If you haven’t been following the drama between the NWHL and Barstool Sports, buckle the fuck up. It’s been a wild ride and I have a feeling it’s not going to slow down any time soon.
Everyone knows that Barstool Sports isn’t for everyone, it’s not your typical media outlet. It’s satirical, edgy and pushes the limits in many ways, creating their own media blueprint that has proven to be successful thus far. This causes some more “traditional” and not as successful news outlets to throw shade at Barstool at the drop of a hat. This was proven true this week with articles from Deadspin and Vice. Barstool Sports president, Dave Portnoy had major issues with the Vice article according to this tweet thread. Dave also has a quote tweet that points out it seems some of these anti-barstool journalist and keyboard warriors have an agenda and come at the entire company any chance they get, which has to be exhausting.
Barstool’s Token CEO, Erika Nardini, took it upon herself to start promoting the NWHL on her social media accounts and her podcast and received a tremendous amount of backlash for this post. And if you didn’t know what the NWHL was before this, trust me you’re not alone. I didn’t know about them until Erika talked about it and had Metropolitan Riveters forward, Kelly Babstock on her podcast, fittingly named Token CEO, back in May 2020. You can listen to that episode on Apple podcast here. But apparently the NWHL doesn’t want the support from her or any of the stoolies that come along with her.
Who wouldn’t want Erika on their side? Not only is she a female CEO of a major media company that is worth over $450 million dollars as of November 2020 and only growing from there with their addition of talent and their launch of a sports betting app, Barstool Sportsbook.
Have you ever heard of Spittin’ Chiclets? They’re one of the biggest hockey podcast out there with close to 300,000 followers on Twitter and a whopping 878,000 followers on Instagram. What hockey organization wouldn’t want to be a part of that? Oh, right, the NWHL, whose following doesn’t come close to that; 57.1k on Twitter and 42.6k on Instagram. I thought they wanted to grow the game and love for hockey? What better way than to partner up with other people that have that kind of reach of people that already love the game of hockey? Apparently some supporters feel like Erika is supporting the league to solely benefit herself, which the history of her falling in love with the sport says otherwise.
Last Thursday Erika released a Token CEO podcast episode with Kelly Babstock and Rebecca Russo, two Riveters players who were about to go into the bubble for this brief NWHL bubble season. Erika not only woke up before the sun came up to drive Babstock to get on the team bus to go to the bubble in Lake Placid, but also bought food for the whole team. Gabrielle Gjelaj, Riveters Director of Hockey Operations, referenced Erika’s kind gesture towards the team with the last line of her Instagram story post on Wednesday.
In February 2020 Barstool put on a two pond hockey tournaments, one in New Hampshire and one in Ontario, Canada. These tournaments were a big deal, spanning over two weekends, with sponsors like Budweiser and of course New Amsterdam Pink Whitney. Kelly Babstock was a part of the tournament, her and Erika are not strangers, but friends beyond this bubble season of NWHL. You can check out all the highlights from those weekends here. Erika is close to and admires Kelly Babstock so much, there is no reason for her not to want the best for someone and the league she’s in
Kevin Clancy of Barstool Sports has a segment called One Minute Man, which on Wednesday was a whole 9 mins of him ranting about the internet war going on between the NWHL and Erika Nardini. He talks about and admits that Barstool has had controversial content in the past but makes it a point to say that Erika was never apart of that content. Explaining that Erika is nothing but a boss and has good intentions with her support of the NWHL. Kevin also talks about how no matter how much charity Barstool does, there are just some people that will tear down and slander Barstool sports. If you care to check out that video you can find it here.
This isn’t the only time Barstool Sports has reached out a helping hand to someone in the NWHL, they helped raise money for Denna Laing after she suffered a career ending injury. Check out the video below and donate to Denna who is still trying to navigate her life after her devastating injury. This is the same story that Dave brought up in his video about the Vice article, where they stated they were mocking her in the clip…I don’t know about you, but I don’t think this video shows any mocking. But let’s not bring her story into this clusterfuck.
If this doesn’t make you think the NWHL is just anti-barstool I was browsing the internet on Wednesday night and came across someone who had experience working at the NWHL organization. She asked to remain anonymous when I shared her less than ideal welcome in the organization. This former employee of the league mentioned that “a lot of the same people coming at Erika came at me when I was with the (league)” by subtweeting her because her support for and interaction with Barstool’s Chicks in the Office and Token CEO. She also says that she felt that “they’re straight up intolerant of anyone who doesn’t have the same opinions on everything as them and make it a very exclusive club” and because of that she lost interest in the sport herself. Hearing this from someone who was on the inside for 5 months leads me to believe that there is a lot of internal issues within the league that need to be worked on. I don’t see how someone could handle working in an environment where they don’t feel welcomed and have to see people subtweeting other people in the organization. Maybe the NWHL should look take a look in the mirror.
Wednesday night there was a scheduling change that coincidentally resulted in the Riveters being scratched from their game against the Buffalo Beauts. The NWHL stated that “change was made in line with the league’s medical protocols prioritizing health and safety.” With that being said, there were some speculations online that it has to do with the drama surrounding the league and particularly the Rivs. We will see how the Riveters get to make-up that game with limited time remaining in the bubble and their quest to win the Isobel Cup.
UPDATE: On Thursday 1/28, The Riveters and the NWHL reported that the Metropolitan Riveters are leaving Lake Placid due to Covid-19 protocols. With the nature of rising Covid cases and the state of the world today, this isn’t surprising, it seems at some point all sports leagues have had to deal with Covid protocols and outbreaks throughout their seasons. It’s a complete bummer for the Rivs and the rest of the league.
In light of this news, Erika posted this statement on her social media. I suggest everyone take the time to read what she has to say about everything that has been going on with the league and Barstool. The conflict between the two seems to date back a few years.
Erika Nardini and Barstool Sports have a history of helping out the NWHL and other organizations by shedding light on them and turning millions of stoolies into fans of anything they promote. They want to use the media empire they’ve built to help and stand by the organizations they believe in. I still don’t understand who wouldn’t want Barstool Sports on their side, even if it’s just to kick start their fan base.
Between the midst of all this chaos Barstool sports made social media accounts for their very own Women’s Hockey League, which you can find on Twitter and Instagram. They’re going to make an impact on women’s hockey some way or another and it seems that that impact is going to be made by starting their own league. Who knows what’s going to come next, it just seems like Barstool has the ability to turn everything they touch into gold.
HelloKimMarie 
Leave a comment