Days after Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy and his followers began calling for Penn State’s communications dean agree to a debate with him, the situation has taken another strange turn.
Champs Downtown will hold a ‘Portnoy Party’ on Wednesday night that, for some reason, will be hosted by former adult film star Stormy Daniels, best known for her alleged affair with Donald Trump prior to his election as president.
If you haven’t been keeping up, Penn State Bellisario College of Communications Dean Marie Hardin was quoted in a recent NBC News article about the online sports and pop culture media network as saying it reinforces conservative ideology about masculinity and gender roles.
“In many ways, Barstool has resisted some of the more progressive discourse around sports. And I think there’s a niche for that,” she said. “There’s a market there and they’re able to capture that.”
Hardin — a well-regarded educator and scholar whose research has focused on diversity, ethics and professionalism in sports journalism — was commenting on Barstool as a reflection of a certain part of American society and culture.
“They will not have a reckoning until they no longer reflect a good portion of this country’s values,’ she said. ‘Is Barstool a reflection of our values or is it reinforcing our values? It reflects and reinforces — the only way Barstool could ever die is if it no longer reflects. But we’re not anywhere close to that as a culture.
“Barstool would not exist if we did not have a spectator sports culture that positioned men and women in a certain way, in a way that we really take for granted. So many people don’t even think about the signaling about gender that spectator sports do every weekend on television. Those are things we aren’t thinking about enough as a culture — and Barstool would not exist without that.”
Portnoy, however, took exception to Hardin’s remarks in an interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson and later on social media, in part citing the women who work in leadership positions at Barstool and the women who have worked with the site. Erika Nardini is CEO of Barstool.
He offered to debate Hardin, writing on Twitter that, ‘As the Dean of the PSU Communications school you should be willing to defend your comments no matter how ridiculous they are.’
His followers have been flooding replies to Hardin’s recent social media posts, criticizing Hardin and insisting that she agree to a debate.
Portnoy, meanwhile, then decided to use THON as a cudgel, offering Tuesday on Barstool Radio to donate $20,000 to the Penn State student-run pediatric cancer charity if Hardin would debate him.
On Wednesday morning, Champs Downtown jumped into the fray, announcing on social media that Stormy Daniels would appear at Portnoy Party, which manager Dante Lucchesi told Onward State is designed to encourage having Portnoy come to town for a debate.
“We just want to have a fun night,” Lucchesi said. “We saw this thing with Dave Portnoy, and we wanted to raise the awareness. We want this to become a thing and get him here. He seems to be onboard, and we’re hoping if enough Penn Staters join in, Penn State will be onboard.
“We are not taking sides but we want to see a debate happen, This has potential to be a fun event,” Lucchesi said. “We 100% want to host the debate.”
The party will begin at 10 p.m.
