Dave Portnoy's Fox Morning Show Opens to Low Linear Ratings
Wake Up Barstool drew fewer than 20,000 linear viewers in its first week while digital streams showed stronger traction
Dave Portnoy's new Fox Sports morning program, Wake Up Barstool, drew fewer than 20,000 linear viewers in its first week on air, according to audience data reported by the TV Media Blog Substack.
The show, which airs weekdays from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Eastern Time, failed to exceed 20,000 linear viewers during its initial week and recorded roughly 13,000 viewers on both Wednesday and Thursday. By comparison, established daytime sports offerings such as Colin Cowherd's The Herd and Nick Wright and Chris Broussard's First Things First each topped 100,000 viewers in their respective midday and afternoon time slots during the same period.
While linear television ratings for Wake Up Barstool were modest, the program performed better on digital platforms. Awful Announcing reported that the show's first episode attracted 88,000 viewers on YouTube, and the first four episodes averaged 56,650 non-live viewers on the platform. Those figures indicate a larger online audience that is not captured in overnight linear ratings.
Portnoy, 48, joined Fox Sports under a deal announced ahead of the college football season that integrated him into the network's Big Noon Kickoff pregame show and established Wake Up Barstool as a daily program. His on-air debut with Big Noon Kickoff at Ohio State drew significant attention after he entered the venue in a Michigan sweatshirt, sang Michigan's fight song, and displayed a shirt reading “Still Can’t Beat Michigan,” actions that were widely covered in sports media.
The appearance precipitated a dispute over Portnoy's access to Ohio State facilities. A Front Office Sports report said Barstool Sports had been ordered to stay off Ohio State's campus and that Portnoy had been barred from entering Ohio State's stadium. Ohio State denied that it had blocked Portnoy and said Fox had decided not to have him inside the stadium. Portnoy later called an on-camera “emergency press conference,” accused the university of lying and said he would not appear on Big Noon Kickoff the following weekend.
Fox has not publicly reconciled the ratings snapshot with the network's stated expectations for the Barstool partnership. Portnoy has previously spoken positively about the agreement with Fox Sports, which positioned him as both a contributor to the network's college football coverage and the host of a new daily show.
The early audience split — modest linear numbers alongside stronger digital viewership — reflects an ongoing industry pattern in which sports and opinion programming increasingly reaches sizable online audiences that do not register in traditional broadcast metrics. Advertisers and rights holders monitor both linear and digital performance as networks experiment with talent-driven programming and cross-platform distribution.
All viewership figures cited here were reported by industry-focused outlets and audience trackers following Wake Up Barstool's first week of broadcasts.