What Happened to Young Pageviews from Barstool Sports? Did He Get Fired?

Young Pageviews aka Ben Friedman was known for leading Barstool Outdoors. But he recently was under fire with Dave Portnoy and resigned.

Feb. 23 2021, Published 2:32 p.m. ET

A job at Barstool Sports is a dream for many. The digital platform has amassed almost 10 million followers on Instagram and has employees who have become iconic internet personalities. There are so many people — especially young adults of this generation — who would do anything to be the next Alex Cooper, Brianna LaPaglia, or Big Cat. Like, hello! Who wouldn't want to get paid to create content about dating, partying, and sports?

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But in some employees' cases — like Young Pageviews aka Ben Friedman — the famous sports and pop culture blog may have not been the best place to work. If you're a fan of the media company, you know that Ben has been head of Barstool Outdoors for quite some time now, and he and Dave Portnoy have not been on the best of terms recently. Find out what happened to Young Pageviews and see what the beef is all about.

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What happened to Young Pageviews from Barstool Sports?

Young Pageviews, whose real name is Ben Friedman, has been working at Barstool Sports since 2017 but has left the brand as of February of 2021. Around the end of 2020, Dave called out YP for not promoting the company's merchandise during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. That escalated into Dave making a series of callouts toward the Barstool Outdoors star.

The CEO took to Twitter to make some public comments regarding YP not doing very well in his job at Barstool. Dave even made a comment on his show (The Dave Portnoy Show with Eddie & Co) that he was going to find a replacement for YP at Barstool Outdoors.

You probably know that if one makes Dave upset, it's more than likely going to be accompanied by some talk and statements on social media. And with this situation, Dave did not let him off easy with his words...

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After a few weeks of Dave coming for YP online, YP took to Instagram TV where he made a 15-minute-long video directly responding to the criticism he was receiving from people — especially from Dave. Ben titled the video, "The truth about @barstooloutdoors." 

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A quick summary of what he talked about in the lengthy video: He mentioned that his contract was extended with the company by CEO Erika Nardini, he said that he built the Barstool Outdoors section all on his own and credits himself for the success of it, he apologized for not pushing merchandise as much as he could, and he said that Dave might be upset with the low numbers in viewership but that the bar can't be set as high as a show like Call Her Daddy. Check out the tea for yourself:

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You already know Dave had to share his two cents about this video that YP released, and he took to his show on Barstool to say, "We are looking for a new head of Barstool Outdoors. I'm serious about that. [YP] didn't build the socials of Outdoors. We did that. YP does d--k. He really does not do much." One word: Yikes.

After a lot of back and forth over the course of a few months, YP chose to resign from his role at Barstool and made an announcement on his Instagram via the IGTV feature. He talked about how he was thankful for the experience and how much he loved his job there. Part of the caption read: "I’ve decided to leave Barstool Sports. I love the living s--t out of all my friends at Barstool that have become my family over the last 4+ years. We have legitimately grown up together and I love you all enormously."

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And in just a matter of days after the exit of YP from Barstool Outdoors, the digital media company has already found a replacement. Sydnie Wells will be taking over the section that was spearheaded by YP for almost five years. She was an all-Mid-Illini Conference first-team basketball & softball player in 2016. Sydnie was also a 2014 first-team JS All-Area shortstop, hitting .431 with 7 HRs & 38 RBIs.

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How did Young Pageviews start working at Barstool?

Interestingly enough, YP got his start at Barstool from his parents' basement in Missouri. "I formulated a game plan sitting in my parents' basement in St. Louis to get their attention and present a specific direction of what I could do for them and how it would be valuable to them. I made a music video called 'Young Pageviews' and put it out. That got Dave to follow me," he told Ultimate Hockey Fan Cave.

It took some time for Dave to really take him seriously, though. "I then DMed him incessantly for an interview and when he FINALLY said he would meet with me, I drove up from St. Louis on a day's notice, got an albino wallaby, went into the office to present the idea for Barstool Outdoors. I had documented the entire journey on camera and Dave liked that idea as well. It went well and I just stayed at the office for four days until he said they had an opening for me," he said.

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