Contract negotiations are a hot topic, especially when Barstool Sports personalities are involved.
“Bussin’ With the Boys” podcast hosts Will Compton and Taylor Lewan confirmed on Tuesday, January 21, that they are officially parting ways with Barstool after five years.
“What pulled us away from Barstool was that we had a massive offer,” Compton told listeners. “Ultimately, an offer that we could not say no to.”
Rumors about Compton and Lewan’s future with Barstool started swirling earlier this month when it was revealed that the duo were in the middle of negotiating a new deal with Barstool. It was suggested that this might have hurt their chances on Surviving Barstool season 4, which was ultimately won by Ria Ciuffo.
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“Right now, the ‘Bussin’ With the Boys’ crew is in a negotiation for a bag on the next contract,” Compton shared during his Surviving Barstool confessional on January 7. “You gotta think, if you’re Dave [Portnoy] and Dan [“Big Cat” Katz], you can’t have the ‘Bussin With the Boys’ guys running wild, winning $250K.”
The former football player, who won season 3 in 2024, was voted off the show shortly after his cohost, Lewan.
“Winning a quarter of a million dollars and then potentially throwing the deuces to us at the end of the year,” Compton continued. “So, my hat goes off. Tip of the cap. Dave, Big Cat, great game boys.”
Keep scrolling for more details about the ‘Bussin With the Boys’ podcast:
Who Are the ‘Bussin’ With the Boys’ Hosts?
Compton, a former NFL linebacker, signed with the Washington Commanders as an undrafted free agent in 2013. He joined the Tennessee Titans in 2018 for one year before signing with the New Orleans Saints in 2019 and later the Las Vegas Raiders. He went back to the Titans for a second stint in 2020 before returning to the Raiders in late 2021. By September 2023, Compton announced his retirement from professional football.
Lewan, meanwhile, was drafted as a tackle for the Titans in 2014 and remained with the organization for the duration of his career, which came to an end in 2023 after being out for the 2022 season with a knee injury.
When Did ‘Bussin’ With the Boys’ Join Barstool?
Compton and Lewan launched the podcast in 2019, and joined the Barstool Sports network shortly thereafter.
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The duo confirmed during the January 21 episode of “Bussin’ With the Boys” that they are going independent.
“We have a contract to fulfill with Barstool until [the] Super Bowl and that’s one thing we plan to do is bust our ass all the way through the Super Bowl for Barstool,” Compton said. “It’s not fair to our sponsors to talk about what we’re doing or what our next steps are and who it’s with. At the end of the day, we are going independent. We’ll be exclusive with sponsors but not exclusive to a network. Ultimately, we are independent. We can collab with whoever we want to and we have creative freedom [and] creative control, which is exactly where ‘Bussin’ With the Boys’ wanted to be from the very beginning.”
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Compton first expressed on Surviving Barstool that the “Bussin’ With the Boys” cohosts were in the middle of contract negotiations before Big Cat confirmed the former NFL star’s speculation.
“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,” Big Cat said during a January 2025 episode of the competition series.
Portnoy spoke further about this during an episode of “The Unnamed Podcast” that same month.
“During the time of filming [Surviving Barstool] I thought we were going to resign them, but going in, I knew that they were evaluating,” the Barstool Sports founder noted. “They had an offer. They were like, ‘We’re going to look at the world, see what it is.’”
Portnoy “did not want” to hand one of them $250,000 from the game win and have them leave the company. When asked during the same podcast episode if Compton and Lewan were leaving the company, Portnoy played coy. “I’m gonna let them handle it how they want to handle it,” he said.
During the Surviving Barstool finale in January 2025, the question remained unanswered.
“When we played that game, I thought they were coming back to Barstool,” Portnoy said. (Surviving Barstool was filmed in September 2024. The contestants returned for a live finale and reunion in January 2025.)
Compton hinted that “there’s negotiating still happening” with the show.
“The ‘Bussin’ future with us has nothing to do with this show,” Portnoy clarified. As of now, “Bussin’ With the Boys” podcast episodes are still being released under the Barstool name.
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Compton spoke about the deals he and Lewan made with Barstool 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,” the former athlete explained. “They were on board with it, then I was like, ‘F—, I think we f—ing played ourselves.’”
Their “second deal” with the company was considered a “competitive offer,” meaning they couldn’t shop their show around. Compton said he and Lewan have since made a “beneficial” partnership with Barstool.
“Me, personally, I wanted to resign with Barstool. I think they are the best brand for us at this point in time,” Compton said. “We end up settling on a $3 million m.g. per year. We have the upside with that, every dollar made after $3 million.”
