The New York Times has written a hit piece on El Presidente of Barstool Sports, Dave Portnoy. The title of the article tells you much about the NY Times: “A RISKY WAGER Desperate for Growth, Aging Casino Company Embraced ‘Degenerate Gambler’”. The Times blushes behind her fan and pretends to be purer than Caesar’s wife for this piece. It’s not a good look for the Old Gray Lady.

Dave Portnoy, oof, I am not a fan. It doesn’t take more than a minute or two of watching his pizza reviews to realize he is a boor. In the video below, he and his employees (?) watch basketball in a fashion reminiscent of any Random Fraternity Row:

This is understandable if this is your 20 year old son or your husband in his underground lair, where you cannot hear the sounds and you are not responsible for cleaning up the pizza boxes or beer cans. Dave Portnoy is 45 years old and, mazel tov, he has monetized college dorm life. He doesn’t care what I, you, or the Times think of him. He is a free speech practitioner. During the Covid shutdown, he went on an absolutely epic rant, as Kim wrote here. He was posilutely right. I like people who are right.

I don’t know which offends the New York Times and writer Emily Steel more: that Dave Portnoy is having a good time and doesn’t care for their good opinion OR that he is worth a metric ton of money and they are not?

Here are a few choice lines from the article:

David Portnoy, who has a history of misogynistic and racist behavior, is now a public spokesman for the sports-betting industry.

Years before he became a controversy-courting media icon, gambling promoter, liquor pitchman and pizza reviewer, David S. Portnoy was drowning in debts.

He owed $59,000 to credit card companies and $18,000 to his father. In one year alone, he had lost $30,000 gambling, court documents show. In January 2004, the 26-year-old filed for bankruptcy protection.

Nearly two decades later, Mr. Portnoy rarely if ever mentions the bankruptcy. Yet he and his company, Barstool Sports, are urging their tens of millions of followers to dive into the fast-growing and lightly regulated world of online sports betting.

And:

At least 12 states, for example, allow gambling companies and their affiliates to begin operating on a temporary basis before undergoing full licensing reviews. In other states, regulators have taken relatively narrow views of who should face reviews in the first place.

Penn and Barstool have been beneficiaries. Twelve of the 13 states in which the Barstool Sportsbook operates have not licensed Mr. Portnoy, in part because Penn has argued, and regulators agreed, that he was not involved in running the betting platform. One state, Pennsylvania, granted Mr. Portnoy a license.

The result is that someone who, by dint of his influential position promoting a gambling business, previously would have faced scrutiny by regulators has instead sailed through and become one of the industry’s loudest cheerleaders.

Oh, there is much more. Mr. Portnoy dates women who are too young for him. Not only does he gamble (irresponsibly, in the Times view) but he promotes a vodka drink, High Noon. Oh where is the Women’s Temperance League now?

Fortunately, for those of us who are not woke elitists, Not the Bee has the Times number and calls them on it. They dropped this hit piece on Portnoy a hot minute after Sam Bankman-Fried was given a tongue bath for collapsing FTX in an article: “Why Did We Put So Much Faith in the Crypto Whiz Kid?” That editorial compared SBF to Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Edison. Perhaps because of all of the familial connections SBF has with the Right People the Times doesn’t want to get on his bad side. They will also write puff pieces about any hearings and how mean Republicans are.

The New York Times and Miss Steel are not only elitist hypocrites, but engage in bad journalism and lying. According to Not the Bee:

The story, by Emily Steel, claims that Barstool “did not respond” to repeated messages asking Portnoy to answer questions.

But in reality, the reporter behind this story was in touch with Portnoy for months, and Portnoy offered to sit down for an interview on multiple occasions.

They wouldn’t agree to his offer. Then they published the hit piece.

Right….There is a Bible verse about planks and specs the might apply to Caesar’s wife aka the New York Times. Dave Portnoy doesn’t pretend to be other than he is.

Featured Image: Zach Catanzareti/flickr.com/cropped/Creative Commons