Barstool talents’ anti-tax videos raise questions about company’s lobbying status

We’ve seen companies and their affiliates make public pleas to influence voting on propositions or elected officials. Recently, we’ve seen companies and their affiliates publicly call on consumers to flood other companies with complaints to achieve a particular outcome.

It felt like something different, however, when Pardon My Take host Dan ‘Big Cat’ Katz, along with Barstool Sports personalities Adam ‘Rone’ Ferrone and Max Dolente, posted videos on X criticizing potential sports betting tax changes in Pennsylvania.

“Every bet feels like we’re up against the opponent, spread, and Harrisburg’s hand in our pocket,” said Katz, who lives in Chicago. “We finally get legal gambling, something that we’ve wanted forever, and now they’re trying to tax it into the ground.”

“Philly fans don’t ask for much, just decent refs and maybe a team that doesn’t break us every other Sunday,” Philadelphia sports blogger Max Dolente said in a video. “Now, Harrisburg wants to break something else: our wallets.”

The posts were timed to an impending budget plan announcement by Pennsylvania lawmakers, rumored to include taxes on gambling winnings.

According to Stephen Caruso of Spotlight PA, while some Democrats were pushing Republicans to reach a deal to increase taxes on sports betting to help fund public transit, no such provision made it into the final budget.

Katz and Barstool received sharp criticism over the videos. They also raised questions about whether they constituted lobbying, which would have required Barstool and its talent to be registered with the state of Pennsylvania.

As Caruso noted, the media company is not registered to lobby in the state, but DraftKings and its affiliates are. Barstool and DraftKings currently have a marketing partnership based around gambling. DraftKings said it “did not request or pay for these posts” in an email to Spotlight PA.

Mary Fox, executive director of the Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission, told Spotlight PA that Barstool’s videos could be considered a form of lobbying known as “indirect communication.” However, the videos might also have been covered by exceptions regarding the amount of money or time spent creating or sharing them.

“Citizen advocacy is very important,” State Rep. Bryan Cutler (R., Lancaster) told Spotlight PA. “But then you have individuals who are compensated to engage on particular issues, and that’s really where that distinction is. So the question would really go back to both the companies and them as individuals. Were they being paid to put out those videos?”

Given the overall adverse reaction to the videos and their messaging, we’ll have to wait and see if Barstool decides to roll the dice on the lobbying distinction again if this or another potential law comes up.