The new FS1 morning show from Barstool Sports, Wake Up Barstool, made its network debut on Tuesday morning. The show is expected to have a rotating cast of Barstool characters throughout the week, but founder Dave Portnoy hosted the premiere and was joined by Rico Bosco, Brandon Walker and Jason Williams in what Portnoy said was the retired basketball player's first interaction with the group.
The show started with Portnoy saying "If you're expecting to be like crazy excited, you haven't paid any attention to what I do here," before saying that he basically works for FOX and is now all over the network.
Welcome to Wake Up Barstool
— Wake Up Barstool (@wakeupbarstool) September 2, 2025
“For our show, anybody can get cut at any time…” pic.twitter.com/Ayfnjm3RYP
Going into and out of commercial breaks was one of the places where the learning curve of doing a live morning show became apparent, with Portnoy asking when and how to throw it to commercial.
https://t.co/wmfKYDwEKb pic.twitter.com/7mV9XJsnVh
— Wake Up Barstool (@wakeupbarstool) September 2, 2025
Going into another break Portnoy floated the idea of checking the internet to see how the fans thought the first show was going.
Dave Portnoy on the debut episode of 'Wake Up Barstool': "When we come back from the break, let's see what the people are saying. They're usually pretty mean. Like, 'this show stinks, I'm never going to watch it.' I'll tell you this: it didn't have the greatest ratings before we… pic.twitter.com/FCIzEW3xAk
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 2, 2025
"When we come back from the break, let's see what the people are saying," said Portnoy. "They're usually pretty mean. Like this show stinks, I'm never going to watch it. I'm gonna tell you this: it didn't have big ratings before we got on. So you can't go zero to negative zero. So maybe, we can only go up."
The show that previously held the time slot was Breakfast Ball with Craig Carton, Danny Parkins and Mark Schlereth and previous to that was The Craig Carton Show.
Portnoy is certainly right that the ratings for those shows were not great, which is why FS1 turned to Barstool to try something else.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Dave Portnoy Kicked Off New ‘Wake Up Barstool’ Show By Bashing FS1’s Previous Ratings.
