Fox Sports is in talks to bring Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy to the cast of its Big Noon Kickoff college football pregame show, according to a report Wednesday by Front Office Sports.

The deal, which is not yet finalized, would also include some Barstool content airing on Fox Sports 1. FS1 recently canceled three of its day-time shows — “Speak,” “The Facility” and “Breakfast Ball” — and cut ties with long-time host Joy Taylor.

Portnoy, 48, founded Barstool in 2003 and has grown it into a half-billion-dollar empire that includes wildly popular podcasts and social media accounts and for a time served as title sponsor of the Arizona Bowl. But there has been controversy along the way, with Portnoy — a Michigan graduate who has reportedly pledged millions to the Wolverines’ NIL fund — revealed to have made racist and sexist comments in the past and being accused to mistreating various employees.

Big Noon Kickoff launched in 2019, and features a regular cast of host Rob Stone and analysts Urban Meyer, Matt Leinart and Mark Ingram, the Alabama Heisman Trophy winner. The two-hour show airs from 10 a.m.-noon Eastern each Saturday, leading into that day’s spotlight Big Ten game, which kicks off immediately after at noon Eastern.

However, Big Noon Kickoff has consistently lagged in the ratings behind ESPN’s renowned College GameDay, which added its own “bro culture” icon to the cast in former NFL punter-turned-talk show host Pat McAfee in 2022. The Portnoy hire appears to be in direct response to McAfee’s runaway popularity on ESPN.