Greetings sports fans!!! Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that Ed O’Bannon and some other athletes are suing the NCAA for profiting of their likenesses.
… and Jay Bilas might have driven a truck through the NCAA’s defense vs. Ed O’Bannon.
USA TODAY Sports found the same thing could be done when Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron, Ohio State quarterback Braxton Miller and Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray’s names were typed into the search box as well. You could even plug in former Buckeyes quarterback Terrelle Pryor, who was suspended in 2011 after selling his own memorabilia, and his old OSU jersey would appear.
Though the site is copyrighted by Fanatics Retail Group, it is branded with the NCAA’s official logo and links prominently toNCAA.com, the NCAA’s commercial web site.
The search function quickly became a hot topic on Twitter as ESPN analyst Jay Bilas posted a stream of screengrabs from the site showing replica jerseys of athletes such as Clemson’s Tajh Boyd, Louisville’s Teddy Bridgewater and others.
Bilas told USA TODAY Sports that he goes on the NCAA website all the time just to see what they’re doing and what’s going on, and with all the current chaos surrounding Manziel, he decided to see what was on sale on its commercial site.
Bilas told USA TODAY Sports that he goes on the NCAA website all the time just to see what they’re doing and what’s going on, and with all the current chaos surrounding Manziel, he decided to see what was on sale on its commercial site.
Before discovering the search box, Bilas said he received a message from someone that said the site was putting out No. 2 jerseys with the word “football” on the back, which struck him as odd.
“I hadn’t seen that before and that’s the equivalent of putting his last name on there because it’s not like jerseys have the sport on the back,” Bilas said. “So clearly they were referring to Johnny Football.”
Then he noticed the search function in the top right corner of the site and took off from there, plugging in different players’ names.
“They’re selling their jerseys, pretending that it’s some sort of coincidence that all the value is in the school name and there’s no value in the player when just coincidentally, every time you see a jersey, it’s the team’s best player,” he said.
“It’s not about need. It’s about exploitation. Any time an entity or a person makes money off of another entity or person, while at the same time restricting that person or entity, that’s exploitation. It’s wrong to the point of being immoral when you really think about it.”
The NCAA declined comment on the matter when contacted by USA TODAY Sports, but around 4 p.m. ET the search function on the website had been disabled.
Please see some of the better Twitter screen grabs below from @JayBilas:
How ironic that “Official Store of NCAA” sells Johnny Football shirts: http://t.co/A9fats88NI Or, a coincidence it’s No. 2 with “Football”?
— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) August 6, 2013
Go to http://t.co/qpH4tNnIpH, type in “Manziel” in upper right search box, hit enter. This comes up. pic.twitter.com/N7KNvXIu24 — Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) August 6, 2013
Go to http://t.co/qpH4tNnIpH, type in “Clowney” in upper right search box, and hit enter. This comes up. pic.twitter.com/pHUKGqoNuu — Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) August 6, 2013
Go to http://t.co/qpH4tNnIpH and type “Tajh Boyd” in upper right search box, then hit enter. This comes up. pic.twitter.com/0DF68wM0tW
— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) August 6, 2013
Go to http://t.co/qpH4tNnIpH and type “Teddy Bridgewater” in upper right search box, hit enter. This comes up. pic.twitter.com/Pc2vBuQWLO
— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) August 6, 2013
Go to http://t.co/qpH4tNnIpH and type “NCAA Executive Committee” in upper right search box, hit enter. This comes up. pic.twitter.com/7mwaNKO3TA — Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) August 6, 2013
Go to http://t.co/qpH4tNnIpH and type in “A.J. McCarron” in upper right search box, hit enter. This comes up. pic.twitter.com/LgTLKd7JkI — Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) August 6, 2013
Go to http://t.co/qpH4tNnIpH and type “Silas Redd” in upper right search box, then hit enter. This comes up. pic.twitter.com/KjqNMue9wK
— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) August 6, 2013
Go to http://t.co/qpH4tNnIpH and type “Deanthony Thomas” in upper right search box, then hit enter. This comes up. pic.twitter.com/ryf8wMBN0t
— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) August 6, 2013
Go to http://t.co/qpH4tNnIpH and type “Marqise Lee” in the upper right search box, then hit enter. This comes up. pic.twitter.com/UtLJLka7hP — Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) August 6, 2013
Go to http://t.co/qpH4tNnIpH and type “Mark Emmert” in upper right search box, then hit enter. This comes up. pic.twitter.com/OqBmXHkg0e — Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) August 6, 2013
Go to http://t.co/qpH4tNnIpH and type “Nerlens Noel” into upper right search box, then hit enter. This comes up. pic.twitter.com/7oSSTuVeiB
— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) August 6, 2013
The search function on http://t.co/71fcOTfuAR has been disabled.
— Chip Patterson (@Chip_Patterson) August 6, 2013
How wild is it that @JayBilas exposed the http://t.co/uuXDlxJm3V search function as connected to players and forced the NCAA to disable it? — Gary Parrish (@GaryParrishCBS) August 6, 2013
http://t.co/qpH4tNnIpH can still be searched by typing “/search/braxtonmiller” in the URL. This comes up. Have fun. pic.twitter.com/8Zp4Iza6jt — Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) August 6, 2013
Just so Big Blue doesn’t feel left out after Braxton Miller was searched and No. 5 came up. Denard Robinson, anyone? pic.twitter.com/txnrGrISXu
— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) August 6, 2013
Even suspended, http://t.co/qpH4tNnIpH will sell your stuff. Notre Dame’s Everett Golson is still for sale. pic.twitter.com/gY6vRDJCK1
— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) August 6, 2013
Notwithstanding his suspension, NCAA still sells Tyran Mathieu, searchable by his name, on http://t.co/qpH4tNnIpH. pic.twitter.com/FtN3Y0NLQD — Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) August 6, 2013
The NCAA is currently searching for a way to vacate @JayBilas Twitter account. — Phil Taylor (@SI_PhilTaylor) August 6, 2013
The plaintiff’s attorneys in the O’Bannon case need to slide part of their fee to @JayBilas. He may have won the case this afternoon.
— Andy Staples (@Andy_Staples) August 6, 2013
And I think we’re done here. Open up the wallet and settle, NCAA.
2 pings
Has the NCAA lost it’s mind… again? » All Sports Discussion says:
August 18, 2013 at 7:19 pm (UTC -5)
[…] I think this has become indicative of the current state NCAA, from the botched handing of the Miami Hurricane’s investigation, to the NCAA practice of selling jerseys that suddenly stopped just over a week ago in the midst of the Johnny Manzeil controversy. Just check out Jay Bilas’s twitter timeline for the now legendary rant about the NCAA and those player jerseys. […]
Has the NCAA lost it’s mind… again? | Sports Blog United says:
August 18, 2013 at 7:44 pm (UTC -5)
[…] I think this has become indicative of the current state NCAA, from the botched handing of the Miami Hurricane’s investigation, to the NCAA practice of selling jerseys that suddenly stopped just over a week ago in the midst of the Johnny Manzeil controversy. Just check out Jay Bilas’s twitter timeline for the now legendary rant about the NCAA and those player jerseys. […]