David Portnoy (born March 22, 1977) is an American blogger and founder of the sports and pop culture blog Barstool Sports. Early life Portnoy grew up in Swampscott, Massachusetts. He is Jewish and had a bar mitzvah. He attended Swampscott High School and one of his high school classmates was ESPN's Todd McShay, who, coincidentally, was born on the same day as Portnoy. He began attending the University of Michigan in 1995 and graduated with a degree in education. While at Michigan, Portnoy founded thegamblingman.com, a website where he published his sports betting picks. Career After graduating from the University of Michigan in 1999, Portnoy moved to Boston and began working at Yankee Group, an IT market research firm. Barstool Sports After four years, Portnoy left the Yankee Group and founded Barstool Sports in 2003. The early iteration of Barstool was a four-page sports newspaper that Portnoy handed out on subway platforms and street corners in Boston. The paper was meant to appeal to young men and rejected political correctness. Early advertisers in the newspaper included offshore betting websites such as PartyPoker.com, which was operating in the United States illegally. The contents of the newspaper was originally solely written by Portnoy, but freelance writers, including Todd McShay, joined the paper. At first, the paper struggled, but gained traction in 2004 when Portnoy began placing photos of women in bikinis on the front page of the newspaper. In 2007, Barstool expanded to a blog. While with Barstool Sports, Portnoy gradually cultivated his persona as "El Presidente", a blunt and candid character. His writing was well-received among young men and the publication subsequently became a mainstay of bro culture. He became known for his unapologetic and brash attitude and has faced criticism over blog posts and disparaging and offensive comments towards women and others. For example in 2010, Portnoy joked about women being raped saying "if you're a size 6 and you’re wearing skinny jeans you kind of deserve to be raped right?" In 2016, Portnoy used the N-word in a Barstool video, which he later apologized for. Peter Chernin's The Chernin Group purchased a majority stake of Barstool on January 7, 2016, and it was announced that the headquarters would move to New York City. In 2020, Penn National Gaming purchased a 36% stake in Barstool Sports from the founders for $163 million, including $135 million in cash and $28 million