Founder of Barstool Sports Dave Portnoy he is speaking out after receiving a shower of hate for his New England Patriots fandom
“All I’ve been trying to do for the last 2 weeks is lift people up. Lift their spirits. Make them a part of this Super Bowl experience,” Portnoy, 48, shared through X Sunday February 8. “And what do I have for my trouble? People are nasty 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 that 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 I’ll be praying for you.”
Several hateful tweets were shared via X under Portnoy’s posts throughout the game on Sunday.
“Tom Brady he thinks you’re a scum bag and by the way he wants nothing to do with you,” one social media user wrote. Others criticized his height while others called out his past drama with the NFL, more on that shortly.
Portnoy attended the Super Bowl 2026 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., along with several Barstool Sports employees on Sunday. He shared several videos from the stadium on X as the Patriots lost to the Seattle Seahawks 29-13.
“We have to make adjustments,” Portnoy said during an “emergency press conference” shared via social media at halftime. “We can’t feel good.”
Portnoy called out the offense for his “horrible” play during a video released at the end of Super Bowl LX. He noted that losing “never gets easier.”
“The worst offense I’ve ever seen,” he continued. “I was in jail the last time we won. (Tom) Brady is probably laughing like, ‘Yeah.’ So we got killed.”
Portnoy’s jailhouse comment was a reference to when he was arrested during Super Bowl LIII in February 2019. He was ejected from the game that year after creating a fake media credential and dressing in costume to gain access to a Super Bowl-related event days earlier.
Portnoy’s long-running drama with the NFL commissioner Roger Goodell dates back to 2015. At the time, Portnoy and three of his employees (colloquially known as the Brady Four) were 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 after the incident.
The ban was lifted when Portnoy and the other three members of the Brady Four attended Super Bowl LX on Sunday.
“Mr. Portnoy can purchase a ticket to the game,” the NFL confirmed in a statement earlier this month.
Later on Sunday night, Portnoy posted a clip of the Patriots quarterback Drake Maye getting emotional in his post-match press conference.
“That’s all I needed to see. That my man cares as much as we do,” Portnoy captioned the clip. “We’ll be back. No one expected us to be here. The future is still so bright.”
Portnoy also addressed the Patriots’ loss during “Wake Up Bar Stool” on Monday, February 9.
“It was tough. When you’re us and you’re who we are, it’s the man in the arena,” Portnoy said. “We’ve been in a lot of these football games, and now throughout the franchise 6-6. He’s the man in the arena.”