The rapid expansion of Barstool Sports’ brand has been one of the major stories in the sports media landscape over the past two years. The growth of their brand since being acquired by Chernin Digital in 2016, thanks to a massive push in the podcast and video realms, has led to the company looking for continued business opportunities.
The loyal following of Barstool has allowed them to expand merchandise sales, but bigger plans may be on the horizon for how to capitalize on their popularity. Despite the recent setback of having lost the Barstool Van Talk television show on ESPN2 after one episode due to backlash, those at Barstool continue to look to find bigger ways to reach their audience.
Given their name, it should come as no surprise that one of the most popular ideas in the Barstool offices is opening branded sports bars around the country. It would be far from the first time a sports media brand has looked to the sports bar as a way to create a physical manifestation of itself for fans to flock to, with ESPN and Fox Sports both having done so in the past, with both eventually failing.
However, that doesn’t appear to discourage Barstool executives, who in a recent profile on the company by Jay Caspian King in the New York Times Magazine all brought sports bars up as the next evolution of the brand.
Chernin’s bet was that it could serve cheap content to his loyal fan base, which would then pay for things like T-shirts, events and premium content. The brand would be scaled up into something that could be sold to advertisers, big media partners and even sports leagues. Every Barstool executive I spoke to mentioned the possibility of opening branded sports bars across the country; all of them talked about partnerships with networks.
Part of Barstool’s problem in achieving those early goals of being scaled up to work with big media partners like ESPN is the inevitable backlash that comes their way (and anyone that partners with them) over past content that was wildly misogynistic and problematic. However, if there were ever a sports media brand built to succeed in the sports bar market, it’s probably Barstool (with a heavier emphasis on the “bar” portion than predecessors like ESPN Zone).
The culture curated by Barstool may be problematic for larger corporate entities that engage in partnerships with the brand, but, problematic or not, it certainly would seem to lend itself to building bars in the right locations (read, near colleges).
