There was already no love lost between Dave Portnoy and Ohio State, and now FOX appears to have decided the drama is no longer worth the headache. After bringing the Michigan alum into Big Noon Kickoff in 2025 and keeping him around for 2026, the network has now pulled the plug on both Portnoy and Barstool Sports’ on-location presence. Portnoy, of course, is not going quietly, and Ryan Day is squarely in his sights.
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Dave Portnoy’s version of events is anything but quiet. Before The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand’s report on the decision surfaced, he said he had been told he was being “put on ice” by FOX. He then laid the blame squarely at Ohio State and Ryan Day, claiming the program complained to the Big Ten and pressured FOX over his presence.
“Ohio State and Ryan Day b—hed and moaned to the Big 10 and threatened Fox till they had no choice,” he wrote on X. “I always knew Ryan Day was soft but holy s–t even I didn’t realize he was this soft.”
FOX has not publicly confirmed Dave Portnoy’s account of what happened. Reports citing sources familiar with the decision say the bigger problem was the awkward marriage between FOX’s traditional college football presentation and Barstool’s deliberately provocative style. Based on Portnoy’s comments, this apparently wasn’t FOX waking up Saturday morning and deciding it didn’t like him anymore.
The trouble goes back to Dave Portnoy’s first FOX season. In August 2025, Ohio State barred the Michigan booster from entering Ohio Stadium for the Texas game, while he could still appear on FOX’s pregame coverage outside the stadium. The Barstool College Football Show was also affected.
Dave Portnoy, naturally, turned the whole thing into content. He showed up in Columbus wearing a disguise and an “I ♥ Ryan Day” hat, because subtlety has never been the Barstool business model.
The friction was already there. Dave Portnoy is a Michigan guy, and taking shots at Ohio State has long been part of his act. Some of those shots aimed at Ryan Day and the sign-stealing saga went well past the usual rivalry noise. Put that personality inside a FOX show built around the Big Ten, and things were bound to get messy. And eventually, according to reports, the balancing act stopped making much sense for the network.
This isn’t a total breakup, though. Barstool remains involved with FOX through other programming, including Wake-Up Barstool, while FOX had also used Barstool personalities around select college football broadcasts. But the weekly Big Noon Kickoff experiment is over.
The show now moves forward with its established television lineup, including Rob Stone, Urban Meyer, Matt Leinart, Brady Quinn, and Mark Ingram II. Dave Portnoy, meanwhile, insists Barstool’s college football operation will continue. So the cameras may have moved on but the rivalry hasn’t.
If anything, Dave Portnoy’s reaction guarantees that Ohio State, Ryan Day, and Barstool will keep circling the same argument. It’ll just be without a FOX desk sitting in the middle of it.