase to $120 million as they continue their search for a buyer.