Noted sports journalist and six-time New York Times bestselling author Armen Keteyian was a guest on The Jim Rome Podcast. Keteyian was mainly on to promote his new book, The Price: What It Takes to Win in College Football’s Era of Chaos, but he also caught Rome up on what he has been up to and also talked about the challenges of creating the type of content he wants to create.
Keteyian, 71, told Rome about his two grandchildren, one of which was just born three months ago. He said he and his wife are “immersed in the grandparents’ world, which we really like.”
The former HBO Real Sports and CBS News correspondent has written more than a dozen books and told Rome he has done three books in five years with his current college football book, a previous release, Gambler, about noted sports gambler Billy Walters, along with a forthcoming book about sports marketing executive Sonny Vaccaro.
“So, I’m enjoying the fact that I don’t travel like I did when I was a network television correspondent,” Keteyian said. “And I get to spend more time with my family, which I really didn’t do a lot for about, you know, 30 years.”
Rome asked why Keteyian continues to go as hard as he does when he could choose to lay back after his long and successful career.
“When I found journalism or journalism found me, you know I was always a reader and played a lot of sports, and then reading begat writing, and then storytelling,” he said. “And I really still love what I do. I love books like The Price and big books like Tiger Woods, where the landscape is so broad and sprawling, but it takes a certain kind of skill set, a certain kind of relentless reporting, and also trust that you build up over the years with people.
Some of the stuff that I have wanted to do in the documentary space, sports docs, multi-part series, we’ve had, some partners and I have had some really good ideas, and it’s just been very hard to sell them…But I think for me, I just still, I like getting up and doing something every day. I can’t just play golf or, go for walks or do whatever I do…The challenge of big books, of larger landscapes, it still has it for me. And I’ve always been kind of an obsessive reporter.”
Rome asked Keteyian to clarify his point about having strong people and ideas, along with his credibility and name, but not being able to get things greenlit.
“Why is it that somebody with your background, your pedigree, surrounded with the team that you have, is not able to sell those types of ideas that you know are really compelling?” Rome asked.
Keteyian went on to share the ideas, one of which was called Wizard of Odds with behind-the-scenes access to the world of sports gambling. The other was called Swindle, which was to be stories of high-profile athletes who were taken advantage of financially.
Keteyian explained he had “very high-profile athletes who were taken advantage of not because they were stupid or not because they were throwing their money away in strip clubs or on yachts or stuff, but were the targets of very sophisticated, fraudulent proposals. And we had a very big-name athlete who lost $13 million in an incredibly interesting swindle, and we had 10 other episodes.”
Keteyian said in both instances everybody loved the ideas and the demo reels they put together. “But then you get to the decision-makers, and I think that’s where the problem is,” he said “The decision-makers right now, I think, are afraid to make a decision unless there is a primetime name associated with it. By that I mean, and no disrespect at all, because I think they’re doing some good things, but Tom Brady, Shaquille O’Neal, LeBron James, Steph Curry, you name it, if they’re not involved with it, people are afraid to make those kinds of decisions because when that name is involved with it, you automatically get a pass within your organization.
“…But even given my reputation and the people that I’m associated with who are award-winning storytellers, we just ran into one brick wall after another. And last week I was talking to a producer out in L.A. who has multiple projects in the past and is still working consistently, but he’s walked into some meetings, again, from the Netflix on down, where they just are afraid to make a decision, and the money is frozen for one reason or another.
“So, I’ve kind of decided to step away from that because when you invest that much time and that much energy to craft a deck or put together a sizzle reel, and you can’t get people to commit to that kind of journalism, I’m just too old for it now. I’m just tired of beating my head against the wall.”
