When Barstool Sports extends its sports commentary to Fox Sports, it will maintain its distinctive style, according to Dan “Big Cat” Katz, who made this statement during Thursday’s episode of “Barstool Yak.”
Katz was talking about the recently announced collaboration between Fox Sports and Barstool, which brings together these prominent sports entities to enhance the network’s college football coverage and introduce a new studio show on FS1.
This new show represents Barstool’s second attempt to partner with a network for a traditional television program, marking its return after the short-lived “Van Talk” which was canceled by ESPN after just one episode in 2017.
Katz expects that the new deal and studio show will be a better opportunity than the ESPN partnership for “Van Talk” ended up being because “the world’s changed.”
“[FS1] realizes, whenever Barstool Van Talk got canceled, 2017, look, [Pat] McAfee’s thriving,” he said. “Shane Gillis just did the ESPYs last night. I think the world is changing, I think people understand entertainment is entertainment.”
“Van Talk” ended abruptly due in part to previous comments made by Katz and Barstool founder Dave Portnoy about then-ESPNer Sam Ponder, and former-ESPN president John Skipper later said that the network wasn’t able to distance itself from the Barstool brand as much as it wanted.
Katz feels the new Fox partnership will allow Barstool to remain true to what it does best.
“I think it’s going to be a lot of our audience tuning in,” Katz said. “And I think it’s going to be a lot different than the ESPN deal we did back in 2017, where I think Fox is a very willing partner that reached out to us, you know what I mean? So it feels different in that they want us, not we’re asking them, ‘Please, please put us on at 1 in the morning.”
Barstool and Fox Sports announced the deal Thursday, and it will include Portnoy becoming a regular contributor on “Big Noon Kickoff. It will also feature appearances by a number of Barstool Sports personalities, including Katz.
“The Barstool College Football Show” will also be on location with “Big Noon Kickoff” for select games during the season.
The daily studio show will air for two hours Monday through Friday
