Barstool Sports is (almost) always making headlines for something — and they are arguably well-paid to do just that.
Grace O’Malley announced her departure from the company in December 2024 after a friendship breakup from longtime bestie Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia (more about that, here) and has since spilled the tea on what she made working for the brand.
“I didn’t make anything when I was there. I had a salary and that was kind of it,” O’Malley alleged during a January 2025 appearance on the “This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von” podcast. “I had the option to leave, and I took it.”
O’Malley further claimed that former “PlanBri Uncut” podcast cohost LaPaglia was paid “a lot of bit more” than she was.
Dave Portnoy and Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia’s friendship has come a long way over the years. Portnoy, 47, founded Barstool Sports in 2003, but LaPaglia, 25, didn’t join the team until much later. She got her start with the podcast network in 2020 as an intern. The organization contacted her via social media after her videos […]
“I never made any money off [the podcast tour]. Barstool took it,” she alleged. “I also didn’t care. I was happy to be there. I was stoked to just have the job.”
She’s not the only Barstool personality who has detailed their salaries over the years:
The ‘Bussin’ With The Boys’ Contract Discourse
During a January 2025 episode of Surviving Barstool, questions arose about Will Compton and Taylor Lewan’s Barstool Sports contract. Both men, who host the “Bussin’ With the Boys” podcast, were voted off the show.
“Right now, the ‘Bussin’ With the Boys’ crew is in a negotiation for a bag on the next contract,” Compton shared during his confessional. “You gotta think, if you’re Dave and Dan, you can’t have the ‘Bussin With the Boys’ guys running wild, winning $250K. Winning a quarter of a million dollars and then potentially throwing the deuces to us at the end of the year. So, my hat goes off. Tip of the cap. Dave, Big Cat, great game boys.”
Dan “Big Cat” Katz confirmed Compton’s theory in his own Surviving Barstool confessional.
“Dave and I didn’t want Taylor or Will to win $250,000 cash on Barstool’s networks and then be, like, ‘Oh, by the way we’re leaving for a competitor,’ two seconds later,” he shared.
Compton previously spoke about his contract negotiations during an April 2024 episode of the “Next Up With Adam” podcast.
“Originally, [Barstool said] we’ll go 50/50, you guys get the IP. We said no, but we’ll go 60/40 and the minute we eclipse $1 million it goes up to 70/30 [in] our favor,” he recalled. “They were on board with it, then I was like, ‘F—, I think we f—ing played ourselves.’”
Compton said their “second deal” with Barstool was a “competitive offer” and the podcast hosts couldn’t shop their show around. “Me, personally, I wanted to resign with Barstool. I think they are the best brand for us at this point in time,” Compton said, noting that he and Lewan have had a “beneficial” partnership with the brand.
“We end up settling on a $3 million m.g. per year,” he said. “We have the upside with that, every dollar made after $3 million.”
The Grace O’Malley Reveal
After O’Malley’s podcast claims, her former boss (and Barstool founder) Dave Portnoy shared the numbers. He said in a January 2025 TikTok video that O’Malley’s base salary was $175,000 a year and she earned 70 percent of “anything” that was sold on their personal social media accounts.
Grace O’Malley Monica Schipper/Getty Images
“She got another $75,000 in 2024 that way,” Portnoy continued. “[Her interview] could have been cut up, misconstrued a little bit, but it does bother me when people make it seem like they’re not getting paid fairly. I think we treated — as I’ve said from the beginning — Grace great.”
Portnoy addressed the pay gap with LaPaglia as well. “Bri was a much bigger personality,” he continued.
Portnoy explained that once Barstool makes back the personality’s base salary, they “split every dollar fifty-fifty” going forward. “I just don’t like it when people make it seem like we scam our creators, because we f—ing don’t,” he added.
Big Cat Becomes a Millionaire
Big Cat shared during an April 2024 episode of “The Barstool Rundown” that he became a millionaire around 2018 or 2019.
“Listen, everyone should try it,” he joked.
KFC’s Promotion
Kevin Clancy (known to Stoolies as KFC) was named Barstool Sports’ GM of Comedy in July 2023. He announced the news on his “KFC Radio” podcast at the time and shared that the career move came with a pay bump — but he didn’t share specifics.
Clancy explained that he left his corporate job for a full-time position at Barstool after knowing that he would get paid “enough to live,” which was $50,000 at the time.
“I think I started at like 50 and then, whenever I got to like 100 grand, I think I was like, ‘Wow I’m making six figures to do this,’” he said. Elsewhere in the episode, Clancy said that his promotion did not warrant a contract negotiation.
“I’m also the only a—–e in the world who started a job with more responsibility without getting a new contract for it,” he quipped.
Clancy likely makes a lot more now as one of the longest-running personalities at the company.
Lil Sasquatch Does Not Make 6 Figures
“The starting salary here is significantly below $100,000 a year,” Sas (real name Harry Settel) said during a June 2023 episode of “The Yak” podcast. “I’m still way under $100,000. … Just happy to f—ing be here, man.”
The comedian said at the time that it had been three years since he started at the company.
Base Salary Conversations
Big Cat and Gerard “Jersey Jerry” Gilfone discussed what the starting salary is for Barstool employees during a different June 2023 episode of “The Yak.”
“I actually don’t know what the base salary is,” Big Cat stated.
Jerry shared that when he was brought into the company, he started at $100,000. “I think that’s the average start, though. I think,” he added. “I think New York.”
During the same conversation, Brandon Walker threw out that his starting salary was $60,000.
“Behind-the-scenes is less money and I think some people at an entry level, if you don’t have a following,” fellow podcast host Adam “Rone” Ferrone explained. “I think if you do have a following, you can leverage that into more than what Jerry was making.”
‘Chicks in the Office’ Talk Contract Negotiations
When Ria Ciuffo and Fran Mariano, who host the “Chicks in the Office” podcast, appeared on the “Trading Secrets” podcast in 2021, they offered an Inside Barstool take on the company’s contract negotiations.
Francesca Mariano and Maria “Ria” Ciuffo Amy Sussman/Getty Images
Mariano said their second Barstool contract (in September 2018) was a huge moment for the podcast hosts.
“It only took one year for us to get a new contract that was double the amount we started at,” she shared. “When we heard the number the second time, we were like, ‘Oh this is working.’”
Monica Schipper/Getty Images Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia is setting the record straight. The podcaster dispelled claims Barstool Sports boss Dave Portnoy paid her $10 million to talk about her split from Zach Bryan on last week’s “BFFs” podcast. During the episode, LaPaglia, 25, made bombshell claims about the country singer, including accusing him of emotional abuse. […]
Ciuffo said their contracts were always “performance-based” by looking at the success of the “Chicks in the Office” brand as a whole. She also noted that all the deals that their brand gets goes through the Barstool sales department.
“I feel like we are compensated through our salary,” Ciuffo said. “I feel stable in the way I am getting paid.”
The ‘Call Her Daddy’ of It All
The year was 2020 and “Call Her Daddy” was hosted by two people — our now-single father Alex Cooper and former cohost Sofia Franklyn. Regular listeners of the podcast wondered if there was drama with the show when the women appeared to be speaking in code. Then, the truth came out.
To spare you from every detail all these years later, one of the issues was Cooper and Franklyn having contract disputes with Barstool before their friendship unraveled.
Cooper told listeners during a May 2020 podcast episode that she and Franklyn signed a “three-year deal” making $75,000 their first year, $85,000 the second year and $100,000 the third. They got a raise during the first year together, then Cooper got an additional pay bump for handling the producing side of the podcast as well. (She did not share this with Franklyn.)
Alex Cooper Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images
Following the success of the podcast, the women started asking for more money. However, Franklyn’s then-boyfriend (who eventually started shopping the podcast around to other networks) allegedly convinced the podcast hosts that they should be asking for $1 million. Portnoy heard about the show being shopped around — which led to the infamous “rooftop meeting” between the Barstool Sports founder, Cooper and Franklyn.
The deal they were offered was $500,000 and ownership of the show. Cooper was on board and Franklyn was not — which is how they split. Cooper stayed at Barstool until June 2021 and went on to sign massive deals with Spotify and SiriusXM.
