Barstool Sports has long been at war with the NFL, mostly stemming from founder Dave Portnoy’s passionate disdain for Roger Goodell because of the way the commissioner handled the Deflategate scandal. Now, Portnoy is considering taking the most powerful sports league in America to court.
And the native Bostonian feels confident that he would win.
On Tuesday, Portnoy told TMZ that his company is planning to send a cease and desist letter to the NFL over some Cowboys-themed “Sundays are for the Boys” shirts that are currently being sold on NFL.com. Portnoy made it no secret that he despises Goodell and isn’t going to let the NFL get away with what he considers a “clear copyright violation.”
“For them to put those shirts out, which is a clear copyright violation, pretty much the only copyright Barstool has ever had, the ‘Saturdays are for the Boys,’ that’s a ripoff,” Portnoy said. “They’d be the first ones to sue if that was reversed. They sue on things that they don’t even have the rights for.”
For those who are unfamiliar with the network, Barstool is a growing media company that specializes in satire. They have started numerous social media trends over the years, but the “Saturdays are for the Boys” movement is by far the biggest. Portnoy believes the NFL is playing directly off of that, and he is confident the shirts will be removed from the NFL Shop.
“We will take legal action. I’d be surprised if they don’t take them down, because they’re definitely in the wrong,” he said. “We’ll definitely send a cease and desist. There’s a million different variations of how people use that phrase, but every single time we’re basically found in the right. They wouldn’t be doing that shirt without ‘Saturdays are for the Boys.’ It’s a play on that.
“They’re definitely gonna take those shirts down. There’s no way, because we’d sue them. We’d go all the way through and sue them and win.”
No one understands the concept of “any publicity is good publicity” better than Portnoy, which is why he admitted he isn’t angry over the NFL allegedly stealing his company’s trademarked phrase. Remember, he and his cronies once went to jail for refusing to leave the NFL’s headquarters. They’ll take the content any way they can get it.
