He was also a huge D-bag.

More money probably would have made him worse, if we're being honest.

They had an entire money laundering scheme cooked up so he wouldn't get caught selling autographs.

"How are you gonna explain why you are wearing Rolexes, and driving new cars, and flying in private jets?"

A sure sign of who Johnny was dealing with - in very drug dealer fashion, these guys would get the best suites at the best hotels, fill it full of stuff to sign. Johnny would go to the rooms to stay with his friends. Eat/drink/booze for the weekend. When completed the brokers would give him the password to the safe. $30K inside. Then they would leave. $30K to go party for the weekend in Miami. And they did this all over the country.

To hide the transfer of money, Manziel said he would give his grandfather cash in exchange for a check that he would then deposit into his bank account.

He MIGHT have had a business manager, but I'd bet he would still have his friends working in similar positions. A faux-business "structure" that wouldn't have changed what Johnny did to make him Johnny Football. He didn't want to do anything that required you to be a professional.

Kingsbury said it 10 times in the first 10 minutes - we just turned him loose. He showed up to practice hungover... didn't matter, wouldn't be disciplined, bc he would light guys up in practice. He would do stupid thing after stupid thing and nobody ever cared - bc he could still perform. He never bothered to learn plays in his entire football career - bc he could make things up on the fly. Making money of your jersey isn't gonna make you read the playbook.

You are assuming that NIL has pushed out the groupie friend sets and undesirable players. I would like to ask what you base that opinion on?

He actually was not from a wealthy family. It was a story made up to cover him having so much money, and the money laundering itself. The documentary touches on that as well.

Apparently, his great grandpa had made some money in oil, but died pretty much broke.

It is a great question, and one I don't necessarily have an answer to. I believe players are allowed to have agents for their NIL contracts, right? That, I would hope, would be someone with some legal or legitimate background, not the friend that Johnny had hooking him up with nefarious individuals. I just wonder if making everything above-board eliminates a lot of the shady characters from players.

He had to hide the money. He had to launder the money. He had to lie about the money. He was meeting in back rooms for these deals. He probably wasn't getting much counsel, and also no financial advice because what he was doing was against NCAA regulations. If he had professionals surrounding him, would he have handled it any better? He still would've been a 20 year old kid who probably would've made the same decisions, but it sounds like he was pretty buttoned up in high school and then college put him into a tailspin that he's still recovering from.

Who set up the deal for Texas's offensive line? The deal for Pitt? Probably not groupie friends, right?

Athletes are always gonna have hangers on. But there's no question that the NIL has given players access to far more legitimate options to make money.

In Johnny Manziel's case, he basically instantly cut his groupie friend out the moment he signed a pro contract.

Manziel was self-destructive and had obvious substance abuse issues. At one point in the doc, he admits that his plan was to blow through all of his money and then commit suicide. He tried, in fact. And even he chose to align himself with legitimate business advisors the moment that they were available to him.

Big athletes will have the "bad element" around them plenty, but in the prior system the bad element was the only option. When anti-NIL folks make the point that the "bad element" is still around, it feels like they're glossing over the part where they're suggesting giving that 'bad element' a monopoly on the business.