Fans must hold accountable the NCAA — not Nike, Michael Avenatti, Zion Williamson, or the Duke basketball program — for some unpleasant headlines this week.
It’s difficult to snap slimy fingers. Therefore, at the moment, the NCAA looks incapable of simply snapping its fingers to prevent allegations like the ones this week involving Nike and the most famous Duke basketball alum. The only solution, then, is for the “nonprofit organization” to take a bath — financially — or at least be willing to if that’s what it takes to clean up the game.
Unfortunately, the simple step to take back ownership of major college sports from shoe companies requires exactly what the NCAA currently seems to lack: a spine, a sense of right and wrong, and concern for student-athletes.
Throwing folks off the scent of the underlying issue — the inept and immoral decision to keep student-athletes from profiting off their likenesses — is this inconsequential question:
Is there truth to slimeball-lawyer Michael Avenatti’s allegations — via a motion filed on his behalf in federal court on Wednesday — that Nike executives texted about paying Zion Williamson $35,000 a few years before the 6-foot-7, 285-pound NCAA-moneymaker arrived at Duke?
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Even if true, and even if the payments took place, Nike would be 1) lawyered-up enough to crush any entity in any court, 2) loaded enough to stay buddy-buddy with the NCAA, and 3) slick enough to find new ways to funnel cash to high school phenoms in the future.
Besides, the world’s largest shoe company surely would have been smart enough to cover its tracks in terms of how the money exchanged hands; as a result, the NCAA would have no way to prove Williamson was ineligible last season as a one-and-done Blue Devil.
So here are the questions that should be coming from those fans who practice common sense and care about protecting college basketball from pond scum:
- Why do we stand for the hypocritical notion that basketball programs should have the right to sign apparel deals?
- Why do we stand for high-profile coaches raking in seven-figures annually without even having to wear the apparel themselves?
- Why don’t the players who do HAVE to wear the apparel not receive a penny?
- Finally, why last season did the NCAA allow Nike to specially manufacture shoes, like the ones below, specifically for Williamson with his name appearing on them — again, without compensating Williamson for his name’s appearance?
Consider that as late as the late-1960s, even professional squads were still having to purchase their own shoes.
"“When the Hawks moved from St. Louis to Atlanta [in 1968], they bought 240 pairs of shoes from a sporting goods dealer,” the now-late Joe Dean, who was the athletic director at LSU at the time, told the Washington Post in 1990. “Can you imagine that? Somebody buying a shoe?”"
In the NBA, no. In college, absolutely. In fact, keeping in line with the amateurism rules the NCAA so fervently protects — obviously to maximize profits for its member institutions — all college athletes should have to pay for their own shoes and jerseys, right?
Granted, the college game and recruiting races undoubtedly included a handful of dirtballs before Nike and Adidas ever arrived on the scene handing out apparel. But the ever-growing presences of Nike and Adidas mock the NCAA’s “amateurism argument” while turning the recruiting trail into a cesspool — not to mention further tricking teenagers into spending all their money on overpriced footwear.
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The NCAA has been solely responsible for keeping the floodgates open by allowing college programs to sign contracts with apparel companies.
The coaches of the popular programs who attract the megadeals from these companies can afford the required travel costs to land gobs of five-stars from across the country — an unfair advantage. And, naturally, with the goal of boosting their advertisements and then signing the best players out of college, the Nike’s of the world face the temptation to provide the best prospects monetary incentives as high schoolers so that they will sign on with one of the blue-blood college programs they sponsor.
With the current NCAA rules in place, the only surprise would be if all Nike executives, Nike Elite Youth Basketball League coaches, college coaches, and top prospects abstained from forming financially beneficial relationships with one another.
Realistic or not, there exist only two possible snap-of-the-finger solutions for the NCAA to take back control of the game from Nike:
- Ban all college programs from ever again accepting money or free apparel from any company, thereby instantly cutting coaches’ incomes and eliminating a large chunk of the hypocrisy — aka, the purist method
- Allow college athletes to sign endorsement deals without giving up their eligibility — aka, the right thing to do and the most effective way to reduce five-star recruits’ temptation to accept bribes
Problem solved.
Stay tuned to Ball Durham for more updates, analyses, opinions, and predictions concerning all things Duke basketball.