There is a $250 million shadow athletic director currently wandering the streets of Columbus, looking for a decent slice of pizza. Dave Portnoy is in town for Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff.
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The network is setting up its usual Saturday carnival outside Ohio Stadium ahead of the Buckeyes’ game against Illinois. But Portnoy, whose wallet helped assemble Michigan’s roster, is once again watching from the perimeter.
“Heading to Columbus for Ohio vs Illinois with Big Noon Kickoff,” Portnoy wrote on X on September 24. “We asked, and Ohio said we’re still not allowed. Anyway, are there any pizza places I haven’t done yet? I feel like I’ve hit most of them.”
Portnoy is a Michigan graduate, one of the most recognizable Michigan fans in the country, and the founder of Barstool Sports. He is also now part of FOX’s college football operation.
FOX and Barstool announced their partnership in July 2025, with Portnoy joining Big Noon Kickoff and Barstool producing additional college football programming. Yet when FOX came to Ohio Stadium, Portnoy’s own show apparently couldn’t come with it.
The original fight happened before the 2025 opener between Ohio State and Texas. Portnoy said Ohio State had banned him from Ohio Stadium. Ohio State’s athletic director, Ross Bjork, however, gave a different explanation.
Bjork told Yahoo Sports that Ohio State had not banned Portnoy. FOX had decided that Portnoy would not be part of the main Big Noon Kickoff desk, and those outside the main desk were not normally given field access.
The Big Ten later said its understanding from FOX was that Portnoy would not appear on the main stage inside any Big Ten stadium that season. That should have ended the argument. It didn’t.
Portnoy went outside Ohio Stadium anyway, appeared on Fox in a disguise, and turned the whole thing into part of the show. He directly blamed Ryan Day.
“I got banned by coach Ryan Day from entering ‘The Shoe,’” Portnoy said at the time, while wearing a fake mustache and an “I Love Ryan Day” hat. But the Portnoy-Day feud was already much older than that Saturday.
Portnoy has spent years using Ohio State as one of his favorite targets. That makes sense from a Michigan fan’s perspective. The rivalry had become particularly useful for him during Michigan’s four-game winning streak over Ohio State.
Ohio State then won the national championship and broke that losing streak against the Wolverines. That should have removed some of the ammunition. It didn’t. The Texas loss this year brought it right back.
Ohio State took a 23-3 lead into the fourth quarter against the Longhorns earlier this month and lost 24-23 after Texas scored 21 unanswered points. It was the first time a No. 1 team had blown a 20-point fourth-quarter lead. Portnoy went after Day immediately.
He called Day “the luckiest guy in the history of Earth” and ripped his performance in the collapse. He also argued that Ohio State’s talent makes winning games relatively easy and that Day’s problems show up when the games get tight. Now FOX is going back to Columbus.
FOX has no problem putting Portnoy on Big Noon Kickoff. FOX’s own schedule has the show in Columbus for Saturday’s Illinois-Ohio State game, with the pregame program beginning at 10 a.m. ET.
Portnoy will be part of that FOX ecosystem. Not his $606 million-valued Barstool Sports. Portnoy, though, is clearly enjoying the absurdity of it all.
He has already learned that the easiest way to turn a restriction into content is to keep talking about the restriction. That is what happened in 2025. Even Portnoy later described the situation as creating a “WWE environment.”
From the outside, the entire spectacle has functioned as a massive PR win for Portnoy. Whether Ohio State actually needs a strategy to manage Michigan’s highest-profile donor is debatable. But the current frustrated-teenager-like behavior from OSU is giving him exactly what he wants.