Dave Portnoy discusses new memoir and Barstool's rise on CBS Morning

Dave Portnoy took his latest public turn through a familiar lane: the combative founder, the grievance narrative and the business story wrapped together. In CBS News’ “Full Interview: Dave Portnoy,” the Barstool Sports founder sat down with CBS Saturday Morning co-host Kelly O'Grady to discuss his new memoir, Cancel Me If You Can, as he again presented himself as both a lightning rod and a brand built to survive the blowback.

O'Grady, who joined CBS News in 2024 and was named a co-host of CBS Saturday Morning on January 9, 2026, led the conversation around Portnoy’s public image and his own account of what he says drove Barstool’s rise. The book, scheduled for publication on June 30, 2026, from Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, is described by the publisher as a memoir about how Portnoy built Barstool Sports by betting on himself and staying true to his style. Portnoy has said the story reaches back to 2004, when he started Barstool as a four-page broadsheet newspaper in Boston before it grew into a digital media company.

The memoir lands at a moment when Portnoy’s name is inseparable from the larger business arc of Barstool itself. Penn Entertainment bought a stake in the company in 2020, then acquired the rest in February 2023 before selling Barstool back to Portnoy for a nominal $1 in August 2023. Depending on whether the starting point is the initial stake purchase or the later full acquisition, Penn’s total spend to build its Barstool position was put at roughly $550 million to $606 million.

That back-and-forth ownership history gives the memoir and the CBS segment more weight than a standard book tour stop. Portnoy’s appeal has long rested on a posture of defiance, and his rise shows how anti-establishment branding can harden into a durable media business with enough reach to attract major corporate buyers, then return to its founder after years of turmoil. Cancel Me If You Can turns that arc into a self-mythologizing narrative, but the power story is bigger than the personal grievance at its center.