Alex Taylor: Taylor Like it or not, Barstool Sports boosted the Cowboys' brand

Jan. 5—There have been plenty of career highlights for me since taking over the University of Wyoming beat in October.

The Cowboys won four consecutive games upon my arrival, making the team bowl-eligible while also providing meaningful football games that saw UW competing for its first Mountain Division title since 2016 with just two weeks remaining in the regular season.

The job took me to Fort Collins for my first Border War experience and to War Memorial Stadium for the first time in three years of living in Wyoming. But the latest highlight was making the trip to Tucson for the inaugural Barstool Sports Arizona Bowl at Arizona Stadium last week.

The Cowboys' 30-27 overtime loss to Ohio was my first of hopefully many bowl games to cover in my career. I'd be lying if I said I knew what to expect going into a bowl game put on by a radical media company that has built its brand on defying traditional journalism and going against the grain.

Of course, that kind of business model doesn't go without resistance. Barstool Sports has long been mocked and laughed at by old-school sportswriters in the country. As a 27-year-old writer myself, I wasn't sure where I stood with Barstool going into the bowl game.

I arrived at the stadium four hours before kickoff for the Arizona Bowl. I made it a point to interview some of Barstool's biggest personalities, including founder David Portnoy.

As it turns out, Portnoy was just a regular guy basking in the anticipation of seeing his 20-year-old dream of hosting a bowl game with his company's name on it finally come to fruition.

"It's surreal," Portnoy told WyoSports before the Arizona Bowl. "We started, what, 20 years ago as a newspaper? Now, you're going to see a full stadium in a real bowl game with real teams. It's pretty remarkable."

Dan Katz, more commonly known as "Big Cat", is the host of one of Barstool's most popular podcast, "Pardon My Take." Katz was one of the first content creators to join the company in its early days as a newspaper in the Boston Area.

Like myself, Katz arrived at the stadium several hours before kickoff to take in and absorb Barstool's first bowl game.

"It's a completely surreal experience," Katz told WyoSports. "We're huge college football fans. I love bowl season more than any season and to have our own bowl, it's kind of mind-blowing to see where we've progressed and where we're at now."

The Arizona Bowl's broadcast has gotten mixed reviews because of its nontraditional ways. Portnoy and Katz served as color commentators in the booth alongside play-by-play announcer Jake Marsh, who joined Barstool in 2019.

Barstool's twist on its own bowl game was separating itself from the other 42 postseason games happening across the country. The most obvious difference is Barstool streaming the game itself, meaning the game was not televised and could only be watched through Barstool's website and social media pages.

Like it or not, UW's participation was a big boost for the program's visibility. To most outsiders, the Cowboys lately have been known for producing now-NFL star quarterback Josh Allen, but Barstool's social media campaign to promote both UW and Ohio players before, during and after the game gave both schools national recognition they'd otherwise lack in any other bowl game played by team hailing from the MAC or Mountain West.

The Arizona Bowl's stream on Barstool had roughly 1 million total viewers, 500,000 unique viewers and more than 130,000 concurrent viewers last week, according to an article published by Front Office Sports. While those numbers are much lower than a traditional bowl game, social media content generated 1 billion impressions and 1.1 million engagements through all of Barstool's social media platforms, according to the same article.

"I think that with all the bowls that happen, they all just blend together," Katz said. "Hopefully we'll give people something a little bit different that they can remember."

To go along with high social media numbers, the Arizona Bowl ranked 23rd in announced attendance out of 40 bowl games that have been played already to report attendance numbers. Arizona Stadium had an announced attendance of 27,691 for UW's matchup with Ohio.

The announced attendance of more than 27,000 meant UW played in front of the second-biggest crowd for any Mountain West team playing in a bowl game, behind only Fresno State and Washington State's announced attendance of 32,405 in the LA Bowl last month.

Announced attendance for other MW teams included 12,211 for Boise State and North Texas in the Frisco Bowl, 10,122 for San Jose State and Eastern Michigan in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl and 6,605 for San Diego State and Middle Tennessee State in the Hawaii Bowl. The First Responder Bowl (Utah State) and the Armed Forces Bowl (Air Force) are the only two bowl games that were played to not announce attendance.

This season's Arizona Bowl wasn't the first time Barstool tried to put on a bowl game. The company was set for its inaugural Arizona Bowl last year before Boise State backed out just five days before kickoff because of a COVID-19 outbreak.

Henry Lockwood, a producer for PMT on Barstool who's been with the company since its days as a newspaper, said being so close to hosting the game last year made this year's experience even sweeter.

"It's extremely surreal," Lockwood told WyoSports. "When I started, it was just some kids knew about us. Now, there's people of all ages coming out and making the trip to Arizona to come to the Barstool Sports Arizona Bowl. It's beyond surreal."

The Arizona Bowl was created in 2015 but partnered with Barstool in 2020. UW and Ohio's matchup was the seventh installment for the bowl game, and the third game to go to overtime.

The most glaring negative for the Arizona Bowl experience was the bowl organizers not allowing UW media to interview players in the postgame. Reporters were given access to an 11-minute press conference with head coach Craig Bohl before the Cowboys jumped on a bus to start the long commute back to Laramie.

Aside from the limited access to a team and the players I've covered most of the season, the Arizona Bowl was one of the most unique experiences I'll likely ever have in my career as a journalist.

Despite many fans' critiques of the production quality, having a chance to play in a bowl game put on by a company with as much social media exposure as Barstool Sports could go a long way for Bohl and the Cowboys putting their program back on the map.

Alex Taylor covers the University of Wyoming for WyoSports. He can be reached at ataylor@wyosports.net or 269-364-3560. Follow him on Twitter at @alex_m_taylor22.