Barstool Sports, which began life seven years ago as a free Boston newspaper whose only reason for existing was as a vehicle to hold ads for online gambling companies, has evolved into a popular Internet brand that is not so much about sports as it is a site for the beer-commercial version of guys who like sports. Think Maxim and TMZ for hockey fans, with an emphasis not on covering the culture but in crushing it.
“I think I have a line,’’ he said of the vicious tone of the site, where lives are dragged out in public and trampled. “But maybe I don’t.’’
Not everyone finds his methods funny, especially when it comes to his treatment of women, seen by many as extremely sexist. The site is littered with photos of scantily clad women; he openly fantasizes about what he would like to do with certain celebrities (if he weren’t married); and, each day, a local girl’s Facebook photos are turned into a pictorial as the “Smokeshow of the Day.’’
But for all its inherent controversies, Barstool’s popularity is unarguable. Over the first four months of 2011, Portnoy’s blogs averaged just over 962,000 unique visitors each month, according to ComScore, which measures Web traffic. “Viva la Stool’’ signs can be seen in the background of television shots everywhere from the Final Four to outside Buckingham Palace at the royal wedding to outside the White House the night Osama bin Laden’s death was announced.
“Growing up in high school, I played sports, and I was friends with the guys who played sports, the kind of guys who bust [chops] in the locker room,’’ Portnoy said, explaining the popularity of the Stoolie ethos. “There are groups like that at every school. This is just a real count of that.’’
Now Portnoy is taking that slash-and-burn sense of humor that has played so well locally — “I’d go toe-to-toe with anybody in the Boston media over our group, 18-35 year-old guys,’’ he says — and expanding aggressively into other markets.
