Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy’s latest YouTube pizza review spiralled into an expletive-ridden shouting match with the shop owner.
Mr Portnoy, who has an estimated net worth of $100million, recently re-acquired his multimillion-dollar sports media company for $1.
He also posts content for his hundreds of thousands of subscribers including visiting pizzerias across the States and then reviewing the slices after eating just one bite.
He shares his “One Bite Pizza Reviews” on YouTube, where they garner hundreds of thousands of views, including the most recent one in which Mr Portnoy visits Dragon Pizza in Somerville, Massachusetts.
However Mr Portnoy ended up in a shouting match with the pizza shop owner, identified by The Boston Globe as Charlie Redd.
The media mogul began his review by noting the pizza is a “floppy mess” and then took his customary one bite. “Strong [taste of] parmesan,” he said.
A short time later, while Mr Portnoy was interacting with other customers and fans, Mr Redd came out of the pizza shop and told him: “Enjoy your pizza as any customer, but I don’t appreciate what you do – coming in and judging a business with one bite.”
While Mr Portnoy argued that he’s helping small businesses, Mr Redd walked away but not before stating: “I don’t see it that way.”
During a second interaction, things became more heated with Mr Portnoy and Mr Redd telling each other to f*** off. At one point, Mr Redd threatened to call the police.
“What are you gonna tell on me for, standing on a public street?” Mr Portnoy fired back.
“For being a f***ing b****,” Mr Redd replied.
The caption of the video read: “Dave went to Dragon Pizza and discovered the worst pizza shop owner in the history of reviews, and he and Dave got into a shouting match on the street.”
Meanwhile, Dragon Pizza posted a picture of Mr Redd flipping off Mr Portnoy on Instagram, alongside a caption which read: “F*** you and the Stool you came in on, Dave Douchebag. Your show sucks. You suck, and you truly are the classless tool I thought you are.”
Since the video was posted online, Dragon Pizza’s Yelp page has been flooded by new comments and reviews.
A notice on the site reads: “This business is being monitored by Yelp’s Support team for content related to media reports.”
Dave Portnoy, pictured in September 2022, said layoffs were underway at Barstool Sports— (Getty Images for SiriusXM)
One day after the altercation with Mr Portnoy, Mr Redd reportedly affixed a new, makeshift sign on the window of his pizza shop which read: “We’re not talking about it.”
The New York Post also reported that the pizza shop was full of customers, and one person rated Mr Redd’s pizza a 9 out of 10 - but agreed with Mr Portnoy that it was a ”little floppy”.
Earlier this week, Mr Portnoy said layoffs were underway at Barstool Sports, less than one month after he bought the company back from Penn Entertainment for one dollar.
During an appearance on Barstool Radio, he said: “I’ve been very clear. Anybody that’s paid attention, we are going to have layoffs and cuts, and they’ve started and it sucks.
“And people who know me from the beginning I hate firing people. You can be incompetent, not work and I generally don’t fire because I hate it so much. It’s the worst thing to f***ing do.
“Having said that, we’re in a position it’s a no-brainer. It’s not like I have that moral – well you can’t do it because nobody will have jobs. We’ll all not have jobs. So we have to get back to a break-even thing. We’re losing a lot and it sucks.”
