He helped write the book that exposed Phil Mickelson’s gambling

Alarm. Take MitoQ.

Run, shower, breakfast, kids to school, work time, home time, dinner time, fun time, bedtime. When you're leading a full life, MitoQ can make all the difference. MitoQ is a science-based cell health supplement that helps your trillions of cells generate renewable daily energy.

Because energy is renewable. Time is not. Discover more at MitoQ.com. That's M-I-T-O-Q.com. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.

This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Sometimes things just fall into place. I've been scrolling through Twitter during a little bit of vacation time. And I came across Armin Kataian on Twitter. I follow him on, I'm sorry, on X. Nobody is on Twitter anymore.

We're all on X. Which, again, I just feel dirty saying that. So I follow Armin Kataian, and he tweeted out a book. Now, I just kept going through it, and I had forgotten, like, oh, Armin's got a new book out. And I know that Armin had written a book nine years ago. We're actually coming up on the nine-year anniversary of a book called The System, which is all about big money and college sports. And I thought, well, it's probably something like that. I had forgotten the title. As it turns out, the book we've already mentioned today, the book that exposes Phil Mickelson's gambling, Armin's part of that, too.

I'm going to try to work in both with Armin Kataian, legendary sports investigative journalist, and the author of a new book coming out called The Price with John Talty of 24-7 Sports. Mr. Kataian, thank you very much. I've stumbled into an embarrassment of riches. How are you? I'm good. As you can imagine, Adam, it's been kind of a crazy day, but it's good to talk to you.

Thank you very much. Before we let you go, I am going to ask you about Mickelson. That's very salacious, those stories from Billy Walters. But let's start with the stuff that I think matters to, I would say, 90 percent of our listening audience here in the state of North Carolina. That's the state of major college sports. I actually think we should really be talking about it only in major college football because that's what's driving everything here.

So when you see everything that is going on, where now the ACC is talking to Cal Stanford at SMU, which makes me roll my eyes. Where are you in your thought process with all of this, knowing that you are working on a new book about it? Well, it's interesting. I mean, chaos would be a kind word for it right now, I think. You know, John and I have been, I think what you mentioned, the system. So just to give your audience an idea, this is like, The Price is like the System 2.0.

The system was a deep dive into big time college football at a time when, you know, coaches' salaries were soaring and realignment was happening and regional television networks were just beginning. And now we're in a period of time where it's, I think, a brave new world and the wild, wild west and whatever other kind of words you want to use for it. It's, you know, the reporting that we have been doing, we're embedded in a lot of interesting places at the moment. And there's just a complete sense of bewilderment in a lot of places. And also self-interest and greed and confusion and exhaustion and all of those words are factored into it.

But it's really being driven by a single source, and that's the chase for the money, for the grant of rights dollars that the networks, the media companies are paying. And I think, you know, the ship is sinking in a lot of ways. And you mentioned in passing the future of what college football would look like.

I don't disagree with you at all. But, you know, the ship's sinking and the schools are, I think, acutely aware there's only so many lifeboats around right now. And what you saw with Arizona State and Arizona and Utah going to the Big 12 and certainly Oregon and Washington going to the Big 10 and all the conversations that are now surrounding the ACC. You know, the presidents, as President Bobby Robbins of Arizona said just a couple of days ago, they've lost control of the situation. And not that they had very much control before, but the conference commissioners had control. And I think now that control is passed into the hands of the media companies, particularly Fox, which is behind the move of Oregon and Washington and certainly was behind the move, I think, of UCLA and USC. So it's a very, I mean, it's an anxiety.

I'm inside looking out or outside looking in, depending upon your perspective. But some days it's just impossible to keep up with what's going on. And that's a little frightening because these decisions. I mean, you watch the destruction of one hundred and eight year old conference, the Conference of Champions of the Rose Bowl, the Rose Bowl parade, you know, Keith Jackson destroyed, basically decimated in a 48 hour period. And those things don't happen when people are are thinking collectively.

They happen when people are thinking in their own self-interest and in survival mode. And so and that's just realignment. You toss in NIL and the portal and all the other things that are mental health and all the other things that are going on right now, particularly in big time college football, but also in basketball. And it's it's just insane in a lot of ways. Arman could say and is joining us here on The Adam Gold Show, investigative reporter, author of a new book coming out called The Price, The System, which we're coming up on the nine year anniversary of that.

And he's also part of the Billy Walters book, which throws all sorts of dirt on Phil Mickelson, which I do want to ask you about before we leave. But I want to get really want to focus more on the college football stuff, because I do think it's even though college basketball makes a lot of money. I don't think we're seeing really any realignment today with I don't know.

It's not driven. It's all football. It's all football.

This is a this is a one stop shop. Basketball is kind of like an unintended consequence. Hey, if it works out, the basketball is good.

That's even that's even better. That was part of, I guess, the Big 12 thinking about adding Connecticut, which they have stopped thinking about that, I believe. I want to ask you about the leadership of the NCAA.

And I realize that the the NCAA is first and foremost, all of the universities that are part of it. It's not really Charlie Baker now or or Mark Emmert before him or Miles Brand, the late Miles Brand before him. But we're about 20 years in since we've had legitimately strong leadership.

I go back to maybe Cedric Dempsey before we've had since we've had legitimately strong leadership where it wasn't allowing just all sorts of craziness to go on. And I know Baker has said some things after the fact, but we have heard nothing. But we have to stop the players from getting money from the NCAA offices really for the last decade when all of this is going on. So I know they can't really stop it, but they could have been vocal.

Well, they've had they've had ample opportunities. I was at the conference, the summit in D.C. that Charlie Baker was there. Greg Sankey, the SEC commissioner, commissioner of the ACC, was there. It was a it was a who's who of of stakeholders, as they as they are called.

And I was asked to do a Q&A during a live session. And one of the things I said was, you know, the NCAA, you reap what you sow. And you can go back to certainly Sonny Vicaro and Ed O'Bannon in the original lawsuit that was filed, the antitrust lawsuit that was filed in class action in 2011 and 2014. When the judge in the ninth district in California ruled in favor of of the plaintiffs and in rule that the practice of not paying athletes violated antitrust laws. And then you can go on to the Supreme Court ruling nine zero that called the NCAA a cartel and violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. So there have been ample opportunities over the course of the last decade. Plus, and you could actually argue, I go back to Walter Byers when I was at Sports Illustrated, I actually did an interview with Walter Byers. So I've I've interviewed every single NCAA president since then.

That's going back into the 80s. It's a it's an association. You know, it's it's nothing but a group of schools getting together. The problem is you have power five schools that are that are subjected to decisions by Division two and three schools that you're talking about.

You know, Mars and Venus. Right. So it's it's a completely different structure. And I think that structure is going to change in the next. You know, three or four years, two or three years, but the NCAA spent tens of millions of dollars fighting the O'Bannon case for name, image and likeness. And once name, image and likeness came into play in 2021, July 1, 2021, that was the first bomb that dropped. And that changed the landscape completely.

Now, it's just everybody is scrambling to figure out a way to survive. And, you know, NC State is in your backyard. And NC State is a very interesting school because they're in the middle. You know, I think they finished fourth last year in the ACC.

They're predicted to be in that same area this year, which Doran's, you know, done a good job there. But it's you know, when you start listing the schools in the ACC, the power schools in the ACC, you've got to go down. You know, where's NC State in the middle?

And that's that's a place you don't want to be right now. The way things are going, because and I can only imagine is they're trying to figure out if we bring in Cal and Stanford. OK, but what happens to all that grant of rights money? Who's are we going to split the pie now?

Two more ways on these calculations are they're crucial to the university's budgets. But I was talking to some people today and it's like, you know, if you're in a 16 team conference or 18 team conference and you're the 16th, 17th, 18th, 15th, 14th team. What is that? What does that get you? I mean, what is that? What are you bringing to the table?

I think a lot of these schools now are starting to look. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Are you struggling to lose weight and keep it off? Tired of wasting time and money on starvation diets that lead to more frustration and stress? If there was a weight loss solution that could actually work for you, would you try it? Then head to Golo dot com. I'm Steve. I lost one hundred and thirty eight pounds in nine months on Golo.

I'm Amber. I've lost one hundred and twenty eight pounds with Golo. If you're ready to take back control of your life, head to Golo dot com now and see how Golo can work for you.

That's Golo dot com. My sleep is way better. My inflammation has gone way down. Golo saved my life. I was way overweight. That's what sent me down the path.

I wanted to make sure and live for my kid. I have literally tried everything. I was on the verge of getting gastric bypass surgery and I saw the Golo commercial and it was the last thing I tried because it worked. Join over two million people who found a better way to lose weight with Golo. Your healthier and happier life begins at Golo dot com.

That's Golo dot com again. Golo dot com forward and saying, OK, super conferences. We take how many do you take from the ACC? How many do you take from the Big Ten? The SEC? The Mountain West gets nothing. Does the Big 12 get a seat? Notre Dame gets a seat.

And and then what happens? I don't I think what we're seeing now is just the beginning of an even bigger change in the college football landscape and a separation, which makes perfect sense in so many ways. But I go back to your original discussion about the NCAA. I have a lot of friends in the NCAA, particularly on the enforcement side that I respect for. I've seen Charlie Baker in person talk.

He's very impressive. I also talked to a powerful senator this week about, you know, it's ironic now that the NCAA is coming to Congress for help. I mean, it's that's the level of desperation that we're seeing now. And the senator I spoke with said it's you know, it's highly unlikely that there is going to be any legislation coming out of Congress before this session ends in 2024. And once you get into early next year and you're in an election cycle, you can forget it.

Nothing's going to get done. There are four proposals on Capitol Hill right now. And it's like quarterbacks. If you have four quarterbacks, you have no quarterbacks. If you have four proposals, you have no proposals. And by the way, the last one, the most recent one by Senator Christopher Murphy and a representative I don't I don't remember her name from the House of Representatives. That's the one that the only one that the players seem to be behind because that is the most player friendly. And if it was me drawing it up, that's the one I would go for.

But that's not what the NCAA and the commissioners really want. So I lied. We're not going to be able to talk about the book with Billy Walters. I'll ask you what this one thing on the way out, Armin Kitay. And I appreciate the time when the book I know you can preorder the book. The book. Twenty seconds. So it's great. Really, Billy's a he's an amazing character and all the stuff that that we've said and people have read today about Phil. Trust me.

I've been doing this a long time. It's all documented on. I cannot wait to read it. But let me just ask you this real quick, as I have I've been talking about this for a long time, about we're going to see a separation even at the FBS level where the power five will break away. Will football or just crystallize it? Will football in the power five break away from everything else? Yes, I don't think there's I think it's almost fait accompli at this point in time. They just haven't figured out yet how the structure is going to work.

What rules, who will enforce them? I think once they get that in place. And trust me, people like Greg Sankey and and other Oliver Luck and some of the other really thoughtful, powerful people within college sports and college football.

If that's not on their whiteboard, I'd be I'd be shocked. There's there has to be plans in place. And when that takes place, you'll see another seismic shift in college football. And there will be that that's supergroup that will split away under their own rules, whether it's revenue sharing with players, how that is going to be done, who's going to run it, what the rules are. But I think it's night follows day. You can say it's a I'd be shocked if it didn't happen. Armand could say and I appreciate your time. The book that you're working on is called The Price. Thank you very much for being such a welcome. You bet. You got to take care. Armand could say in here on the Adam Gold show.