A cruel case of cancel culture at Barstool Sports

There are plenty of “woke” digital media. Then there’s
Barstool Sports
. The online content factory, which originally focused on sports but now does everything from
entertainment
to politics, was, from its inception, politically incorrect. Yet, evidently, even Barstool is no longer safe from the pernicious influence of
cancel culture
.

The company recently
fired
popular personality Ben Mintz in what can only be described as an injustice. During a livestream, the host was reading Bone Thugs-N-Harmony lyrics out in real time from his phone and failed to catch himself before repeating the N-word out loud. Mintz immediately realized his mistake and apologized profusely after the fact.

CLARENCE THOMAS PREDICTED CANCEL CULTURE LONG BEFORE IT CAME FOR HIM

“This morning, I made an unforgivable mistake slipping on air while reading a song lyric,” he said. “I meant no harm & have never felt worse about anything. I apologize for my actions. I am truly sorry & ashamed of myself.”

Even this groveling wasn’t enough to save Mintz in a culture as devoid of grace as ours. He was summarily dismissed, with the firing occurring against the wishes of top Barstool executives such as founder Dave Portnoy but being mandated by corporate owner Penn Entertainment, which purchased the company in full in February.

“I hate the decision,” Portnoy
said
. “I disagree with the decision. I would not have made the decision. But I don’t deal with the things Penn deals with in terms of state regulators, etc.”

In a video posted to social media, Portnoy
explained
the company is “highly regulated by the government” and relies on gambling licenses from various government authorities and, “just as easily as they’re issued, they can be pulled back.”

What differentiates this particular incident from other examples of cancel culture is that there wasn’t even any significant public demand for Mintz to face termination. You can find a few tweets expressing outrage, sure, but nowhere near the typical volume of backlash found in these instances. That’s right: Even in the hellscape of Twitter, a place typically devoid of nuance, most people seemed to realize that it was an innocent enough mistake, not some intentional act of racial bigotry.

Why? Well, perhaps because no one was actually harmed by this. No actual person’s life was materially worsened in any way by some fratty sports influencer reciting a lyric during a livestream. But one man’s career and life were just turned upside down for no apparent reason other than a graceless culture and corporate cowardice.

And make no mistake, Penn’s corporate excuse-making is simply cowardice. Leaders are essentially arguing they had to fire Mintz because this could jeopardize their ability to obtain gambling licenses from various state governments. That alone seems incredibly far-fetched.

But even if it were true, for a government to deny them a license on the basis of constitutionally protected free speech — yes, even slurs are protected by the First Amendment — would arguably be a violation of the First Amendment, and they’d have a case against that government in court. What’s more, any government that was going to hold this against them when considering licenses could still do so regardless of whether the employee was fired or not.

Even if Penn doesn’t want to take any risks because all it cares about is the bottom line, and its leaders don’t care about their employees or basic compassion or fairness, this is still the wrong call.

By caving to the cruelest form of cancel culture, they’re alienating Barstool’s core fan base and compromising everything its brand is supposed to represent. After all, you can’t be an irreverent, countercultural brand and also ax your employees for even the most minor transgressions of “woke” pieties. So it’s not exactly shocking that amid this controversy, Penn’s
stock price has plummeted
, and Barstool’s comment sections have flooded with denunciations from former supporters.

The backlash against Barstool is understandable, although it’s hard to fault the Barstool press too much, seeing as this came down from higher up against their protestations. But it sure does make Portnoy’s choice to sell the company to an openly “woke” corporation that
embraces “ESG”
look even worse in hindsight.

And it once again raises the question about what kind of America we want to be: one where people are fired over song lyrics or one where people can make small mistakes without having their lives ruined?

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Brad Polumbo (
@Brad_Polumbo
) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and the co-founder of
BASEDPolitics
.