Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers hopped on a zoom call with media mogul/pizza reviewer/philanthropist/day trader and Founder of the non-constroversial Barstool Sports, Dave Portnoy and announced he would be matching Portnoys 500K donation that kicked off the Barstool Fund. A charity campaign that has already raised over 20 million dollars en route to helping 95 businesses.
The Barstool Fund was started by Dave, is spearheaded by Liz Gonzalez among other employees at Barstool, and is set up to help small businesses who are struggling and on the verge of closing their doors because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the beginning of the pandemic small businesses have been going the ringer. Never knowing when they would be able to return to normal, investing money to comply with ever changing regulations to keep their door open, trying to pay employees while paying bills of their own. It has been a terrible time for places who may have been open for decades and have been in families for generations, to shops that just opened their doors after investing into a dream and having the rug immediately pulled out from underneath them. El Pres and Barstool, once a small business of their own, handing out papers outside in the streets of Boston, rain or shine, hot or cold, saw what was happening to these businesses and the little action taken by the people who are supposed to help them, and took it into their own hands.
Now Barstool and the Barstool Fund are on the way to helping over 100 small businesses with the money they have raised. Businesses that range from restaurants, pubs and cafe to dry cleaning shops, event planning agencies to a brewing company, a barbershop to a gay dance club. From coast to coast. Getting money within days. Real impact all across the country. And you can see it in the videos of Dave calling these businesses. They are absolutely the most genuine, authentic, wholesome, heartwarming, make you cry your eyes videos on the internet. The people on the other end of these calls are literally getting their lives changed on the spot and you can see it instantly. Pure joy. An unimaginable relief. Raw emotion.
Rodgers, in matching Portnoys 500K, is now added to the growing list of athletes who have donated to the fund. Long time stoolies like the Best One, Kevin Hayes and Greg Oslen. Tom Brady, a god in the Barstool world. Dana White of the UFC. Non-athletes like Guy Feiri and Kid Rock have even got in on the mix. It isn’t even the donation from the Packer QB that what stands out the most though, it was the overall message he sent during his conversation with Dave. According to Liz, Dave didn’t know exactly know what Rodgers was planning on doing during the live call. Once on, Rodgers was just about the coolest dude you could ever listen to. He had BigCat, Barstool Chief and the rest of the Bears contingent in a pretzel because you just couldn’t not love the guy. He spends time on the Pat McAfee Show, another larger donor to the fund, and there you can see this side of Rodgers more. He really is an awesome person. But man is it just fully on display with his conversation with Dave. He specifically wanted to get on live and announce a call to action to his teammates, coaches, organization and sponsors to get involved and donate. You can watch and see here just how passionate Rodgers was about getting involved.
It cannot be understated how incredible what the Barstool Fund is doing. Accomplishing things I don’t think they could even have imagined when this started. From the beginning Barstools slogan has been “By the common man, for the common man” and at no point in their long history has that ever resonated more. Go donate. https://www.barstoolsports.com/the-barstool-fund. Viva La Stool.
