Erika Nardini Can’t Be Cancelled
The Barstool CEO is riding an unstoppable culture wave
By Nathan Duff
Barstool Sports CEO Erika Nardini has had a remarkable career, and has overcome countless obstacles, but now she is faced with personal attacks playing out in the national media. Recent salacious and shameless headlines by celebrity gossip and tabloid sites like Deadspin and PageSix are putting an exclamation point on the condemnation against her personally that began when she took over Barstool in 2016.
Cancel culture activists have had Nardini in their crosshairs since she joined the controversial yet forward thinking company popular with millions of young people online. She has been able to navigate the rapids of public opinion with an unapologetic, determined focus on Barstool’s connection to its audience.
Nardini came to Barstool after working her way up the corporate ladder, holding increasingly responsible positions that culminated in her beating out a field of over 70 men to be named Barstool’s first CEO. Prior to Barstool, Nardini had leading roles at Microsoft, AOL, Demand Media, and Yahoo! among others. She has been the recipient of numerous awards from companies such as Google, Royal Carribean and Nokia. But the move to Barstool erased most of the positive reputation that she had earned throughout her career. Her accomplishments, abilities and judgement were constantly called into question by those who have a problem with Barstool’s type of intentionally anti-PC, confrontational comedy and commentary.
Barstool Sports is built to be polarizing. And lucrative. Nardini quickly grew the company and established a giant footprint in sports media and lifestyle branding. But even before the ink was dry on her contract, hashtag apparatchiks in the media were accusing her of simply being a token hire meant to deflect the company’s reputation for misogyny. They called into question her character without any acknowledgement of the career arc and suite of unique skills that brought her to the job. As she built the brand into the juggernaut it has become, she has deftly defended the company from attacks from those who have sought to censor it.
Nardini knows her audience, and fans of Barstool – known as “Stoolies” – are fiercely loyal to the brand. Nardini has been able to leverage this loyalty into highly productive revenue streams that are largely bulletproof, and this infuriates her detractors. She leans into controversy, and has built relationships with advertisers who are fully aware of what they are getting into when they partner with Barstool. This has allowed Nardini to continue to grow the company in the face of increasing outrage from would-be censors in the media. Nardini was dropped from the boards of several companies when she took the job at Barstool, but in 2020 was named to the board of the WWE. Her tenacity and talents have allowed her to succeed when most predicted that she would fail, and as Barstool has grown, other options came along to replace any she lost initially. In the early months of 2020, Nardini played a huge role in a partnership with casino operator Penn National Gaming, which took the company value to $450 million. Taking the job at Barstool may have closed some doors for Nardini at the time, but she has proven that she is still able to develop opportunities at an elite level.
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Anytime someone comes along and has great success by upsetting the status quo, those with investment in the status quo fight back viciously. Internal dissent at ESPN forced the cancellation of its partnership with Barstool after only one episode of their show aired. In retrospect, it was a bad fit, but there was nothing wrong with the show that aired, according to most observers. The show was pre-recorded, and ESPN had complete control of all content. Rather, it was Barstool’s reputation and past statements by Barstool hosts denigrating ESPN hosts that was given as the reasons for the cancellation.
In January 2021, Nardini was ambushed by the National Women’s Hockey League. She had previously been a very prominent proponent of the organization until some within the league and the hockey community insisted that the league have no association with Barstool. A public fight emerged. Brands and entities that are vulnerable to cancel culture outrage can’t withstand any ties with Barstool, but Nardini has not allowed that to slow her down at all.
Nardini’s opponents in cancel culture have focused on decrying the content on the Barstool platform, attempting to shame sponsors and partners into breaking ties with the company. Although dozens of publications and websites have published versions of the various tabloid headlines attacking Nardini, they have been unable to do any real damage to her business reputation.
More recently, Nardini’s opponents have used unverified gossip about her life as ammunition of a much more personal nature. The judgmental prodding of Nardini’s private life gives them another excuse to reiterate their disdain for Barstool, virtue signalling as they mine for clicks with a racy headline. They are guilty of the same thing that they accuse Barstool of doing – pandering to the basest natures of their audience.
Nardini and Barstool will most likely weather the storm just fine, but that doesn’t mean that the cancellers will let up on her.
Nardini’s public persona and dedicated podcast, Token CEO, both focus entirely on her role at Barstool and the lessons she learned as a seasoned female executive. Nardini consistently keeps her home life private. While some outlets are focused on exposing her, some sources have come to her defense sharing that Nardini has been separated from her husband for a considerable amount of time. According to one source, any allegations that Nardini was involved with a new partner before she was separated from her husband are completely fabricated, yet none of the articles mention this because it would (for their purposes) muddy the waters. There is no cancel culture without the smug narcissists of digital media. Writers for major national newspapers, cable news talking heads, YouTubers, right on down to so called “citizen journalists” heap abuse and lies on the heads of anyone they deem isn’t playing by their rules. The world is full of people who have become successful because they played by their own rules, and they often become objects of scorn and ridicule by those who are envious of their success and those who want to silence anyone who doesn’t think like they do.
Proof that Nardini won’t be sidelined can be seen in an article this month by Cecilia Townes on Forbes.com, “Barstool Sports CEO Erika Nardini’s Path Of Nonconformity Has Translated Into Success.” The article praises Nardini’s acumen with no mention of the tabloid headlines. Nardini has refused to become a victim of media, and is instead an example of how to deal with cancel culture by refusing to be cowed by their outrage. Nardini doesn’t fit into any of their preconceived categories, and has stymied their efforts to get rid of her. Reasons for their outrage run the gamut from the seemingly reasonable to the outright lunatic. Their reason isn’t the key variable. The key variable is the volume of the outcry. If they make enough racket they can affect policies, get people fired, have shows taken off the air, have books banned. It has become formulaic and they have had such success with their formula that more and more people are caving in to their increasingly hysterical demands rather than push back. Nardini pushes back. She told the New York Post in 2018, “[Barstool] isn’t for everyone but you don’t have to watch it. In today’s world, if people don’t like something, they think it shouldn’t exist.” Part of Barstool’s schtick is to tweak the self-righteous, and they can’t stand it.
Nathan Duff is an award-winning freelance journalist who lives in Clarksdale, MS. He is the former editor and publisher of the Clarksdale Press Register, and contributor to Delta Business Journal among other regional publications.
