News/Commentary

Distraught Dave Portnoy claims ‘highly regulated’ parent company made him fire longtime employee for ‘innocent’ slip-up

May 4, 2023 | | Print Article

Barstool Sports President Dave Portnoy called an emergency press conference on Tuesday to announce that his parent company PENN Entertainment forced him to fire longtime employee Ben Mintz for singing the N-word during a live podcast and he was not happy about it.

Mintz is a professional poker player. He has also co-hosted the popular podcast “Cracking Aces” which is produced by Barstool. PENN Entertainment acquired Barstool in February 2023.

The incident happened on Monday during Mintz’s podcast “Wake Up With Mintzy.” He was rapping lyrics off his phone and inadvertently said the N-word while doing so. He immediately apologized for the slip but it wasn’t enough. PENN Entertainment evidently has a zero-tolerance policy for that kind of thing.

“This morning, I made an unforgivable mistake slipping on air while reading a song lyric. I meant no harm & have never felt worse about anything. I apologize for my actions. I am truly sorry & ashamed of myself,” Mintz tweeted.

Portnoy announced that “Ben Mintz has left the building” on Twitter.

“Bad news, this sucks. So, today we had to fire Ben Mintz,” he said. “Bottom line is this, I hate the decision. I don’t agree with the decision, but it’s not my decision to make and when we sold Barstool to Penn, we knew what came with it.”

“He rapped a racial slur, he turned white as a ghost, you could tell instantly he was like, ‘Oh my God, what did I do?’ It was a Ron Burgundy moment, he read it. He knew he f***ed up. He’s been super apologetic, like in shambles, basically. I think anybody who watched the clip was like, ‘There’s no way he meant to do that.’ He’s just not the brightest bulb to ever come down the pipe. And he just screwed up. And he knew he screwed up. And there was no hatred behind it. No nothing. Still awful, but not in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be sitting here being like, we had to fire Ben Mintz,” he fumed.

“I’ve been fighting tooth and nail — this is the wrong decision. But PENN operates in a world that we don’t operate in it. They are highly regulated by the government. They’re issued licenses for gambling that just as easily as they’re issued, they can be pulled back. And for anybody who has followed any of the states and Penn trying to get legalized and things like that, one thing’s clear… a lot of people hate my guts. They f***ing hate me. They hate Barstool. And they look for any lever, any excuse, anything to cause problems for us and pull the licenses,” he contended, explaining why the parent company could not tolerate the slip.

“Penn’s a billion-dollar company, a multi-billion dollar company, without their licenses they are a zero-dollar company,” he explained. “Investors, families, employees, thousands of people, they feel it’s their job to protect all of this and the only answer is to fire Ben Mintz. I still disagree with it.”

The company believes that the incident could further damage the business as a whole if it weren’t addressed, so Mintz was shown the door.

“I hate the decision. Hate, hate, hate, I tried to convince it to be otherwise as much as I could. In the end, they know the risks and the downsides and still felt they had to make this decision, which is a bad decision for everybody involved but from Penn’s perspective it’s better than risking the entire livelihood of the company,” Portnoy added.

“I still disagree with it, and maybe I’m naive. I’m like, there is just no way anybody can look at that clip and think the punishment fits the crime. It makes my skin crawl, thinking a guy would lose their job on an innocent mistake,” he commented.

Barstool fans were shocked by the news. Many evidently accused Portnoy of selling out by giving in to the dictates of PENN Entertainment. That resulted in another video from Portnoy.

“So I get every Tom, Dick, and Harry since this Mintzy thing be like, ‘Prez you’re a sell-out. You’re a sell-out. Hey Prez, you sold out.’ Well, as the kids say, no doy, no f***ing doy,” Portnoy declared.

“I sold out. You’re just figuring that out. I start a company and I f***ing sold it the f*** out. Made hundreds of millions, made millions for everybody… Yeah, we sold the f*** out. And that’s what you do when you’re an entrepreneur,” he told his critics.

“You start this little company, you dream one day, you sell the f*** out. So no doy — still means this decision sucks. I hate it. Makes me want to puke. But guess what? When I sold out a couple words, a couple things, it is very clear. You say these things, those decisions are no longer mine. I can’t protect you. You know why? Because I sold out. No f***ing doy,” Portnoy concluded.

After Mintz was let go, the stock for PENN Entertainment took a nosedive.

To that, Portnoy responded, “By the way I’m crying on the inside. I own a ton of $penn stock. Great time to buy. It’ll bounce back in my humble non financial advise opinion.”

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Terresa Monroe-Hamilton
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