CHICAGO—Seeking to expand beyond sports coverage into radical new forms and expressions, Barstool Sports announced Monday that it would soon launch Confluences, a literary journal featuring book reviews, flash fiction, and in-depth arts criticism.
Representatives at the sports website told reporters that Confluences would allow Barstool staff to supplement their usual output of fantasy football rankings, piss-based shenanigans, and GIFs of obese pets with the kind of cultural commentary found in The Paris Review and n+1. The journal will be available both online and as a quarterly, 200‑page volume published through the University of Chicago Press.
“For years, Barstool contributors have recapped UFC fights and posted jaw-dropping SEC smoke shows, all while privately engaging in rigorous literary criticism, and we’re excited to finally share this passion with our loyal Stoolies,” said site founder Dave Portnoy, noting that as the new journal’s editor, he had already commissioned a three-part essay on Susan Sontag’s early work from longtime Barstool personality PFT Commenter. “Whether it’s an interview with Ayad Akhtar on theater’s power in the face of oppression or a review of Ocean Vuong’s latest poetry collection, this will naturally complement our ongoing touchdown dance compilations and debates over the best Nickelodeon cartoons of the ’90s.”
He added, “As intellectuals, we are equally interested in the postcolonial installation art of Guiller-
mo Gómez-Peña and humorous photo mockups depicting John Daly as Santa Claus, and we expect our readers will welcome this broadening of focus.”
Portnoy confirmed that Confluences would explore numerous disciplines, with its debut issue set to include long-form essays on the intersectional limits of third-wave feminism, the unpublished correspondence of Roland Barthes, and the best breakfast tacos in Austin, TX, as well as blackout poetry composed with cut-up Bang Energy labels and a piece from literary historian Stephen Greenblatt outlining various potential College Football Playoff wagering scenarios.
The magazine is also expected to serve as a coveted destination for contemporary writers in a range of creative fields—including such luminaries as Zadie Smith, Hilton Als, and Glenny Balls—with Pulitzer Prize finalist Ta-
Nehisi Coates scheduled to author a retrospective on the year’s craziest parking lot beatdowns.
According to sources, Confluences will also publish a 400-line prose poem adapted from a recent blog post by Barstool contributor John Feitelberg and titled “I Shit My Pants At Julian Edelman’s House.”
“Our goal is simply to advance, fearlessly, into the maelstrom of the great ontological and phenomenological inquiries of our era while also counting down a list of the funniest-looking Japanese baseball mascots,” said Portnoy, noting that the journal’s operations were made possible due to generous financial grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and Zyn-brand nicotine pouches. “What is the role of the arts in a fully digitized society? How do we reconcile the ancient Greek ideal of kalos kagathos with the constraints of postmodern aestheticism? What does the girl from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off look like now? These are just some of the dialectics we’ll be grappling with.”
“Also, the one-bite pizza reviews will be presented by Salman Rushdie until further notice,” he added.
At press time, Confluences was reportedly hosting an online livestream in which 12 Barstool employees sat in recliners and reacted to the latest soundscape from multimedia artist Camille Norment.
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