Barstool to Bid on ‘Bills Stadium’ Naming Rights?

This morning, the Buffalo Bills announced that they will call their stadium ‘Bills Stadium’ (super original, kind of classy) until a new naming rights sponsor is found. This comes a month after the organization ended their naming rights with New Era, who had purchased those rights back in 2016, locking in a 7-year agreement for $35 million.

The agreement came to an end when New Era, a Buffalo based apparel company(they make hats I guess??), asked to be released from the agreement after public scrutiny led by Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz on the treatment of local employees amidst the Coronavirus pandemic.

About an hour ago Dave Portnoy, founder of Barstool Sports, took to Twitter to express interest in purchasing the naming rights to ‘Bills stadium’ in response to a tweet about the new, sponsor-less name and search for a new one.

He followed that up with a couple tweets, referencing Penn National Gaming who purchased a majority of Barstool Sports back in January at a HUGE valuation of $450 million for Barstool. El Pres,as he’s known, went as far to say he’s actually serious about this and will enter the process to purchase the new naming rights.

So…can Portnoy actually pull this off? At first glance I thought no way this happens and that it’s probably just a publicity stunt. Goodell would do everything in his power to prevent the Barstool brand or Portnoy’s name anywhere near an NFL stadium. Well, maybe they could go the route as Penn National being the name they used to avoid that, but does the NFL want to public admit yet they fully support sport’s gambling? Probably not, under Goodell’s reign the NFL has been the No Fun League for the most part.

But the more I thought about it, we’re talking about the man who started Barstool as a newspaper around Boston back in 2003. Then grew it into an up and coming sports media company that The Chernin Group bought them for a majority stake in 2016 at around a $15 million valuation..and then Penn this past year at a $450 million valuation. Built it brick by brick and never gave up. So, there’s not much this guy can’t do if he really wants it and with the backing of financial powerhouses like Penn and Peter Chernin, there’s a chance this actually happens.
Erie County, where ‘Bills Stadium’ resides, does have a stipulation in their lease with the Bills that the stadium name "shall not unreasonably cause embarrassment to the county" and that the County has to approve any name. Now, this is where things get really hard in Barstools push as they draw a lot of scrutiny from a few different fronts, so they’d have to work around that if a bid is seriously made. No "Fuck Goodell Field" or something wild that might come from Portnoy.
I mean, the most interest they’ve gotten so far was for a bidet company called Tushy and would’ve been called ‘TUSHY Stadium’…yeah that’s not happening (big miss not leading with ‘The Toilet Bowl’). The county already shut that down. I can just imagine the references that would emerge.
What are the odds that Barstool and Portnoy could pull this off? Probably slim as it stands, but I’m not ruling anything out. I have no idea if they would really push the Barstool brand or go more the gambling route with Penn. But, Portnoy is a noted fan of #BillsMafia and has seen what Buffalo has to offer him as well. It seems like it would be mutually beneficial if done right and the Barstool brand wasn’t forced upon Buffalo, because as many that would support it there are probably more that would be against any association with them.

There’s a lot of people who hate Dave Portnoy and Barstool Sports, but their success and popularity can’t be denied. Almost everything he touches turns to gold. It will be interesting to see what transpires from this for sure.
All I know is that it’s still ‘The Ralph’ to me and I just hope I can watch live Buffalo Bills’ football this year.