Dave Portnoy blames Ohio State coach Ryan Day for his removal from Fox Sports’ Big Noon Kickoff after the Buckeyes allegedly flooded the network with his old insults.
The Barstool Sports founder says the Buckeyes never wanted him on the college football pregame show and kept complaining until Fox walked away. Portnoy pinned the ouster on Day and Ohio State’s thin skin over years of Michigan-Ohio State rivalry trash talk.
The Post reported Portnoy’s account of the pressure campaign, including his claim that Day believes Portnoy “doxxed” him. Portnoy is a Michigan alum and booster who has spent years needling the Buckeyes on air and online.
Fox brought Portnoy onto Big Noon Kickoff, then took him off it. Portnoy says the friction started the moment the deal became public.
Portnoy told Front Office Sports the pushback was immediate. He described Fox executives sitting in Columbus while Ohio State played a long highlight reel of his anti-Buckeyes material.
Portnoy put it this way:
“It’s been basically since Day One. When Fox announced the deal, Ohio State objected to it instantly, to the point that Fox executives were in Columbus and were shown a 30- to 45-minute highlight tape of me ripping Ohio State and Ryan Day, all of the stuff that people familiar with me and Barstool have probably seen with the rivalry stuff. So, very upset that I would be added to Big Noon Kickoff.”
He said the program stayed unhappy whenever anyone criticized Day or the team, not only him. In Portnoy’s telling, Ohio State treated on-air heat as a problem to be managed rather than part of a heated rivalry.
Network choices like this land in the same messy media space readers already watch when Fox hosts question their own network polls and programming moves draw outside heat.
Portnoy also said he was barred from Ohio State’s stadium for the Aug. 30, 2025, game against Texas in his debut stretch with the show. He said Ohio State denied barring him, while still making clear from the start they did not want him on the air.
Portnoy went further. He said he has heard, from Fox people and from people in Nantucket, that Day thinks Portnoy doxxed him. Portnoy rejected that charge and questioned whether Day understands how the internet works.
He tied the complaint to older coverage from the Jim Harbaugh spying-scandal period and an On3 story about Day’s brother. Portnoy framed the whole episode as rivalry noise, not a real doxxing.
Portnoy said:
“From what I gather, Ryan Day thinks I ‘doxxed’ him. I’ve heard that a lot from not only Fox people, but people here in Nantucket. I’m not 100% sure he knows how the internet works, and I don’t even mean that facetiously. But like during the whole [Jim] Harbaugh thing [spying scandal], when it was back and forth in the news every day, there was a story at On3 that said [Day’s] brother was running a spy operation against Harbaugh, which, by the way, is hilarious.”
The Post noted the closest public jab it could find was Portnoy calling Day a “scared little chicken boy” after the coach moved Senior Day to Week 1. Portnoy remarked that Day was on Nantucket buying property. He did not publish an address.
Senior Day had traditionally sat with the final home game, sometimes against Michigan. Moving it earlier became more fuel for Portnoy’s on-air and online shots.
Fox’s wider brand fights are familiar ground, from new shows launched to challenge rival daytime franchises to the constant tug-of-war over who gets a microphone.
Just The News reported the end came fast. Portnoy learned on a Friday that he and other Barstool personalities were done on Big Noon Kickoff, less than 24 hours before a scheduled broadcast from Minneapolis ahead of Michigan-Minnesota.
Portnoy said Ohio State and Day had repeatedly pressured Fox over his presence. In his account, the network finally decided the relationship was no longer worth the complications.
He summed up Fox’s posture in a post:
“Juice wasn’t worth the squeeze.”
That is a blunt business judgment. A major sports network added a loud rival booster, absorbed the complaints, then cut the talent when the headache outran the value.
High-profile Fox bookings often carry political and institutional fallout of their own, including the kind of scrutiny that followed when Fetterman sat for a Fox News interview amid competing obligations.
Portnoy kept stressing the same point: Ohio State denied some of the specifics he described, yet stayed unhappy with him on the air from the beginning. He said complaints rolled in whenever Day or the program took public criticism.
Portnoy continued:
“Ohio State denied that they did it, but really from Day One they were very unhappy with me being on the air. Any time anyone, not only me, would criticize Ohio State or Ryan Day, they would complain.”
Michigan heads into the Thanksgiving-week meeting with Ohio State in the middle of a rough season. Portnoy’s whole brand leans into that rivalry. Fox hired that brand, then sidelined it.
Media companies make these trade-offs in public all the time. Talent gets booked for edge and audience, then quietly removed when a powerful outside program decides the heat is too much. Late-night and network fights show the same pattern when stars and executives start drawing lines, including cases where Stern warned ABC about fallout tied to a faltering show.
No public statement from Day, Ohio State, or Fox detailing an official reason appears in the available accounts. What stands is Portnoy’s version: a highlight reel in Columbus, constant objections, a doxxing claim he calls confused, a stadium bar he says the school denied, and a last-minute exit from Big Noon Kickoff.
When a flagship pregame show drops outspoken talent because a blue-blood program keeps complaining, viewers learn exactly whose comfort comes first.
