Barstool Sports vs. Everybody: Michael Rapaport Edition

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From public feuds with Sam Ponder that led to the end of their ESPN show after one episode to having a longtime writer get publicly outed as a cheater by his wife to the constant Deadspin articles that seem to come out daily (and those are just a few in the past year), Barstool Sports has never shied away from controversy.

They embrace it and have thrived because of it.

Recently the company was valued at $100 million, which is 10x what Peter Chernin bought it for just two years ago.

Barstool Sports has made a name for themselves by making jokes on a razor-thin line between hilarious and offensive, and they have found themselves on both sides of that line plenty of times.

But above all the controversy, the company has always been funny and approachable.

Each personality takes their turn being the butt of the joke, even founder and head content creator Dave Portnoy.

When Michael Rapaport (of Cop Land and Atypical fame) lost a bet with Adam “Smitty” Smith for $2,000 over the latter’s victory in a boxing match at Barstool’s Rough N Rowdy 2 —an absolutely insane sentence, by the way—it was Rapaport’s turn to march around with a little egg on his face.

Instead, he lost his fucking mind.

He started spamming steroid accusations at virtually every single Tweet directed his way.

There had to have been literal thousands.

For a few moments, it was just another chapter in the Smitty/Rapaport rivalry.

Then he did the one thing he couldn’t do.

He insulted the fan base.

The Tweet enraged all of the other Barstool employees, particularly the old guard who created a life for themselves thanks in part to the patronage and loyalty of the Stoolies.

One such angered employee was editor-in-chief Keith “Kmarko” Markovich, who is generally one of the most level-headed of the personalities.

And he absolutely ethered Rapaport.

After Kmarko fired the first shot, the piling began, and it included allegations of herpes and a sordid note from his past.

It seemed that every single other Barstool employee hated Rapaport from the beginning but played nice in hopes that his hiring would bring rewards and more notoriety to them all.

When that didn’t happen and his mouth continuously ran, he made enemies of them all.

He even got challenged to fight in the third installment of Rough N Rowdy.

The only personality that wasn’t heard from on Saturday night was the only one that really mattered: Portnoy.

In classic Portnoy fashion, he publicly fired Rapaport from his bed on Twitter. the following morning The ousting was largely because of a tweet Rapaport sent which shamed Barstool’s fans and the insanity that followed.

The firing video:

https://twitter.com/stoolpresidente/status/965246177380880384

Funnily enough, another Rapaport—NFL Insider Ian Rapaport—got “fired” in all of the action.

Rapaport’s response (from Barstool account):

https://twitter.com/barstoolsports/status/965309612831330304

For just a moment, it seemed as if Rapaport was walking out of the company with one small win…

Then Portnoy reminded him who got those clicks.

Never one to miss an opportunity to throw an insult and make a buck at the same time, Portnoy tweeted out a link to the newest Barstool shirt. (He reportedly made over $100,000 from the shirts.) UPDATE: Rapaport sent a cease and desist letter to the Barstool Sports’ office on Monday because of the shirts.

That shirt is laugh-out-loud funny. It is a reimagining of the classic Roger Goodell clown nose shirt with that added cold sore to illustrate that aforementioned alleged herpes.

This story still has no definitive end, but there has been a war brewing between Smitty and Rapaport for the last six months.

Rapaport and Portnoy are still doing battle on Twitter, and the Stoolies are doing their part in the war by capsizing Rapaport’s beloved podcast.

More to come.