What is Barstool’s stock price, and are they publicly traded? Barstool doesn’t have its own stock symbol but they are owned by Penn Entertainment. Investors can purchase shares of PENN Entertainment under the stock symbol $PENN.
Chart by TradingView
Table of Contents
Barstool Sports Stock Introduction
Sports journalism has definitely changed in the age of the internet. Barstool Sports is a prime example. Founded in 2003 in Massachusetts by Dave Portnoy, Barstool has grown from a print publication on sports gambling to a globally recognized brand. Even if you’re not a sports fan you’ve no doubt heard of Portnoy and Barstool by now.
The site is primarily a new source for sports and pop culture, with an emphasis on sex and machismo. Portnoy himself remains the Chief of Content for Barstool and has taken on the nickname El Presidente. Barstool still runs its sports blog but also has a number of different podcasts and video shows that entertain its millions of fans.
Barstool is often criticized as chauvinistic and a purveyor of “bro culture”. Many of its tweets and posts are actually about the sexual exploits of attractive women, and not actually about sports.
But hey, sex sells right? Portnoy is a branding genius. He’s turned Barstool into a company worth several hundred million dollars. But can you buy Barstool Sports stock?
In January of 2020, Penn National Gaming (NASDAQ: PENN) bought a 36% stake in Barstool for $136 million. As we’ll explain later, the partnership has done wonders for both companies and should continue to do so in the future.
As mentioned earlier, Barstool Sports is partly owned by the publicly traded company Penn National Gaming. Barstool itself is not a publicly traded company. So you won’t find it trading on any stock exchanges. If you do want to invest in Barstool Sports, buying shares of Penn isn’t a bad idea.
Since January of 2020, Penn shares have had a remarkable run. At the time that the partnership was announced, Penn stock was trading at around $25.00 per share. Fast forward three months or so when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Shares of Penn tumbled. The stock hit a low of about $7.00 per share. But since that time, Penn has hit an all-time high of $142.00 per share. The stock has pulled back since then but is still trading at over a 10x return from March of 2020.
Is Penn ($PENN) Stock a Good Investment?
You can’t buy Barstool Sports stock but Penn is an option. The partnership really took off when Penn released its first-ever mobile sports betting app in September of 2020. The app is called the Barstool Sportsbook. It’s limited to a handful of states where sports betting is legalized.
These states include New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Colorado, Illinois, and Michigan. Penn has also opened several brick-and-mortar sportsbooks under the Barstool brand; which have been popular sites that some of the Barstool personalities have appeared at.
Penn may not be a household name because its casinos generally do not use the Penn brand. But Penn owns over 40 racetracks and 377 different VGT or Video Gaming Terminal locations around the country. Some of the larger ones include The Greektown Casino and Hotel in Detroit and both the Tropicana and M Resort in Las Vegas.
Penn stock’s rapid ascension is usually a sign that the stock is overbought. Indeed, shares have now pulled back about 40% from their highs. Currently, Penn’s stock is trading with a forward looking price to earnings ratio of 25, and a price to sales ratio of 2.5. These are actually lower valuations than some of the biggest names in the casino industry including Wynn Resorts (NASDAQ: WYNN), Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS), MGM (NYSE: MGM), and Caesars Entertainment (NASDAQ: CZR).
The entire industry should get a boost as COVID-19 cases continue to tail off, although the surge of the delta variant has caused further closures. Still, the reopening of brick and mortar casinos combined with the return of the NFL season should help to keep revenues flowing for the casino industry. So look to day trade or invest in Penn.
Barstool Sports Products
Barstool is known for creating some of the more memorable personalities on the internet. Portnoy is an extremely engaging person. It’s clear that he seeks these qualities out when he hires for his brand.
Some of the best products from Barstool have been from Portnoy himself. You can’t trade Barstool Sports stock. Let’s take a look at things Barstool is most known for!
The Barstool Fund: Part of Portnoy’s charisma is that he’s relatable. There’s a certain humility in how he acts. Despite being a multi-millionaire, Portnoy always speaks up for the little guys.
The Barstool Fund was Portnoy’s way of giving back to small businesses that were hit hard by the restrictions from the pandemic. Barstool raised over $41 million in total. They received donations from celebrities like Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, and Elon Musk.
Portnoy himself donated $500,000. And Penn National Gaming threw in a modest $4.6 million to the fund. He recorded phone calls with local businesses around the country that would receive donations from the fund.
Call Her Daddy: This podcast was formerly on the Barstool Sports site featuring internet sensation, Alex Cooper. The podcast covers various aspects of sexuality from a women’s point of view and was a smash hit. Call her Daddy was originally founded by Cooper and her partner Sofia Franklyn.
After a public dispute with Barstool about payments, Franklyn left the show. Cooper stayed on while looking for a new home. Well, Cooper certainly found it when she signed a $60 million deal with Spotify to be the official home of Call Her Daddy. In 2020, the podcast was the fifth most popular podcast on Spotify. Franklyn now has her own podcast called Sofia with an F, which touches on similar themes as Call Her Daddy.
More Barstool Sports Products
Davey Day Trader: Another alter-ego of Portnoy, Davey Day Trader is a stock trader that just cannot seem to buy the right stocks. Portnoy live broadcasts himself trading on the stock market, something that became popular during the pandemic. But Davey Day Trader’s investments are not always good. And he has been criticized for leading his followers astray. Davey Day Trader tries his hand at trading cryptocurrencies as well, and famously made a massive investment in Safemoon which has since plummeted. The character is well known for his green hammer prop, wild outbursts, and his mantra that ‘stonks only go up‘. He’s for sure trade Barstool Sports stock.
Barstool Sportsbook: When Penn created the Barstool Sportsbook, we could see that its investment into the online brand was paying off. Portnoy himself advertised the sportsbook to his millions of social media followers. He posted his own personal bets and even announced promotions that the app was providing to bettors. Portnoy is well known as an avid sports gambler, and sometimes gets carried away with the number of bets he posts. He is also known to love betting on his hometown favorite teams in Boston, as well as his alma mater the University of Michigan.
Spittin Chiclets: An underrated podcast on Barstool that is composed of mostly ex-NHL hockey players like Paul Bisonette and Ryan Whitney. The podcast dives into the world of hockey told from the players’ perspectives. NHL players are regular guests on the show and provide excellent first-hand experiences of the game’s best moments. Spittin Chiclets even created the mega-popular Pink Whitney Vodka, which is a pink grapefruit-flavored vodka made by New Amsterdam. The podcast’s name Spittin Chiclets refers to when hockey players get their teeth knocked out during the game.
They’re Popular
There are so many other pieces of Barstool intellectual property including the popular Pardon My Take podcast with Barstool Big Cat. One that narrowly missed this list is Portnoy’s Pizza Reviews. In this series, Portnoy visits small pizzerias around the country and provides a review and valuable exposure to the restaurants. It is just another way in which Portnoy and Barstool have worked hard to support small businesses around America.
Barstool Sports Stock Final Thoughts
You can’t trade Barstool Sports stock. They’d be an incredibly popular stock for investors if it were a publicly traded company. Unfortunately for those who are looking to buy Barstool Sports stock, there simply isn’t a way to do so at this time. The best way to invest in Barstool Sports is to buy shares of Penn National Gaming.
They own a 36% stake in Barstool. Penn’s stake is anticipated to grow to up to 50% as early as 2022, in what has been a valuable partnership for both companies. Barstool owns some of the most popular intellectual property on the internet. It is a premier site for sports and pop culture news, although some complain that the brand’s emphasis is less on sports these days.
Barstool’s focus on sexuality and the sexual exploits of young women have drawn criticism and outrage. Portnoy himself has been accused of misogynistic comments in the past and blatant sexism in his blog posts. Perhaps it’s for the best then that Barstool remains private, and a very important part of Penn, rather than its own publicly traded company.
