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ESPN Outside the Lines has a fascinating read about Louisville Basketball. From the beginning of AD Julirich's arrival and his wife's comment , "what did you get us into" (when she saw the campus and city) to its growth and connection to Adidas. Must read.

After Louisville and Adidas arranged to funnel $100,000.00 to Brian Bowen's family, Pitino told Terry Meiners of News Radio 840: "We got lucky on this one. ... We spent zero dollars recruiting a five-star athlete who I loved when I saw him play. In my 40 years of coaching, this is the luckiest I've been."



"OTL: The making of The University of Adidas at Louisville http://www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/21710106

My issue with this piece, and I’ll admit I didn’t read all of it, it that it doesn’t address the fundamental question.

Adidas spends enormous amount of time, resources and $$$, some of it illegally to players, to ultimately increase its brand awareness and bottom line profitability. Obviously from the amount of resources spent over several years, Adidas feels comfortable with this model.

So the million $ questions are: Is this limited to college basketball and not college football, is it only limited to Louisville and no other program and is this behavior, or some version of it, only limited to Adidas and not Nike and others. I think we all know the answer to this.

For ESPN/Disney to do a comprehensive investigation would undoubtedly impact their own bottom line. So I’m not expecting much outside of an occasional hit piece on a few unlucky recipients.