Barstool Chicago 2.0 - Back To Basics
Some Opening Remarks Regarding www.barstoolsports.com/chicago (probably smart to bookmark that right now):
Thanks for reading this. You have already expressed a baseline interest in what’s going on with Barstool Chicago and for that I would like to buy you a beef with heavy giardianera. Please, eat up. Paper towels are in the kitchen under the sink.
As you enjoy this premium, delicious, hot Italian Beef, I’ll be ladling the Au Jus as a tour guide of sorts. Our literary journey today intends to answer some extremely basic questions about Barstool Chicago 2.0 and sprinkle in some insight into who we are. After all, Dave Portnoy just invested a mid-season’s Saturday afternoon worth of College Football losses in the four of us. We’d be remiss not to at least explain how we got here and what to expect.
BUT FIRST – a mandatory demo on how to find us on the site: a majority of our blogs will be featured on the main page. That’s obviously Barstool’s feature platform for blogs, so the content we create in and around Chicago that’s worth the national platform will go just there. So in a sense nothing on that front really changes. HOWEVER, our primary mission is more specific than the national platform and thus requires our own home for all of our content. So with that allow me to introduce the official Barstool Chicago landing page:
Can’t make this any easier. Go to Topics, click on Chicago. White Sox Dave couldn’t fuck this up. Anyways let’s start with some basics.
Note this goes wayyyyyy longer than I anticipated when I started but now that it’s done I’m not taking anything out. You don’t like it come take my job.
How & Why Did This Happen?
Big Cat took over Barstool Chicago in 2013 and with it he brought along 4 disciples to cover Chicago sports: myself for Cubs, White Sox Dave for you guessed it the White Sox, Chief for Hawks and Eddie for Bears/Professional Bull Riding. It doesn’t take a history major to know what Big Cat accomplished from there. And along the way he always kept a spot for us on the blog to keep doing what we love: cover our Chicago teams. It wasn’t about making careers or getting paid or plotting for when some large 3rd party investor would swoop in and give us cushy jobs in New York. It was legitimately just about covering our hometown teams on the best website on the internet. Ask anyone who knows us – we’re diehard stoolies first. The opportunity to rep our teams on Barstool is still something we can’t wrap our heads around.
Anyways, kudos to Big Cat for becoming a bonafide household name and kudos to him for dragging us with him as everything he touched turned to gold. At any point he could have just been like hey guys I’m kind of busy with the biggest podcast in the universe and taking over sports media IDGAF about your hot dog challenge. Nope. Turns out Big Cat LOVES a good hot dog challenge and all the dumb shit we were doing back home in Chicago while Barstool exploded. He always made us comfortable with creating content for Barstool no matter how big it got. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I thought there is no fucking way anyone in HQ wants to see an in-depth Cubs blog today. And I was probably right save for Big Cat and maybe Carrabis if he was in a good mood and wanted to learn a thing or two about the game but I digress.
Then one day I texted WSD about doing a baseball podcast for Chicago. The differentiator would be we’d cover both the Cubs and Sox equally with as much respect for the other’s club as possible. We wanted to throw out the tired cliche Cubs vs. Sox thing and just go at it from the perspective that baseball is fucking awesome and the fact Chicago has two historic Major League Teams is also fucking awesome. We weren’t pandering to a fanbase for lukewarm acceptance. We wanted to beat it into people’s heads that there’s sooooooo much awesome shit going on in Chicago baseball regardless of your allegiance.
It worked. Kinda.
We launched Red Line Radio in Spring Training 2017 and with it we branded it as a Barstool Sports podcast. Some would call that an aggressive move. Erika Nardini agreed.
After we dropped our 1st show, Erika reached out to politely point out that it was, in fact, not a Barstool Sports podcast. She strongly encouraged us to pursue the pod, just on our own time. We were there to blog Chicago sports. In hindsight that was extremely fair because the show SUCKED out of the gate. But at the time it was really motivating. I told her our goal was to make it good enough for Barstool to want it and she said okay cool go do it then.
Fast Forward almost 2 years from that. We did 50 episodes just baseball. We built Scoop City. We sold t-shirts and had events and tried out for minor league baseball teams. We did a bunch of dumb shit and did it long enough for Big Cat to pass along that if we expanded to all of Chicago and tightened up the show, he could probably get us a chance on Barstool. Insert Chief. Insert Eddie. This was a no brainer. The 4 of us came together and worked out dicks off to figure out how to make a show work together and how to fit it around our real jobs on the side.
Form there, Barstool gave us a shot to put Red Line Radio in the spotlight. No promises or guarantees, just a chance to put our own shit out there alongside everyone else’s in NY. And since then, Chicago responded appropriately and gave us the momentum we needed to give Portnoy the confidence to say fuck it these guys are getting on the Pirate ship full time.
So here we are. There’s the background. Someone post this to Reddit so we don’t have to talk about it again. This is exhausting.
What Are We Here For?
This is much simpler. We’re here to do the OG Barstool shit in Chicago that got us hooked in the first place. It’s 14+ blogs a day from the voices of a couple seasoned diehard Chicagoans who know what’s important to their city and more importantly their peers. It’s ballet videos and hockey camps and calling out Jenny Finch for being scared of WSD. It’s picking up the torch Big Cat carried and being our weird authentic selves for your personal consumption and enjoyment. Goddamn that’s a fucked up thing to say but it’s true. We’re here for you.
How Much Content?
Like I said 14+ blogs a day at a minimum. Red Line Radio stays as scheduled on Tuesdays. And then best of all, we’re introducing a new daily podcast show hosted by Eddie with Chief, WSD and me rotating in on a daily basis as his guest. The theme is basically whatever Eddie wants to talk about for that day in Chicago and you should be getting it every morning by 8:30am. Think about this: Eddie will be there for you when you get to your cube. I think that in and of itself justifies our existence.
How Can You Help?
Follow the shit out of us.
www.barstoolsports.com/chicago
Barstool Carl
Barstool Chief
Barstool Eddie
WhiteSoxDave
I hate saying it but seriously go to these links and follow us. Social media is capital and we need you to invest in us right now or Portnoy said he’s pulling the plug. I’m still so new that idk if he’s joking but for the sake of not finding out can you just go to all of those above and click follow. Please.
Are We Hiring?
Probably not. Idk. If you read the above then you might have picked up on the 5+ years of us working together on this. So as it stands on Day 2, it’s difficult to envision adding another body to our 150 square foot office. But if and when we do add someone, trust us you will be the first to hear about it. And then at that point we’d ask you to send us an extremely professional resume. Until then sit tight please.
Thank You
We’ve been overwhelmed with the support we’ve received the last 24 hours, last 4 months, last 5 years…. the whole thing has been unbelievable. I know you didn’t sign up for sentimental reflections but sincerely I do not give a fuck. It’s imperative that you hear it from me loud and clear. Thank You to the stoolies that made this happen. We are you. You are us. Together Barstool Chicago will thrive.
RED LINE RADIO ITUNES LINK HERE CLICK CLICK CLICK