Dave "The Merciful" Portnoy Is Taking All The Patriot Die-Hards In The Barstool Office and I To The Super Bowl, And I Couldn't Be More Thankful

Some people out there are lucky to have a boss that will throw you a “great job team” Slack emoji once in a while. 

Then there’s Dave, who woke up one morning a couple weeks ago and decided he was taking 20+ Patriots lunatics from Barstool to the Super Bowl like he’s running a traveling circus for degenerates.

I’m still kind of stunned, mostly because this whole thing feels like a full-circle fever dream that shouldn’t be real.

Like we're really doing this again?

I met Dave when I was still in college at Loyola in Chicago. 2003 or 2004. I’d fly home once a quarter or so, get to South Station to take the train to Worcester, and I’d always grab a copy of Barstool like it was the church bulletin.

One day I see a guy loading papers into the news rack and I’m like, “Do you work for these guys?” and he said, “Yeah, I’m the founder.” The founder was out there stuffing newspapers into a rack with his own hands. That should tell you everything you need to know about the psycho work ethic from day one.

We started talking, I ask him questions about Chisholm and Manzo, he can’t believe I’m all the way in Chicago reading his newspaper and know what Barstool Sports was. We swapped contact info. 

A few months later a story breaks about a Tigers pitcher and my buddy has photos of him partying while he’s on the injured list. I send to Dave. Nothing scandalous, just classic “buddy, what the fuck are we doing?” stuff. Classic gotcha culture, as Rico would say. Dave posted them. ESPN reached out to Dave to verify, Dave reached out to me, and then we were basically pen pals. Like a weird sports version of a long-distance email relationship.

That turned into Stoolapalooza with Sammy Adams because he knew I was a DJ, hit me up asked if I knew anything about putting on a concert and I lied and said of course- then another tour the next year, and then the Blackout tour. 

And at the beginning of Blackout, Barstool wasn’t this household name monster. 

We were not rolling in money. Nowhere near it. 

We were still in the era where half the country had no idea what we were, and the other half thought we were a newspaper for kids who failed out of community college.

Then comes the Seahawks Super Bowl in Arizona. Dave calls in a favor through an advertiser for tickets. They can’t give them to him, but they can get them at face value. He offers them to Paul, Hank, and me. I did not have that kind of money. Not even close. So Dave lets me pay him in three installments like he’s running a layaway program.

We get to the stadium, and the seats are absolutely filthy. Unrea how close we were to the field. Positioned PERFECTLY right in front of the endzone where the infamous goal line pick occurred. We were surrounded by Seahawks fans, it was loud as hell, and the game was a back-and-forth slugfest that had us all mentally preparing for the classic Patriots heartbreak movie.

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The fourth quarter hit, the Pats somehow moved the ball against that defense, took the lead, and we lost our minds. 

Then the Seahawks marched down and that ridiculous catch by Kearse happened, the one where he was basically lying on his back and it fell right into his chest, and I remember thinking, “Okay cool, we’re about to get our souls ripped out in public again.” 

Dave sent Hank up into the concourse like he was Eddie Mush because he was convinced Hank was bad luck, which, honestly, was a theory that had some evidence. 

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(This lunatic ate like 2 of these things)

And then Malcolm Butler happened. 

I don’t even remember the sound that came out of me. 

It wasn’t a noise you make with a spine. It was pure caveman joy. Just grown men blacking out emotionally because football is stupid and we’re all stupid for caring as much as we do.

I have never been so fucking down in the dumps and then instantly experienced such joy. There is no way to describe the swing in emotion. 

And then the night went completely off the rails. We ended up way outside the city at the team hotel, invited mind you, partying with players, their families, cheerleaders, the whole scene. 

At some point we were on stage with Rick Ross while Bob Kraft brought the trophy up like it was a scripted movie moment somebody wrote as a joke and then the universe actually filmed it. 

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Next day, on no sleep, the cigar voice video got recorded and became part of the lore. 

And now it’s been so long it makes me sick. It feels like there have been ten more Pats Super Bowls since then. (Checks notes.. nope, this is only the fifth since then)

Which brings us back to the present, where Dave is now a bajillionaire, Barstool is a household name, and somehow the one thing that hasn’t changed is that he still thinks like a psycho fan first. 

So a couple of weeks ago, after the Patriots stamped their ticket to their 12th Super Bowl, Dave announced he was off the NFL's no-fly list, and was buying a suite for the game. (There might have been a bit of a chicken-and-the-egg situation going on but I don't get into innuendo.) 

He hit me up a couple weeks ago busting my balls about betting on the spread in the Denver game and taking Denver and the points. 

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Then he starts with the “Bears fan” shit, which I’m not, and I had to explain, again, that I live in Chicago. When the Bears suck, the city is miserable. When they’re good, the city is electric. It’s better for everyone. It’s better for business. It’s better for going out without feeling like you’re living in a rain cloud made of Italian beef and sadness. And I enjoy seeing my friends and the city happy. But if it was ever Chicago versus New England- its not even a question. 

When he invited me to the Super Bowl, my first reaction was honestly, "don't fuck with me like that." 

Then when he insisted he wasnt, I said “I don’t want to take a spot from someone who hasn’t been.” Like Fasoli or Hogdale or whoever. And Dave basically said, “Buddy, I’m bringing everybody.” 

Now there’s a group text with 20 Patriots fans on it and it’s already a beautiul, beautiful thing.

It goes without saying, and the last thing anybody needs is for me to do the “Dave is insanely generous” speech. 

Anyone with eyes who was around for COVID already knows. Who saw him save hundreds of small businesses in America while our government sat with their thumb up its ass. 

Any of the families of fallen officers he’s helped know. 

The rescues know- the dogs whose lives got saved and the people who saved them because he put his money where his mouth is know. 

And the long list of people he’s helped quietly, without the world knowing, can attest to it too. 

People only see him ripping us on camera, but off camera he’s loyal as hell and, deep down, genuinely a sweet guy. So yes, we’re lucky as hell to be going to the Super Bowl with him, and we're lucky to have him as a boss. 

Patriots 28 Seahawks 24