Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy announced Wednesday that popular host Ben Mintz was fired from the company after saying a racial slur while reading rap lyrics on a livestream earlier this week.
Portnoy said the decision was made by Barstool’s parent company, Penn Entertainment, despite protestations from himself, Barstool CEO Erika Nardini and longtime talent Dan Katz that Mintz — rapping the song “1st of Tha Month” by Bone Thugz-N-Harmony — had made an honest mistake.
“This morning, I made an unforgivable mistake slipping on air while reading a song lyric,” Mintz tweeted Monday morning after reading the slur aloud during his show “Wake Up Mintzy.”
“I meant no harm & have never felt worse about anything. I apologize for my actions. I am truly sorry & ashamed of myself.”
Penn acquired 36 percent of Barstool Sports from The Chernin Group for $163 million in early 2020, and bought the remainder of the company for an additional $388 million this past February.
Portnoy said that the parent company made the call to fire Mintz over concern that the incident could jeopardize regulatory gambling licenses across the country.
“I hate the decision. I disagree with the decision. I would not have made the decision. But I don’t deal with the things Penn deals with in terms of state regulators etc,” Portnoy told The Post in a direct message.
“Penn paid a lot of money for Barstool and they have to make the best decisions to protect their business. I trust and respect [Penn CEO] Jay [Snowden] that he makes what he thinks is the right move and that’s all you can ask for. Doesn’t mean I’ll always agree but again he deals with things I don’t have to think or deal with.”
In addition to owning Barstool Sports, Penn operates 43 brick-and-mortar casinos in 20 states under the brands Ameristar, Boomtown and Hollywood Casino.
In the video announcing the firing, Portnoy expressed shock that this was a situation that could have affected the company with regulators.
“They believe there’s a legitimate chance lots of states could pull their licenses because of this,” said Portnoy, who himself has been at the center of racial slur incidents.
“Penn’s a multi-billion dollar company. Without their licenses, they are a zero-dollar company. Investors, families, employees, thousands of people — they believe it’s their job to protect all of this and the only answer is to fire Ben Mintz.
“I still disagreed with it, and maybe I’m naive, but I’m like, ‘There is just no way anybody can look at the clip and think the punishment fits the crime.’ It makes my skin crawl thinking a guy would lose their job on an innocent mistake. Yes, horrible, but clearly no intent … It’s everything I’ve stood against for 20 years.”