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The Barstool Sports Arizona Bowl

July 28, 2021

Today’s Email Is Sponsored By…

Masterworks | Finimize Partners

Hey Friends,

Following months of circulating rumors, the news has finally been confirmed.

Barstool Sports is expanding into college football. The 18-year-old digital media company announced a multi-year deal yesterday to become both the exclusive title sponsor & broadcast partner of the Arizona Bowl.

An NCAA-sanctioned bowl game since 2015, the Arizona Bowl aired on CBS last year and will pit a team from the MAC against a Mountain West team on New Year’s Eve this year.

Financial details have not been disclosed, but just so you have some context, the average sponsorship for a smaller bowl game typically runs between $500,000 to $1 million annually. That doesn’t include broadcasting rights.

This deal was first reported by Sportico.

Founded by Dave Portnoy in 2003 as solely a print publication distributed throughout Boston (remember newspapers?), Barstool Sports has transformed into much more than that.

Barstool Sports Timeline

  • 2003: Dave Portnoy starts Barstool Sports

  • 2007: Barstool Sports launches an online blog

  • 2016: The Chernin Group acquires a 51% stake in Barstool Sports at a $10 million to $15 million valuation, with the company moving its headquarters to New York City.

  • 2020: Penn National gaming purchases a 36% stake in Barstool Sports for $163 million, giving the company a valuation of $450 million and assisting in their launch of the Barstool Sportsbook — a mobile application for sports betting.

There were other milestones along the way (and mishaps), but it’s wild to think that just 5 years ago, Barstool was known as a niche blog that sells t-shirts. But now, through two decades of building internet culture equity, Barstool is a $500 million company expanding through a unique combination of digital media & sports betting.

Here’s what Dave Portnoy said about the bowl sponsorship:

“Today is one small step for man….. Yes I am proud to announce that Barstool Sports is the new sponsor of the Arizona Bowl not only for this year, but for for the foreseeable future. 

While obviously sponsoring a Bowl game is a big deal in itself we arent simply slapping our name on this and running away. We also have exclusive broadcasting rights meaning the game will air only on Barstool Sports channels on New Years Eve Day with Barstool personalities fully immersed in the broadcast. (Smell ya later CBS) It is a true partnership with the Arizona Bowl, the MAC, and the Mountain West Conference. 

This marks our first real foray into acquiring tv sports rights. We plan on giving the Arizona Bowl the full Barstool treatment. An entire week of Barstool Bowl festivities in Tucson leading up to the game making this one of the unique and anticipated Bowls in the country all while maintaining the integrity of the game and raising a ton of money for charity. 

I’ve said many times that our ambition at Barstool is to own the moon. This is a major breakthrough in that regard.”

For me, the title sponsorship is less interesting. There are plenty of companies you have never heard of sponsor bowl games — DXL, Makers Wanted, and Bad Boy Motors come to mind — and it’s essentially just a six-to-seven-figure marketing expense.

But with CBS & ESPN reportedly unwilling to broadcast the game with Barstool Sports as a sponsor, the digital media & sports betting company offered to stream the game on its website, app, and social media channels.

Combine that with the fact that Barstool Sportsbook is set to launch in Arizona this fall, and the deal suddenly becomes much more interesting. Are we getting a glimpse at the future of sports broadcasting? Will this be a tool that sports betting companies use to lower customer acquisition costs? Is Barstool expanding into other verticals?

All of those questions are up for debate. But my guess is that this is a test run for something much bigger. Barstool does nearly $150 million in annual revenue; a ~$1 million marketing expense won’t make a dent, especially when you consider all the t-shirts, social media impressions, and monetizable content that will come from the game. Truthfully, it will probably be profitable for them.

But it will be more interesting to see how they combine a massive media distribution channel with live sports rights and an in-house sportsbook application. That could end up being a preferred customer acquisition playbook of the future.

Have a great day, and we’ll talk tomorrow.

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