The Dave Portnoy ‘Big Noon Kickoff’ breakup was always inevitable

The Dave Portnoy ‘Big Noon Kickoff’ breakup was always inevitable

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The Dave Portnoy ‘Big Noon Kickoff’ breakup was always inevitable
Taking to X, Barstool Sports' Dave Portnoy shared a teaser trailer for his upcoming Fox 'Big Noon Kickoff' debut.
Screen grab: Barstool Sports

Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff made a bold move when it brought Dave Portnoy and the Barstool Sports gang aboard in a bid to help it gain ground on ESPN’s College GameDay in the battle of college football pregame shows.

But just over a year into the partnership between Big Noon Kickoff and Barstool Sports, it is abruptly over in the middle of the season. And the only surprise just might be that it lasted this long.

Fox has trailed ESPN in the ratings department on Saturday mornings ever since Big Noon Kickoff began. And it’s not hard to understand why. ESPN has almost a three-decade head start on the competition. And while GameDay markets itself as the college football pregame show of record, going to the biggest games around the country, Big Noon Kickoff is more or less a lead-in for the 12 p.m. ET Big Noon Saturday game of the week on Fox Sports.

Adding Dave Portnoy and the Barstool gang felt like Fox’s way of answering ESPN’s addition of Pat McAfee by bringing in someone more popular with a younger crowd who could draw new or casual viewers into the arena. It made sense, especially given Barstool’s popularity on college campuses. But even before Portnoy officially took the air, the concept hit a roadblock — his blood feud with Ohio State as one of the country’s most prominent Michigan fans.

Even before Portnoy took the air in Week 1, there was already drama revolving around him being banned from the Horseshoe in Columbus. Portnoy even said he understood the situation, given his comments about Ohio State and head coach Ryan Day over the years.

“It’s awesome,” Portnoy said after the incident. “This is college football pettiness. What they should have said is f*** this guy, there’s no f***ing way we’re letting this f***ing troll from Michigan into our stadium, in our house, instead of doing this back-and-forth thing. But this is college football.”

Dave Portnoy, a partisan superfan who might say or do controversial things, shouldn’t have shocked anybody. And Ohio State’s response shouldn’t have been a surprise either. The vendetta goes beyond college football rivalry and includes Portnoy floating that Day’s brother was responsible for the leaks into Connor Stalions and the Michigan sign-stealing scandal. That was reported to be untrue.

It’d be one thing if Portnoy were on his YouTube show, with fewer guardrails and no billion-dollar television contracts to answer to. But the biggest problem that Fox Sports, Big Noon Kickoff, and Portnoy faced is that the show depends on Ohio State more than any other school.

Ohio State has hosted Big Noon Kickoff a whopping 17 times since they started going on the road in 2019. That’s almost double any other school, with Michigan hosting nine times. Penn State, Indiana, and Colorado are tied next with four appearances a piece. BNK has already been at Ohio State three times in the Portnoy era, and many more are likely this season.

If one thing is true about the college football landscape in 2026, it’s that the networks and their conference partners are more deeply tied together than ever. The sport’s balance of power sits between ESPN and the SEC on one side and Fox and the Big Ten on the other. Don’t forget that Fox Sports owns the entirety of the Big Ten media rights (selling packages to CBS and NBC) and a majority stake in Big Ten Network. And in College Football Playoff expansion talks, Fox and the Big Ten are on one side fighting for expansion to get a bigger piece of the pie, while ESPN and the SEC are trying to hold firm for a smaller postseason where their network can keep exclusive rights.

The relationship between Ohio State and Fox over the presence of Big Noon is already tense thanks to the number of games the Buckeyes have played in the timeslot. The school, its fans, and even state politicians believe the school is at a disadvantage by always playing big home games at noon. They claim it hurts the atmosphere, recruiting, and that the fanbase is better served with night games. But with Fox holding all the cards and putting their biggest brands at noon, it’s not something that is changing anytime soon.

So what could Fox change to throw a bone to their biggest partner? It’s obvious — get rid of the program’s public enemy number one from your network pregame show.

If you’re Ohio State, would you welcome a media personality spreading conspiracy theories about your head coach on campus? If you’re a fan of Ohio State, would you want to tune in to that pregame? Probably not. And if that’s Fox’s biggest fanbase, then Big Noon Kickoff is just cannibalizing their own audience.

GameDay is represented by both Michigan and Ohio State alumni. Kirk Herbstreit goes above and beyond to stay neutral and has been perhaps the most vocal critic of Ohio State’s “lunatic fringe” of the fanbase. And while Desmond Howard still happily bleeds Maize and Blue, he’s not going on television to say Ryan Day pees down his leg like Dave Portnoy.

Could you imagine Pat McAfee saying that about Kirby Smart in Athens, Georgia? There would be a riot, and Greg Sankey would send armed guards to haul him off the set. On ESPN, Nick Saban is treated like a god and given free rein to promote his congressional act to restore the imbalance of power so that coaches can rule college football again. On Fox, the Big Ten’s biggest current coach is treated like a pariah and a failure by the star of the show. How could this story end in any other way?

Naturally, Portnoy blamed Ryan Day for his ouster at Big Noon Kickoff… and he’s probably right. But you can very visibly see where both sides are coming from. Dave Portnoy has made a career out of pushing the envelope, but it’s different on a major-network college football pregame show with rights partners to please. And the Barstool host admitted after the news was reported that the “juice wasn’t worth the squeeze” for Fox.

Fox Sports had to know what they were getting into. They took a risk, and it did not pay off. But it’s better for both sides to go their separate ways now and admit it probably wasn’t the best fit from the beginning than to keep the drama on and off the air. It’s clear there are no hard feelings between Fox and Portnoy as their overall Barstool partnership will continue. But at least now Dave Portnoy is free to continue trolling Ohio State and Ryan Day as much as he wants.

The post The Dave Portnoy ‘Big Noon Kickoff’ breakup was always inevitable appeared first on Awful Announcing.

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