Dave Portnoy’s new Fox Sports show has suffered a difficult start as the paltry viewership numbers for the program have been revealed.
The Barstool Sports chief signed a deal with the network ahead of the college football season that has seen him become part of ‘Big Noon Kickoff’ and also launch his own daily show for the network, ‘Wake Up Barstool.’
But the show struggled badly to draw TV viewers in its first week.
According to figures from the TV Media Blog Substack, ‘Wake Up Barstool’ didn’t surpass 20,000 linear viewers in its first week on air, and only racked up 13,000 viewers on Wednesday and Thursday.
The show runs from 8am to 10am ET.
By comparison, ‘The Herd’ and ‘First Things First’ – which run from 12-3 and 3-4 respectively – topped 100,000 viewers each day.
Dave Portnoy’s new show, ‘Wake Up Barstool’, has opened to paltry viewership numbers
Portnoy made an explosive debut on Fox’s ‘Big Noon Kickoff’ at Ohio State last month
As noted by Awful Announcing, Portnoy’s new show has been faring better digitally.
The first episode of the show drew 88,000 viewers on YouTube, and the show’s first four episodes averaged a non-live 56,650 viewers on the website.
While ‘Wake Up Barstool’ has seemingly made a quiet start, Portnoy’s debut on ‘Big Noon Kickoff’ was quite the opposite.
The Michigan alum made an explosive debut on the show late last month, trolling Ohio State fans by marching out and singing Michigan’s fight song before calling their jersey ‘toilet paper’.
Once he made the stage and fist bumped his on-air partners, Portnoy walked to the back of the desk and told the Ohio State fans to ‘shut up’.
He continued: ‘I want a moment of silence for all you Ohio State morons who have been saying ‘here comes the hammer. Michigan’s getting the death penalty’.
Portnoy claimed that he was banned from stepping foot inside Ohio State’s stadium
The 48-year-old Portnoy is a renowned fan of Michigan – Ohio State’s bitter rivals
‘I’ve heard people say ‘Big Noon only hired Dave to troll Columbus,’ he continued. ‘We don’t want noon kickoffs’. Well we have noon kick offs, too. I’m not here to troll you. You guys are being so rude.’
Portnoy then lifted his sweatshirt off to reveal a shirt that read ‘Still Can’t Beat Michigan’, referring to the fact that Ohio State lost to the Wolverines during their run to a national championship title last season and have not beat them since 2019.
The fiery appearance followed a Front Office Sports report which claimed that Portnoy had been barred from entering Ohio State’s stadium, the Horseshoe, while Barstool Sports had been ordered to stay off campus altogether.
Ohio State later denied it had blocked Portnoy and insisted it was Fox who decided not to have him inside the stadium.
A few hours later, though, Portnoy called an ’emergency press conference’ and accused the Buckeyes of lying in a brutal five-and-a-half-minute tirade.
He curiously announced last week that he wouldn’t appear on ‘Big Noon Kickoff’ this coming weekend.
Portnoy has previously spoken enthusiastically about his agreement with Fox Sports.
