Dave Portnoy has never been one to pull punches. And the Barstool Sports founder certainly didn’t sugarcoat the rough start for FS1’s new daily morning show, Wake Up Barstool, which debuted last week.
On the latest episode of The Unnamed Show, Portnoy admitted that the show’s first week ratings were “awful,” as it averaged 16,500 viewers across its first four episodes. For comparison’s sake, those numbers are well below the 2024 debuts of the two FS1 shows it replaced, as well as the competition it faced on ESPN.
Still, Portnoy admitted that he wasn’t necessarily surprised by the disappointing numbers. While co-hosts Kirk Minihane and Ryan Whitney pointed to the disconnect between Barstool’s audience and a morning cable television show, Portnoy cited the program’s lack of promotion as one of the primary reasons why so few people have been watching.
“It wasn’t like we had some giant promo leading up to it,” he said. “We just kind of did it. That could have been the best show in the history of the world with the best people. The way it’s promoted, I don’t think you’d expect much different numbers. We want to build it up. I think if it goes 20,000 or whatever it was and next week you’re down to 500 people, that to me is a bigger red flag. It’s not like people are tuning it out. It’s just, that’s what we launched with.”
Dave on how the Fox partnership is going and how he will improve his show @wakeupbarstool going forward pic.twitter.com/nEi5oRSaD3
— The Unnamed Show (@barstoolunnamed) September 11, 2025
Portnoy also admitted that he doesn’t “love” the show’s format on the Mondays he has been hosting. This week saw him trim his panel from four to three and he said he’ll continue to make changes in hopes of finding something that clicks.
“It’s OK-to-average right now,” he said of his Monday episodes. “We haven’t finished a show where I’ve been like, ‘nailed it. That’s great.’ And I feel like I have a pretty good idea when I do my own content.”
While Fox executives might not be thrilled with Portnoy’s commentary, this is the exact type of transparency it signed up for when it partnered with the Barstool brand. The biggest questions now are what changes the show can make to find a firmer footing and how Portnoy will ultimately respond if it can’t do so.
About Ben Axelrod
Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.