A pay-for-play scandal has loomed over college basketball for over a year, as representatives from adidas were charged and ultimately found guilty of orchestrating payments to high school players to push them to certain universities.
No one that follows college athletics believed that FBI investigation was anything but the tip of the iceberg, but as public sentiment has shifted in the debate over whether college athletes should be paid, outrage is much more sparse over the scandal. Most recently, Michael Avenatti, most famous for his work as Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, has been hit with federal extortion charges for a failed attempt at getting north of $20 million from Nike in order to keep details from a former Nike sponsored AAU coach who claims to know about payments from being made public.
Charges were filed against Avenatti on Monday, but that hasn’t stopped him from tweeting through it. On Tuesday morning, Avenatti, now fully understanding he’s not getting any money, decided to try and drag Nike down with him. He called his extortion charges a “diversion” and proclaimed the company had made cash payments to former Arizona star and top overall pick Deandre Ayton and Oregon’s injured star Bol Bol to push them to those institutions.
Ask DeAndre Ayton and Nike about the cash payments to his mother and others. Nike’s attempt at diversion and cover-up will fail miserably once prosecutors realize they have been played by Nike and their lawyers at Boies. This reaches the highest levels of Nike.
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) March 26, 2019
Bol Bol and his handlers also received large sums from Nike. The receipts are clear as day. A lot of people at Nike will have to account for their criminal conduct, starting with Carlton DeBose & moving higher up. The diversion charade they orchestrated against me will be exposed
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) March 26, 2019
Now, Avenatti offers nothing concrete as far as evidence and it’s the word of a man who is very upset at Nike, so take it for what it’s worth. Knowing what we do about college athletics, I don’t think many would be surprised to learn such an arrangement was in place, and the bigger question now, for some anyways, is why players aren’t allowed to make money off their name and likeness at the college level if sneaker companies and more are willing to pay them.
Nike will, undoubtedly, deny the claims, but it’s not the first time Ayton’s name has come up in the scandal. Last year his name came up as one of the high profile players that took money, but strongly denied those claims through a family statement. Given that Ayton’s already addressed the allegations at that time and denied them, it’s odd Avenatti would think “ask Deandre Ayton” would be a successful retort.
