Dave Portnoy won’t be visiting Roger Goodell’s basement after all.
Portnoy, the Barstool Sports founder, announced Friday on Twitter that the league rescinded the invitation to visit Goodell’s Bronxville, N.Y. home to watch “Monday Night Football” that he initially won in an NFL-organized auction with a $250,000 bid because he failed the preconditioned background check. The winner also received two tickets to a regular-season NFL game, which Portnoy will also not be getting. He has been one of the NFL commissioner’s biggest critics.
“Two-hundred and fifty grand to charity, I won it fair and square, and they say no,” the 43-year-old Portnoy said in the video. “Why? Because they’re afraid of me. They’re afraid of the brain, and they’re not going to have some fun with it. So, f–k you, Roger Goodell. By the way, don’t do charities and let the guy win it who you don’t want to win it. That’s on you.”
Portnoy also ran through the list of incidents he was involved in that the league flagged, including forging Super Bowl LII Opening Night credentials in 2019, being arrested for staging a sit-in protest at the NFL’s Park Avenue headquarters over Tom Brady’s Deflategate suspension in 2015 and posting a nude photo of Brady’s then 2-year-old son in 2011.
“He was the highest bidder, but the bid was contingent upon a background check,” NFL vice president of communications Brian McCarthy told Sports Business Journal. “So he consented to the background check, and it came back and he heard from the NFL today that he did not pass the background check. He will not be the winner.”
Instead, Portnoy said the league will not keep his money and the NFL will donate $250,000 equally to the six charities it was supporting with its draft auctions.
A “deserving front line worker” involved in aiding during the coronavirus pandemic will be chosen to enjoy Goodell’s house — where he hosted this year’s NFL draft — and the tickets instead.