04/20/24
September 27, 2017
NCAA Coaches, Adidas Executive Face Charges: Across three complaints, two broad schemes were alleged. One involved bribing four assistant coaches -- at Arizona, Auburn, Oklahoma State and Southern California, all programs in the so-called Power 5 conferences of college sports -- to persuade players to send business to certain financial advisers once they turned professional. The other involved efforts to secretly funnel money from Adidas to three players and their families in exchange for the players' commitments to play at two Adidas-sponsored college programs and to later sign sponsorship deals with the company once they turned pro.
A new and a more highly recognized coach to get swept up in this scandal is Louisville's Rick Pitino.
posted by NoMich to basketball at 12:57 PM - 8 comments
Exactly. I think the general feeling around the sports community is that we are just now scratching the surface. May this lead to a major reform with the NCAA
posted by NoMich at 02:16 PM on September 27, 2017
What I read said this is the tip of the iceberg, that these indictments are going to be used as probable cause for warrants and maybe a grand jury. The Assistant US Attorney in charge of the case said that anyone involved in these hijinks should come talk to him before he comes to them. Add on the serious penalties coming any month now for North Carolina...
posted by billsaysthis at 02:23 PM on September 27, 2017
Looking at the U.S. Attorney's press statement, I cannot see this as being the end. This looks like the activities of a large industry; I expect more schools and companies will be targeted.
posted by jjzucal at 04:34 PM on September 27, 2017
You can bet that one or more of the assistant coaches or Adidas execs now charged will be offered a "deal". That is something to the effect of "We can put you away for about 20 years, but if you tell us what we want to know about Coach X or company exec Z, you will get sentenced to about a year and be out in 8 months. It's your choice, pal." There will be a lot more heads on the chopping block before this is over.
What I greatly fear is that NCAA recruitment will become so restrictive that players from the lower end of the economic spectrum will not be able to afford event the one-and-done year. The players that might have taken advantage of that will noe go overseas for a year or more before looking at the NBA. College basketball will become a lot less interesting when that happens.
posted by Howard_T at 06:31 PM on September 27, 2017
I happened to be listening to one of the talking heads on ESPN radio today (Reno rock stations keep converting to pop) who had an interesting perspective. He compared this situation to Chip Kelly being nave enough to pay an Oregon recruit's handler with a personal check. Nobody in the Big 10 or the SEC was shocked by it, beyond the stupidity of the check, because they'd been paying recruits' handlers for years.
Here, the reason Adidas and the staffers involved in their schemes got caught was because they were lazy and sloppy with their kickbacks. The big boy shoe companies have been doing it smarter for years, and would never make the same mistakes that got the striped ones nabbed.
On edit, did you know that you can't include the word nave (NAIVE with two little dots over the I) on SpoFi? It changes to NAVE!
posted by tahoemoj at 06:57 PM on September 27, 2017
Reno rock stations keep converting to pop
posted by beaverboard at 07:23 PM on September 27, 2017
posted by billsaysthis at 11:44 AM on September 29, 2017
If Adidas is caught doing this, I'll be surprised if other companies like Under Armor, Nike, Reebok, etc. aren't trying something like this as well.