‘Surviving Barstool’ Season 3 Yanked From YouTube After Dave Portnoy Says They Were “Getting Strikes,” Citing “Violence”

Surviving Barstool Season 3 will no longer be streaming on YouTube.

According to an “emergency press conference” issued by Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy on social media Thursday (Nov. 30), he and his company “had to pull the episodes” from YouTube, the show’s original streaming home, after being accused of portraying “violence” in a call from their YouTube liaison.

“YouTube was basically like, ‘You’re getting strikes,’ because I don’t know, [contestant Kirk] Minihane is threatening to blow up [host] Jeff D. Lowe’s house? Who knows,” Portnoy said in the video.

Lowe addressed the claims, retweeting the announcement and writing, “My family laughed at/was unbothered by @kirkmin’s comment about blowing up my house, and we strongly disagree with YouTube’s stupidity.”

In the version of the announcement video shared by Portnoy on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter), viewers can see an image of the “strike warning” they received from YouTube, which reads, “This video would receive a strike for Harassment specifically for content that threatens an identifiable individual at 40:10 – 40:23.”

The warning also says, “To avoid getting a strike, please delete this video and resubmit your video with a new video ID with the violative scenes removed.”

According to YouTube’s community guidelines involving harassment, they prohibit “harmful behaviors, like threats or doxxing.”

Emergency Press Conference – I Refuse to Edit Surviving Barstool Because YouTube is Stupid pic.twitter.com/0pW8F802Oz

— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) November 30, 2023

Portnoy argued that he won’t edit the episodes in order to keep the show on the platform.

“I know what’s coming. If they need us to edit that, you gotta edit a bunch of shit,” he said. “No, no, no. This is Barstool, we’ll do it our fucking way. Fuck YouTube. If they’re not smart enough to actually watch a reality show and realize what’s going on, fine, whatever. So we’re not putting it on YouTube anymore.”

Season 1 and Season 2 appear to still be available to watch on YouTube.

Decider reached out to YouTube for comment, but did not hear back in time of publication.

While Portnoy admitted that this choice will “hurt” them in terms of distribution, he shared that the “past three episodes are going to go live on Barstool TV,” and the future episodes will be available at pay-for-view for $9.99.

“We’re setting it up now, you get the whole season,” he added, noting that there’s six more episodes and a live finale. “I think if you’ve watched it, you’ll admit it’s worth the price.”

Despite the seemingly abrupt change of course, Portnoy expressed his dedication to keeping the show in its original form.

“The show is the fucking show,” he said, even going so far as to add, “And I would rather eat my fucking insides and smash my dick with a hammer than have to change the fucking show to make YouTube happy.”

While he’s “not sure” when the first three episodes will end up on Barstool TV, he joked about the possibility of them streaming on X, saying, “if Elon [Musk] wants to cut [him] a check, [he’ll] do that too.”

“As of now, the next episode, which airs Monday, will be pay-for-view for the season,” he continued. “Ten bucks, not that much money, win-win. Fuck you, YouTube.”