What’s Going on with Dave Portnoy’s Watch Brand?

There seems to be a new watch brand born every minute — or at least every week. A lot are boring, some are overpriced — but sometimes, despite these things, one stands out.

Back in 2022, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy branched out from his role as controversial celebrity into the world of upstart watchmakers by launching his own watch company called Brick Watch Company.

Depending on your opinion, the association alone might make the watches either worth avoiding or worth buying — but everything you might’ve heard about Portnoy aside, what about the actual products?

What Is a Brick Watch?

Brick Watch Company

Brick Watch Company stood out from the many bland watch designs on the likes of Kickstarter for two reasons. One, of course, was their creator. The other was that they seemed rather expensive for what they were.

We’re talking very familiar looks and specs: steel cases, sapphire crystals, basic off-the-shelf Swiss movements and … well … basic off-the-shelf, fashion-watch-looking designs, too.

The brand initially launched with two collections. The Classic ’22 is a three-hand automatic using an undecorated base-level Sellita SW200 automatic movement visible through a display caseback, while the Chrono Diver ’22 is a quartz chronograph powered by a Ronda movement.

Both collections feature a range of color variants, come on steel bracelets, are rated to 100m of water resistance and are available in 42mm and — in accordance with current trends — 38mm size options. And at launch, all were priced exactly the same at an eye-popping $2,399.

Are Brick Watches Worth It?

Brick Watch Company

There’s more to watches than specs, and we still haven’t seen these in person. But there’s little indication as to what makes Brick watches more expensive than those with similar descriptions — aside from simply targeting a price bracket where they think they can sell.

It’s worth pointing out options with similar, or in many cases, superior specs are available for well under $1,000 — not to mention the options available for Brick’s asking price of $2,400. For that kind of dough, you have options with history, original design, proven quality and in-house movements from Swiss and German brands.

Try something like the German-made Nomos Club Campus with an in-house mechanical movement for $900 less than a Brick, a full titanium, chronometer-certified Christopher Ward The Twelve (Ti) for $500 less, or even a Tudor 1926 from Rolex’s sister brand for the same price. You truly have many, many better options. You can get excellent automatic chronographs for these prices and less. Just sayin’.

Photo by Andrew Connor for Gear Patrol

Brick says its watches are “designed, engineered and built in the United States,” presumably meaning they’re assembled in the United States. Granted, American labor is more expensive than, say, a lot of Chinese assembly, but the brand comes across as merely trying to price itself into a $2,000+ category.

(To commend Brick for something, the brand also donates “20 percent of all proceeds to support small businesses in need of financial assistance” through its Brick Watch Foundation.)

The Founding of Brick Watches

Portnoy’s story of the brand’s founding, as explained both on the Brick website and in his initial Twitter announcement video, sounds like a guy who admittedly “is not a watch guy” trying to make money off of what he thinks is a hot market, but without knowing anything about said market.

He talked of how he became a millionaire after selling Barstool and wanted to buy a Rolex to celebrate, before deciding against it upon realizing he would merely be doing so to achieve a status symbol that didn’t actually interest him.

Later, someone gifted him a watch that he wore religiously, so he contacted the brand to ask about forming a partnership wherein he would promote their watches because he liked the product. The brand, citing him as too controversial, politely declined. (Portnoy does not name the brand, but looking at his pre-Brick Instagram posts, the watch in question would appear to be a $695 quartz-powered Shinola.)

Immediately after this rejection, Portnoy said he came up with the idea to create Brick Watches.

Brick Watch Company

“It ain’t cheap, but it ain’t ten grand. If it said ‘Rolex’ on it, it would be at least ten grand,” Portnoy previously said, revealing him to presumably have no idea what makes Rolexes expensive while also completely ignoring the many fantastic heritage watch brands that already existed at this price point — such as Hamilton, Tissot and Longines — as well as the dozens of affordable microbrands driven by founders with real passion for the industry.

Whether you want to describe Portnoy’s gamble as opportunistic, cynical or just ignorant is up to you, but a year and half later, we have just one question: Are people buying Brick Watches?

Brick Watch Company Has Gone Silent

As of this writing, Brick Watch Company still exists. But there doesn’t appear to be a lot going on with the brand.

For one, no new models have been added since the launch. The Classic ’22 and Chrono-Diver ’22 — which, while a chronograph, features a non-rotating bezel, just 100m water resistance and non-lumed indices on most references, so we fail to see how it’s a diver — remain the only models in the catalog.

What’s more, every watch on the site is currently discounted 20 percent and they have been for at least the past month — possibly longer (we haven’t been religiously checking the site). Even at the discounted price of $1,919.20, we still consider all of these watches to be grossly overpriced compared to what else is available on the market.

Then there’s the matter of Brick’s marketing, or rather, its lack thereof. The brand’s social media accounts haven’t posted anything in about a year. The most recent post on Twitter (or X, whatever) is from May 31, 2023 and showing then-recently-fired Barstool employee Ben “Mintzy” Mintz announcing that he had been hired as Brick’s “first employee” while wearing two un-sized Brick watches.

Brick’s Instagram shared the same video and followed it up with one more video on July 23 — less than two months later — featuring Mintzy awarding the first Brick Watch Company Small Business Grant to a Mississippi dairy bar. Both accounts have since gone silent.

With zero insight into the financials of the company, it’s not up for us to declare Brick Watch Company a failure. For all we know, the brand could be raking in cash from dedicated Barstool fans and just doesn’t feel the need to update its catalog or social media accounts. But the near year of silence is, at the very least, unorthodox for a traditional watch brand.

Then again, Brick was never a traditional watch brand to begin with.

Brick Watch Company

Brick Watch Company Classic ’22

Specs

Case Size	38mm or 42mm
Movement	Sellita SW 200-1 automatic
Water Resistance	100m

• $1,919.20 at Brick Watch Company
  $2,399 (20% off)

Brick Watch Company

Brick Watch Company Chrono-Diver ’22

Specs

Case Size	38mm or 42mm
Movement	Ronda Startech 5040.D quartz chronograph
Water Resistance	100m

• $1,919.20 at Brick Watch Company
  $2,399 (20% off)

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