SAT . Dave Portnoy threatens to pull Barstool from NYC over ‘Communist’ Zohran Mamdani’s win: ‘Hate the guy’
Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy is threatening to close the company’s Manhattan office because of Zohran Mamdani’s election, saying he hates the inexperienced, “Communist” pol and warning that the mayor-elect will wreck the business climate.
Portnoy made the comments during a YouTube livestream last week, amid expectations Mamdani would defeat former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Nov. 4 election.
“I hate the guy,” Portnoy said of Mamdani. “I can’t stand the thought of him running New York City. I can’t stand it.
“Thirty-something-year-old Communist running New York City who’s never had a job in his life, hates America — doesn’t seem like the best.”
Portnoy, 48, weighed the pros and cons of getting out of Manhattan during Mamdani’s reign.
“Honestly, I’ve given that a lot of thought — he’s definitely going to win — going to Hoboken or Jersey City or something,” Portnoy said.
“I don’t want to f–king have an office [in Manhattan]. But then we have all those people who, like, that f–ks up their life because I hate the guy. Like, all the people in the New York office have to go to Jersey City or … Hoboken. So it’s a Catch-22.”
Still, Portnoy indicated he’s seriously weighing an exit.
“A part of me is like, how much will actually change? But I really have given it thought,” he said. “I told our finance guys to start looking around for property, no joke. Take a principled stand.”
After networks projected Mamdani, 34, as the winner on Tuesday night, Portnoy posted on X, “Thank god I don’t live there anymore.”
Portnoy’s frustration with the new mayor has been building for months.
In a July appearance on Fox Business, he warned that Mamdani “hates capitalism” and would “blame the victims of 9/11 rather than the terrorists.”
“It’s a very scary time,” he said. “I can’t believe that this guy may be the mayor of New York City. He’s closer to a Communist.”
Barstool, which Portnoy founded in 2003 in Massachusetts, has maintained a major office in Manhattan even after relocating many of its operations to Chicago. The company was worth about $600 million as of 2023.
Mamdani, a New York state assemblyman who was born in Uganda and describes himself as a Democratic socialist, ran on a platform of rent freezes, city-run grocery stores and expanded public housing — measures that critics say will cripple investment and drive employers out.
His victory appeared to mark a stunning political shift for New York, where business leaders rallied behind Cuomo, who ran as an independent.
Pershing Square CEO Bill Ackman, who sparred with Mamdani on social media during the campaign, congratulated the mayor-elect on X.
“Now you have a big responsibility,” Ackman wrote. “If I can help NYC, just let me know what I can do.”
