Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy is speaking out after getting a barrage of hate for his New England Patriots fandom.
“All I’ve tried to do for the past 2 weeks is lift people up. Raise their spirits. Make them part of this Super Bowl experience,” Portnoy, 48, shared via X on Sunday, February 8. “And what do I get for my trouble? People being nasty beyond belief to me.”
The media mogul added, “Well we may have lost but at least I can still rest my head on the pillow tonight knowing I win and lose with class. Unlike a lot of people online. If being a jerk to me online makes you happy I’m sad for you and will pray for you.”
Several hate tweets were shared via X on Sunday under Portnoy’s posts throughout the game.
“Tom Brady thinks you’re a scum bag and wants nothing to do with you by the way,” one social media user wrote. Others slammed his height with others calling out his past drama with the NFL — more on that shortly.
Portnoy attended the 2026 Super Bowl at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, alongside several Barstool Sports employees on Sunday. He shared multiple videos from the stadium on X as the Patriots lost to the Seattle Seahawks 29-13.
“We gotta make adjustments,” Portnoy said during an “emergency press conference” shared via social media during halftime. “We can’t feel good.”
Portnoy called out the offense for their “horrible” gameplay during a video posted at the end of Super Bowl LX. He noted that losing “never gets easier.”
“Worst offense I’ve ever seen,” he continued. “I was in jail the last time we won. [Tom] Brady’s probably laughing like, ‘Yeah.’ So, we kind of got killed.”
Portnoy’s jail comment was a reference to when he was detained during Super Bowl LIII in February 2019. He was kicked out of the game that year after creating a fake media credential and dressing in disguise for access into a Super Bowl-related event days prior.
Portnoy’s longtime drama with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell stems back to 2015. At the time, Portnoy and three of his employees (who are colloquially known as the Brady Four) got arrested after staging a protest in the lobby of NFL Headquarters over Brady’s now-infamous Deflategate. They were banned from all Super Bowl events following the incident.
The ban was lifted as Portnoy and the other three members of the Brady Four attended Super Bowl LX on Sunday.
“Mr. Portnoy can buy a ticket to the game,” the NFL confirmed in a statement earlier this month.
Later on Sunday night, Portnoy posted a clip of Patriots quarterback Drake Maye getting emotional in his postgame press conference.
“This is all I needed to see. That my guy cares as much as we do,” Portnoy captioned the clip. “We’ll be back. Nobody expected us to be here. The future is still so so so bright.”’
Portnoy further addressed the Patriots’ loss during “Wake Up Barstool” on Monday, February 9.
“It was a tough one. When you’re us and you’re who we are, it is the man in the arena,” Portnoy said. “We’ve been in a lot of these football games, and now over the course of the franchise 6-6. It is the man in the arena.”
