The Barstool Sports of today is not the company Erika Ayers Badan first encountered when she was tapped as CEO in 2016. At the time, the ragtag operation had a handful of employees scattered across the U.S., some fledgling but fast-growing social media platforms, and about four advertising sponsors—the bulk of whom were beer companies or local to Boston. It also lacked a P&L, she recalls, and desperately needed a so-called “grownup” to sift through the company’s operations and deliver a growth strategy.
Despite its many shortcomings, what Barstool did have was a rabid fan base with whom it was able to establish a direct line, sans friction, as it expanded the community. That was its saving grace, says Badan in an interview with Fortune Executive Exchange.
Just two years shy of a decade later, the CEO is exiting the sports media juggernaut, which has catapulted its revenue from between $2 to $5 million when she came on board to over $250 million. That number far exceeds the revenue she set for herself in 2016, she says, noting that her five-year plan was to hit $25 million in revenue. She did it in just two.
Badan credits several factors—some serendipitous—to Barstool’s growth. First, she joined Barstool right as Twitter bought the streaming service Periscope, and Facebook launched its live video feature. That allowed Barstool personalities to go live on both platforms, with audiences flooding their channels and often crashing the sites.
“The talent was electric. People were wanting to watch them,” she says of the dedicated live audience Barstool creators had curated. That attention was media gold she could monetize.
She also avoided the mistake her then competitors made in depending solely on one platform, whether it was Verizon’s now-defunct Go90 service or sinking financial resources into building a state-of-the-art content management infrastructure. She deferred instead to investing in diverse streams of revenue that were platform-agnostic.
Under her leadership, Barstool launched a commerce business along with advertising, content, product licensing, pay-per-view, and live events businesses. The media company wasn’t just an Instagram page; it was a podcast, live show, blog, and retail business, Badan says. But the real driver behind the expanding revenue streams were the creators.
“Barstool was influencing before influencers became a thing,” she says. The company caught and rode the podcast wave, with several podcasts taking the No. 1 spot on Apple and Spotify. Their popularity brought in bigger brand partnerships and helped scale and promote Barstool’s various product offerings.
Then COVID-19 hit in late February 2020.
As the mainstream media grappled with the new normal, namely linear television, Barstool quickly pivoted, selling merchandise aggressively and doubling in size during the pandemic.
“I was like, ‘Gosh, this could be a massive business…’ It’s like a $300 million ad business. There’s enough inventory on Barstool for it to be a billion-dollar ad business alone,” Badan says.
The type of advertisers on the site became more sophisticated, too, moving from alcohol sponsors to fast-food companies and then consumer packaged goods. But Badan’s main goal was to snag a partnership with a car company, which she accomplished with Chevrolet in 2021.
Badan repeatedly harps on the Barstool community’s role in propelling the company, which is why reaching different generations where they prefer to convene has been central to her growth strategy. Originally a millennial-focused Instagram page, Barstool now has a Gen Z–heavy TikTok audience of 35.4 million followers—and has boomers flocking to its blog.
“We adapted to where the most audience was at any point in time,” Badan says.
While Barstool’s ascension may appear straightforward, Badan doesn’t believe it’s replicable. The company’s expansion was a mix of strong leadership, platform diversification, forward-thinking advertising, good timing, and, most importantly, an engaged community.
“That was a once-in-a-lifetime, once-in-a-moment alchemy of things,” she says. While there may be another “Barstool of the future,” Badan assents, “no one will be able to re-create what we created.”
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