Dave Portnoy was born to Linda and Michael Portnoy on March 22, 1977. His dad is a businessman, while his mom is a housewife.
He grew up in Swampscott, Massachusetts, and is Jewish, seeing as he has had a Bar Mitzvah.
Growing up in Swampscott, Massachusetts, he attended Swampscott High School and was classmates with Todd McShay of ESPN fame.
After graduating from high school, he went to the University of Michigan for his higher education and graduated with a degree in education in 1955. Despite having a degree in education, Portnoy is most famous for founding the sports and pop culture blog Barstool Sports, known for his bawdy humor, rejecting political correctness, misogyny, and homophobia.
Who Is Dave Portnoy’s Mom, Linda Portnoy?
Dave Portnoy was born to Michael and Linda Portnoy.
Since she is a housewife and has been for most of her life, as far as the public knows, most of any available information about her is seen through the lens of what her famous son provides to the public.
Luckily, Portnoy has a lot to say about his mother and is often seen with her. Perhaps the most famous example of content the two made together was on July 19, 2018.
Barstool Sports has a series called Barstool Pizza Review, where Portnoy reviews various pizza stores around the country.
This particular date is special because this is the episode where Portnoy reviews The Muse, a pizza store in Nantucket, with his mother. As a special treat, his father, Michael, was the one taking the video, so fans of Barstool Sports could get to know both of Dave Portnoy’s parents.
The first thing that fans got to learn about Linda Portnoy is that she loves to golf, as she appeared in the video in her golf gear. Linda Portnoy’s love of golf is well documented amongst fans of Barstool Sports and especially Dave.
He often talks about her love and prowess in golf, and in one famous tweet, showed a receipt that their local golf establishment sent him, showing that his mother scored a hole-in-one. As Portnoy is also someone who loves to gold, it became a nice inside joke amongst his fans that she could gold far better than him.
The video further revealed that Portnoy’s love of pizza, which he has subjected his company and his followers to notice a lot over the years, was inherited from his mother. Aside from this one video, Portnoy’s mother has not appeared much in his content, and the only other place to find any information about her is on her son’s Instagram page.
Dave Portnoy’s Parents Are Mom, Linda, And Michael Portnoy
Unlike Dave Portnoy’s mom, Linda Portnoy, his dad, Michael Portnoy, seems to be a little more social media savvy.
Not only does he appear on barstool sports content more than his wife, but he also has more social media following. For example, he has well over 83.8K followers on his Twitter page.
He has stated that he does not wish to use Twitter since October 29, 2022, and has not been active on the site since then.
Prior to that, though, he used to regularly post his thoughts on the app and had a large following of people who would regularly talk to and interact with him.
Aside from his Twitter, he also has a radio show on Sirius XM called Mike & the Murdogg featuring Cousin Riggs, which is very much like his Twitter in the sense that it’s all his thoughts unfiltered.
Perhaps due to his zany personality and the way he habitually bashes his son, Michael has earned a lot of fans and is part of many barstool sports fans’ inside jokes about the son and father combo. These jokes have become so insular that sometimes people ask if they are jokes or if the son and father hate each other.
Even in the pizza video mentioned earlier, the way the duo jabbed at each other, some of the comments wondered if they hated each other or if things weren’t all well with them.
However, that level of bashing has been commonplace with the two since barstool sports started and perhaps all of their life. Barstool sports wouldn’t happen if it weren’t for Michael Portnoy’s generosity in helping Dave Portnoy out.
In 2004, Portnoy and barstool fell into trouble when he had to file for bankruptcy protection due to large gambling losses.
He owed $59,000 to credit card companies and $18,000 to his father. If it weren’t for Mike Portnoy, David might even have gone to jail, and Mike Portnoy never forgets to rub it in.