Apparently triggered by a Business Insider report of a leaked sex tape that showed Dave Portnoy violently choking a woman wearing a leash and collar, the price of Penn National Gaming (NASDAQ: PENN) has plummeted by over 20% and continues to fall.
PENN is a key investor in Barstool Sports, founded by Portnoy. Considering that the success of the platform has been built on hot takes, racism, as well as sexism, the acquisition of wealth by Portnoy is increasingly being eyed with suspicion. He also has a stake in PENN. Portnoy has denied all allegations.
The recent stock price must have hurt Portnoy, but what is Dave Portnoy’s net worth? The answer is that Dave Portnoy’s net worth has risen by almost 40 million from 2021 to 2022. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he donated $500,000 to The Barstool Fund.
As of May 2021, the relief program had collected more than 39 million of the company’s business dollars. He made substantial cash from his digital marketing and advertising company Square Sports. Through donations since May 2021, the fund generated over $23M worth of assistance to panda victims.
Let’s look a bit more about Dave Portnoy and his life.
Dave Portnoy Net Worth & Career
David worked at Yankee Group in IT market research firms after completing graduate school in 1999. He worked there for four years. Then he thought about starting a digital-media company named Barstool Sports.
On 7 January 2016, the CEO of The Chernin Group Peter Chernin bought a majority stake in the company. More recently in 2020, racing tracks operator Penn National Gaming acquired 36%. David also designed a web show titled “one Bite with Davey – Page viewed” with an aim of reviewing any single pizza – place in Manhattan in 2017. David started an unsuccessful politics campaign in 2013, where he stood for the Boston Mayor post.
Barstool
David Portnoy launched Barstool Sports in 2003 as a newspaper for the Boston Metro area. This site is also about sports stories, flirty and attractive women. Initially, the brand’s logo was described as being a mix between ESPN and Girls Go Wild.
In 2017 Portnoys launched a Pizza review series called One Bite with Davey Pageviews. The unofficial goal of the show is to review every Pizza shop in Manhattan. The show is a weekly feature on the website featuring Davey on “Stool Presidente” The website was launched in 2007 and is one of the most popular online sports sites on the Internet today.
Penn National Acquisition
In January 2020 Penn National Gaming acquired a 36% hold in Barstool Sports at an estimated value of $450million. Chernin said its 60% stake has fallen to 36% equal to 36% in Penn National.
About 28% in total are still under ownership by Portnoy and a few top executives such as CEO Erika Nardini. Penn National could pay a further $62 million over five years for an upgrade and raise its stake by at least 400%. After a global Coronavirus infection, the stock fell 7.8 points to 7 bn. The stock gained almost 80% in two weeks to $29 a share.
Early life and career of Dave Portnoy
David Portnoy married Renee Satherthwaite between 2009 and 2017. He launched Barstool Sports in 2003 as a newspaper in the Boston metro. The site has snarky sports coverage and attractive women. In 2017 he started a Pizza Reviews called “One Bite with Davey Pageviews “.
The unofficial purpose of the program is to review every pizza place that can be found in Manhattan. It appears to be a mixture of ESPN and Girls Gone Wild. It is one of the best-selling websites for sports now. In his early days the site he put in 10+-hour days.
Stock Holdings
About half of the total cash was donated and roughly $23 million was made available to shareholders as convertible preferred stock and $3 million has already been put aside as forwarding arrangements. The convertible preferred stock has.
Dave is reportedly owning 1/3 of this stock which is worth about $16 million at this level. When combined with his other roughly $890 million stake in Barstool and wealth from previous operations we estimate Dave Portnoy Net worth is around $150 million.
Portnoy and the PENN stock
Casino-operator PENN has been the subject of significant fluctuations over the past 12 months. The 5-month period ending in March saw its price double, but then losing the entire gain in the period that followed. November 2021 has seen a decline of 5.6% in the preceding 12-month period.
Barstool was acquired by PENN for a price of $163 million, giving it a 36% stake in the media company. That would make the total value of the business as $450 million.
It is understood that in April 2021 PENN had contemplated increasing its stake to 50%, but that has not happened yet. With the recent revelations about Portnoy’s behavior, it remains unclear whether PENN will still pursue an increase in ownership of Barstool.
“A ton of Penn stock,” in his own words, is what is owned by Portnoy. During the period, around the end of last year, when the stock was doing well, Portnoy made it a point to let it be known that his acquisition of the PENN stock was during the deal.
Portnoy acquired the stock in January 2020. Though the growth is negative in the last 12 months, since his acquisition of the stock, it is up about 187% since his acquisition.
Though his net worth is estimated at $100 million, considering the beating taken by the PENN stock, it could well be lower.
The Social Sentiment ETF (BUZZ) promoted by Portnoy is up 14.15 percent since its launch in March.
Portnoy’s behavior and personality
Portnoy’s violent predilections have been on display earlier, like when he made public his sympathy for sexual assaulters and rapists, including Harry Weinstein. However, his personal behavior coming out is now causing some investors of PENN to jump ship. PENN also missed the profit mark in a recent earnings call.
Portnoy has been known to be a risk-taker who uses the buy first, think later strategy, known to be a threat to many a net worth.
He has been known for gambling, sports betting as well as day trading, a proven riskier strategy when compared to swing-term or long-term stock trading. He has claimed to day-trade in millions. He also lost $700K in the GameStop short squeeze.
With the seriousness of the allegations against Portnoy, Barstool and PENN may well be contemplating the chances of their own survival and continuance.
Personal life
In 2009 he married Renee Satterthwaite whom they remained engaged for 8 years till January 2017. His private life was kept far away and instead focused on creating a successful business position. He is of Judaic religions and Jewish raised.
Age, height, and weight
Dave Portnoy was born on 29 March 1977 and is 44 years old – as per today’s date 1 December 2021. His height is 6 feet high.
