Johnny Manziel’s recent no-show on ESPN’s College Game Day has given way to a promotional opportunity for both the former Heisman winner and the prediction-market platform, Kalshi.
Earlier in the month it was announced that the former Texas A&M quarterback would be appearing on the show as the guest picker back at his alma mater ahead of the Aggies’ playoff game against the Miami Hurricanes in College Station on December 21.
Yet moments before he was scheduled to appear, College GameDay host Rece Davis mysteriously revealed that former Texas A&M basketball player and two-time NBA champion Alex Caruso would be stepping in instead.
Fans were left confounded Manziel’s absence, given he had been in attendance at Kaseya Center in Miami for Jake Paul’s controversial boxing showdown with Anthony Joshua just the night prior.
Social media erupted with an array of theories. Some thought Manziel’s well-known problems with alcohol had resurfaced, while others thought the former Cleveland Browns first-round pick was feuding with ESPN or College Gameday co-host, Pat McAfee.
Manziel has since claimed he was battling an illness, and on Wednesday, released a new statement encouraging fans to place bets at Kalshi, a prediction-market platform.
Johnny Manziel’s recent no-show on ESPN’s College Game Day has given way to a promotional opportunity for both the former Heisman winner and Kalshi
Manziel was supposed to appear on College Gameday with Pat McAfee (pictured) before his alma mater, Texas A&M, hosted Miami on December 20 in College Station, Texas
‘FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE,’ began the statement dated December 30 and posted on X the following day.
‘There’s been plenty of speculation lately,’ Manziel wrote. ‘I’m good with ESPN. I’m good with McAfee.
‘If you want to keep guessing, you can now do it officially. Thanks to Kalshi, you can trade on whether I’ll be back on College GameDay in 2026.
‘The market currently gives me a 34% chance of being back on set next season. If you think that number’s low, take the other side.’
Following Manziel’s post, that figure spiked up over 50 percent.
Fans online weren’t amused, generally speaking.
‘Get this dude a publicist for the love of god,’ one critic wrote.
‘Good thing Kalshi didn’t exist when you played,’ another wrote. ‘I would’ve lost my kid’s college fund betting on your odds of winning rookie off the year.’
Another called Manziel’s post ‘the most Johnny Manziel thing I’ve ever read.’
For the uninitiated, Kalshi and its competitor Polymarket an increasingly popular alternatives to far more regulated sportsbooks.
Manziel encouraged his followers to place bets on him returning to College Gameday
Kalshi connecting gamblers who want to wager on whether Manziel will return to College Gameday in 2026. Although he was initially a longshot, that figure spiked after his X post
The emerging industry’s trading platforms do work like online sportsbooks by offering futures contracts at prices and returns that fluctuate like betting odds (i.e. underdogs pay off better than favorites). Customers are given binary choices (‘yes or no’ or ‘one or the other’) on any number of positions, from gas prices to the next Pope and, of course, sports: Will the Knicks win this year’s NBA title? etc.
Platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket made news during the 2024 US Presidential race by using customers’ wagers to accurately forecast Donald Trump’s electoral victory over Kamala Harris. Since then, the industry has faced cease-and-desist orders in several states as platforms have taken hundreds of millions of dollars in bets on everything from March Madness to the Masters.
Crucially, these websites consider themselves to be ‘exchanges’ rather than ‘sportsbooks.’ As a result, they face fewer taxes and are more widely available because they’re not being prohibited, or even regulated, by individual states.
Rather, prediction markets are under the federal jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) — something Nevada state senator Dina Titus sees as a ‘backdoor way’ to legalizing sports gambling without necessary safeguards.
