Barstool Sports “presidente” Dave Portnoy offends watch lovers with his new watch brand – then doubles down
Zach BlassWithin basketball slang, the term “bricked” is used when someone badly misses a shot. A bricked phone, computer, or gaming console refers to when a device – typically after unauthorised modification – no longer can boot or power on. Bricked effectively means complete and utter failure, unless you add the word “up” after it – then it means something entirely different I am not going to dig into. Zach, WTF are you going on about? Well, bricked is an appropriate lead-in for Brick Watch Company, a new watch brand launched by Dave Portnoy, the founder and president of Barstool Sports, a successful American website and digital media company
The brand and its debuting collections
With all the digs going Portnoy’s way, I think its best to just share an excerpt of his own words regarding the origins of the brand. “I was walking out of a casino and was handed a watch as a gift by a stranger,” Portnoy explains on the Brick Watch Company website. “I started wearing it all the time. I reached out to the company that made the watch and told them I wanted to represent the brand. They told me I was too controversial and didn’t fit the type of person they wanted representing the company.”
“The second I hung up the phone I decided I was going to start Brick Watch Company. My goal was simple. I wanted to create a high quality, clean, simple watch that I would be proud of wearing. A watch for people like myself who can afford a Rolex but don’t need a status symbol on their wrist to do their talking for them. A watch with a price point reflective of its craftsmanship, not its marketing budget. A watch you can wear strolling the casual streets of Nantucket or with a suit at Saratoga. A watch for people who have earned their status through hard work as opposed to simply buying it. Hence, the phrase ‘always earned’ is printed on every Brick Watch. I believe there is nothing more attractive than quiet confidence, and that is what Brick Watches are meant to convey.”
He also explains that Brick Watch Company donates an admirable 20% of all their proceeds to support small businesses in need of financial assistance.
Classic ’22 – Selfwinding
There are two collections that Brick Watch Company offers. The first is their Sellita SW 200-1 powered Classic ’22, which comes in what appears to be a fully brushed 316L stainless-steel case and bracelet. It is offered in both 38mm and 42mm sizing, with configurations that include white, silver, blue and rose dials, as well as a black dial configuration that has a blackened case and bracelet. Based on the imagery, the twin-trigger clasp has four points of micro-adjustment, which I applaud, and it is 100m water-resistant giving it daily-wear credibility on paper. Aside from the “Always Earned” script text at 6′, I cannot say the watch is by any means ugly. But the reason that watch nerds have taken aim at the product is its US$2,399 price tag. The off-the-shelf Swiss calibre is robust and reliable, but, within the context of a new brand, the watch is definitely priced higher than what you would find from popular micro-brands lauded within the watch community. For example, early Ming watches were less expensive than this watch.
Brick Watch Company claims, however, that the watches are designed, engineered, and built in the United States – with Swiss and imported parts where necessary. To manufacture here in the United States versus abroad likely has an increased production cost. It is not clear, however, if the watches are strictly designed and assembled in the USA or if they are actually manufactured here as well.
Chrono-Diver ‘22 – Quartz
For the same price you can purchase their quartz-powered Chrono-Diver ’22. Also 100m water-resistant, and available in the same varying configurations of 316L stainless-steel cases and dials as the Classic ’22. Oddly, while the watch does have a timing bezel in line with a dive watch, there are no crown-guards – but then again the Tudor Black Bay has forgone such crown protection. The watch is powered by a Ronda Startech 5040.D Swiss Quartz movement that features central hours, minutes, and chronograph seconds hands, small seconds at 3′, 1/10th seconds counter at 6′ (works as a 1/10th seconds counter for the first 30 minutes), 10-hour sub-dial at 6′ (counts hours after 30 minutes), 30-minute sub-dial at 9′, and date complication at the 4:30 position. This movement has been utilised in watches from a wide spectrum of brands from Invicta to TAG Heuer. But, again, within the context of the brand, and their own mechanical offering, watch enthusiasts feel the price tag far surpasses what the watch offers.
The inevitable “are you effing kidding me” response from watch enthusiasts
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Upon hearing of the brand and their products, the watch community pounced like a cheetah chasing an impala. These days the watch community, like any nerdy-niche community, is admittedly known for being very critical on social media. So, memes like the above, and various watch YouTubers and Tik Tokers immediately seized the moment and proceeded to trash and jest at Portnoy’s brand launch.
American Watch Company
Many horological sleuths on reddit allege that the watches are possibly white labelled and mass ordered from a company called American Watch Company in Los Angeles, that has worked with clients such as Disney, Marvel, and Mitsubishi on custom watch projects. This is due to the fact that the address listed on Brick’s warranty page belongs to American Watch Company.
Based on the design of the Brick Watch Company’s watches, if Portnoy enlisted American Watch Company he likely went down the path of a fully custom or semi-custom project. So I decided to check out the American Watch Company catalogue to see if I could find a similar base to Brick’s Classic ’22.
The closest I found within the catalogue, which largely has homage designs to various products from Rolex, the Cartier Tank, TAG Heuer Link, and more, was this AW-30-S. At the end of the catalogue, the AW-30-S is listed as US$70 per watch at the below 25-piece order quantity. Other SKU within the catalogue are explicitly labelled as mechanical though, and these sorts of watches are listed as US$250 per watch, That being said, orders at greater quantities would certainly bring down the cost per watch.
Derek Guy enters the chat
Portnoy is seemingly not very tapped into the watch community, so whether or not he has really seen memes from popular accounts like @watchumor is unclear. The main catalyst for Portnoy’s “Emergency Press Conference” rebuttal on social media can be clearly attributed to Derek Guy – a menswear writer who is an editor at Put This On and has written for The Washington Post, Esquire, Mr. Porter, Business of Fashion, and Vulture. Guy took to Twitter to accuse Portnoy of “selling a $42 watch” at a shameful markup.
Portnoy fights back
@stoolpresidenteEmergency Press Conference – Brick Watch Company Has Brought Out the Haters, Losers, Liars and Bums♬ original sound – Dave Portnoy
Portnoy is not the kind of guy who gets heat and backs down. It just is not in his DNA to ignore his detractors, instead he is quick to bluntly and aggressively defend the integrity and character of himself and his company. The 1,600 word clap-back on Tik Tok, is actually worth the watch as it is, at the very least, entertaining. The key point Portnoy would like to convey is that he is not looking to scam anyone.
Citing Derek Guy directly, Portnoy addresses the notion that his sale price well exceeds the production cost of his watches. Portnoy says in reference to Guy in his video post: “He’s out there saying my watches cost me $42 and I’m selling them for $2,400. He’s got like 30 threads saying ‘disgusting scam never seen anything like it’. What the **** are you talking about? What the **** $42, I can’t wipe my *** for $42. What would make you think me, who has got pretty high class taste if you follow anything I do, is making a $42 watch? People think I’m that desperate for ******* money? Buddy I got 100 million in the bank.”
He then proceeds to break down what he claims to be the total cost for the production run of his watches, stating, with what appears to be a clip of an invoice, that it cost him US$3.8m for his inventory to be made – with an initial payment of US$852K (25% of the total cost) paid in March of 2022. He then proceeds to walk through the idea that if his production cost was US$40 per watch, then with a payment of US$3.8m he would have a large initial inventory of 95,000 watches that would need to be sold.
As a point of reference, Business Insider reported in 2016 on the revenue and profit figures of Daniel Wellington – watches that typically retail for US$180. “In 2014, Daniel Wellington sold more than a million units and reached $70 million in sales,” the wrote. “For 2015, revenue skyrocketed to $170 million. With lucrative margins above 50 per cent, Tysander – who is the sole owner of the company – made a profit of about $66 million last year.”
If Portnoy were to sell 95,000 watches, with such a production cost at a price of US$2,400, the company would stand to net US$228M in revenue before accounting for the 20% that would then be donated to aiding small businesses and overhead costs of running and promoting the company.
How this mathematical rundown helps his case is not particularly clear to me. The invoice, assuming it is real, displays a sizable initial investment was made. But it also possibly confirms his usage of American Watch Company, as they request an initial 25% payment of the total order to begin production. Ultimately, without knowing exactly how much inventory he secured with the US$3.8M, or a transparent reveal of what his margins are, there is no way to know with absolute certainty just how much Portnoy stands to profit.
Unfortunately for Portnoy, whose argument heavily relied on belittling his detractors and trumpeting his business acumen, the only clear thing I walked away with from the video is that while he definitely understands business, and has undeniably enjoyed much success in his endeavours, he does not understand the watch world.
He admittedly expresses as much, explaining in his video post: “News flash. I don’t know how to make ******* watches. I had to hire a company to make my watches. Now there seems to be a feeling like I walked into a showroom, or something, and they had all these watches. That I said ‘I’ll take those pre-made and just slap my logo on it’. I told you this took me years from when I came up with the concept, all the way to the launch till this thing was ready. You think I spent $3.8 million on watches from China Alibaba or watches that were sitting around I just put my name on for $40? I was in every step of the design process. I went around found companies that I thought could do it, put them against each other and came up with a company in the United States that could make the watch. I picked everything: the colours, the designs, the movements… They said you wanna wind the watch everyday when you wake up? Or do you want it to work and be correct all the time? I said I want it to work correctly, so it’s quartz. If you don’t want to buy the watch don’t buy the watch.”
My take: This is a textbook example of how not to start a watch brand
Ultimately his response to the criticism he faced was much more centered around rallying his “stoolies” to champion him as an individual and champion the Brick Watch Company offering. But, instead of initiating a dialogue with watch enthusiasts he elected to dismiss us as nerds. Granted, the watch community is definitely known for brutally critiquing novelties they do not love. And it’s true that #watchfam does not always make it easy to have calm discussions around watches.
Nevertheless, I think once the watch community digests it all, and puts down their pitchforks, we can all appreciate Guy’s tweet above. Portnoy is simply clueless in this arena. He obviously stands to make a healthy margin on his watches, as any successful business would. But, to arrive at a product that, at least in photos, looks rather cheap yet costs more than many well-received micro-brand offerings of equal, or even greater, specifications, it is clear Portnoy does not have the right horological consigliere by his side. Did these watches really need to be built in the U.S.? Would he have been better served utilising Japanese movements to keep costs down? Could he have better strategised regarding the production of the watches and their ultimate design? Did he get ripped off by American Watch Company (or adjacent business) if he did in fact use such a service?
Had I been with him, and saw the design of the Classic ’22 for example, I would have immediately showed him the Monta Noble – a watch that offers a higher quality build, more attractive case/bracelet finish and dials, and that comes in at a price around US$600 less. Then I would present brands like Oris, Longines, and Hamilton – all of which present far higher quality watches at the same price or even less. The idea that a gap in the marketplace was a lack of affordable alternatives or homages to Rolex designs is clearly ignorant of the current watch landscape. While I understand Portnoy’s aim was mainstream-appeal and straightforward design, the lack of imagination and generic feel here is ultimately what leads people to think the product is off the shelf. Perhaps with the Barstool-adjacent power of the brand, and enough clever social media marketing, Portnoy can still pull out a win. Only time will tell. But the watch community is certainly not rooting for him.