Armin, thank you for the time. Hey, JR. Nice to meet you, man. It's a pleasure.
Thank you so much. First question for you. For all of the books that you have put together and wrote and everything you've done, why now to put this together with John Talty? Well, it was a landscape that was just wide open. And, you know, I had done a book called The System back in 2013 with Jeff Benedict, which we thought was kind of the state of college football at that time.
And when you look at what's going on right now in big time college football, the system was child's play compared to what we're witnessing right now. So for me, as an investigative reporter in the history I've had in television and Sports Illustrated and other places, this was a big canvas to be able to paint on. And we had a lot of people that were interested in talking to us behind the scenes access driven by characters.
For me, at this stage of my life, this is the kind of landscape or portrait I like to paint on. Armin Khaten is joining us. When you think about everything that you you garnered and learn the interviews, everyone you talk to, what really has blown the lid off to this inflection point of college football? Was it the transfer portal? Was it the lawsuits leading the NIL at O'Bannon? What got us to this point? It's nice for a reason because it's not only the financial implications, the absolute avalanche of money that's come in to big time college football, billions of dollars. But what John and I found was there's an emotional, a physical, a psychological price that's being paid by people who love this game, who are committed to this game.
It's their livelihood. But it's exhausting for them right now because of the NIL, because of the portal, because of realignment, because nobody knows what the future of college sports holds. They're just kind of hanging on for dear life.
And that's a tough place to be in. The sport has never been more popular. It's never been more exciting on the field, certainly with the playoffs coming.
But the uncertainty in the future is complicating matters for people really beyond belief at this point in time. Well, to your point, we've seen coaches already leave. Nick Saban is gone. On the basketball side, we see Coach K has gone. What does this say to you about how the coaching landscape will continue to change?
Well, I think the head coaches, and nobody's crying any rivers for them right now because, you know, Nick was making north of $11 million a year. But Jay Wright at Villanova, he left, I know, because people in my neighborhood know Jay very well, and I've known Jay. He left because he just didn't want to deal with all the drama anymore. And when you have someone like Nick Saban, who decides to leave the sport, and he's made allusions to it, because he had lost control of a program and programs that he has had control for 50 years of his life. And when Ms. Terry, his wife, who I know very well, said to him, what are we doing this for? What's going on here?
Why are we doing this? When they lost to Michigan in the semifinals at the Rose Bowl in the college football playoffs, and Nick came back to Tuscaloosa after spending a few days decompressing at his $18 million estate in Jupiter, Florida, in the Atlantic Ocean. And normally, he would have had players in his office lined up saying, Coach, what can I do in the offseason?
What can I do in the development program to get better so I can play next year or get better next year? No, he had a line of players out there saying, Coach, if I don't get more money from NIL, I'm going to the portal. And Nick was all about control. So that, I think, was the tipping point for him. And then you look at Jim Harbaugh in Michigan, who was squeezed between University, absolutely loved the Michigan man to the core.
Stream relationship with Ward-Manuel, yes, but no question in my mind, a vendetta by the Committee on Infractions on Jim, trying to make an example of him, realizing that there was no way on God's green earth he was going to survive, as we've seen now with the four-year show-cause penalty, which is beyond belief to me. So he goes to the Chargers. So what do we have? We have two of the most prominent singular figures in college football today, not in the game. What does that say about the chaotic state of college football? I think it says quite a bit at this point in time.
Armand Contain is here with us, co-author of The Price. You talk about The Price and you think about the changes and the money, whether it's the players, the sponsors, the sponsorships. Are we looking at the future of college football as being the NFL junior or are we already there? Well, we're pretty damn close, I'll tell you that.
We're on the verge of that. And that's the big question. And John and I write this chapter in the end. It's the afterword called The New Model. And what is The New Model? Well, we have four or five different iterations of that model.
I don't think anybody knows what The New Model is going to look like. But what I can tell you is, J.R., is this book, if you have a narrative theme through it, through the characters that we've developed, there's a few things that stand out. One is wanton greed. The other one is self-interest. Wanton greed would be like, okay, the destruction of the PAC-12.
What happened there? Some of those schools believe that the PAC-12 was worth $50 million a year in media rights money, and that's just ridiculous on so many different levels. And then you have self-interest. And if there isn't an epiphany at some point in time where the powers that be in the NCAA, and I'm a believer in Charlie Baker and his pragmatic approach and trying to find a framework here, if they don't think about the greater good, what's best for everybody instead of maybe what's best for the Big Ten or the SEC, you could very well have an apocalyptic event that just blows up college football in a way that nobody would expect. So I'm hoping as we look into the future, and frankly, after all the reporting that John and I have done, my crystal ball is a little fuzzy right now. I don't know what's going to happen, but I do know if people don't think about the greater good, what's best for the game and not for the individual conferences and schools, then we're looking at an Oppenheimer condiment event.
Armand, final question for you. We see the NFL now allowing private equity. We certainly see everything happening with the Saudi investment fund. Is there a larger concern that things could dive a little bit deeper into the abyss?
Yeah, I don't know. I think right now, everybody that loves the game so much is so uncertain as to what the future is, and that's troubling. I love college football, and I don't think, at this point in time, I think college football is as popular as it's ever been. It's never been better on the field. There's never been more rabid interest by the fans. You have the college football playoffs coming up. That's the field. What's happening off the field in the 40 years that I've been covering college football, I've never seen it as unsettled as it is right now, as troubled as it is right now, and I just hope that the powers that be, the people that have the stakeholders, the Greg Sankeys of the world, the Tony Petittis in Big Ten, Charlie Baker at the NCAA, wise up one day and go, okay, what's really important is the sport itself, not just our individual concerns.
And if that doesn't happen, then if you're looking two or three years down the line, I don't know what it's going to look like, and frankly, it's a little frightening at this point in time, JR. Well, Armin, we got a lot of listeners who certainly love college football. Where can they find out more information on getting their hands on the price? Well, it's all over Amazon right now. We're kind of blown up and we've had great reviews and a lot of good things said about it.
So Barnes and Noble, Books a Million, Amazon, all those places where, you know, books are sold. And we got a big boost from Apple today where they said it's one of the top five books of the week. So John Paltie and I, who have poured a lot of our life into this thing in the last couple of years are, and John is a little younger than I am, he's like half my age, and he reminds me a lot of me. So he's texting me, he's like, Oh, my God, you know, what's going on?
I'm like, John, we're gonna be fine. Everybody that's read this book so far has really liked it. And it's, JR, of all the books I've done, I will say this, I've done, this is 13. I've had six New York Times bestsellers. This is one of the best books I've ever done.
And I'm really proud of this one. Well, Armin, I appreciate you taking the time to come in and talk to us about it. And where can people follow you as well? Are you into the social media? Are you sick of it? I'm a little, I'm at Armin Kattayan on X, X Twitter guy, you know, but I stay off Instagram, not on Facebook and those places.
So people, but if they want to find me, there's an email address there. And, you know, I say things on Twitter. I'm very careful about what I say, but I'm really proud of this one. And I got to say, you got a good thing going here, my brother. You got some nice stuff going. I looked at you today. I wasn't quite sure who you were. And then I found out who you were and I'm impressed.
It's got a nice thing going there. Well, thank you, Armin. I try to break things every now and then. I appreciate it. Yeah, you do. Yeah, I can see that.
That's nice to see because there's not a lot of that going on these days. Well, I'll be in touch with you. I will holler at you. Enjoy the weekend.
Enjoy the college football. And we'll catch you on down the line for the next book when you're up to New York Times bestseller number eight. Okay. I would like that. One more. No doubt about it. Have a good weekend, Armin. Thank you.
