Johnny Manziel could be angling to turn a blunder into a financial opportunity.
The former Texas A&M quarterback received plenty of backlash after he no-showed an appearance on “College GameDay” on Dec. 20, as the traveling show was in College Station covering his alma mater’s first-round playoff tilt with Miami.
Manziel released a statement the next day, apologizing for his absence and spouting off against “fake narratives.”
You’d think that would be the appropriate end to the saga, but things rarely follow the logical path when it comes to Manziel.
Instead of letting the issue peter out, Manziel resurrected the controversy with a curious post on X, captioned: “The truth is out and you can find it on Kalshi.”
He claimed in the post that he is “good” with ESPN and co-host Pat McAfee.
Then, came the twist.
In the same statement, Manziel pointed out that Kalshi has posted a market for users to predict whether or not the former Heisman Trophy winner will appear on “College GameDay” in 2026.
“If you want to keep guessing, you can now do it officially,” Manziel wrote on X. “Thanks to Kalshi, you can trade on whether or not 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.”
There was no indication from Manziel or Kalshi, one of the world’s leading prediction market platforms, that this was an official ad, but it is not out of form for either the polarizing quarterback or Kalshi to roll with this kind of publicity stunt.
Kalshi, like other DFS and betting operators before it, is no stranger to pushing the limits on marketing campaigns, and has come under fire for considering whether or not to post markets for transfer portal decisions, and was embroiled in a controversy over anti-semitic posts from its partners on X at the end of 2025.
