Report: Sneaker Money Influences Youth Basketball

After indictments last fall in the FBI's investigation into issues in college basketball, The Oregonian/OregonLive began reviewing the influence of shoe companies, notably Portland-based Nike, in youth basketball.

"It's a bare-knuckled place where entrepreneur coaches, private skills tutors, freelance nutritionists, physiotherapists and expensive prep schools cater to players' dreams of Division I scholarships and NBA riches," The Oregonian/OregonLive reporters Jeff Manning and Brad Schmidt write.

Part of their reporting in the first of their series "The Swoosh Effect," published Saturday, examines Nike's relationship with the family of Duke freshman star Marvin Bagley. His father, Marvin Jr., and wife filed for bankruptcy in April 2008, Manning and Schmidt report. But after moving the family from Phoenix to suburban Los Angeles in 2015, after Bagley Jr.'s AAU team gained backing from Nike, the family lives in a subdivision in Northridge, Calif., where homes sell for upto $1.5 million and rents go from $2,500 to $7,500 a month, the reporters found.

The NCAA has apparently not looked into the Nike-Bagley relationship, but six experts on NCAA compliance told The Oregonian/OregonLive that the parent-coaches paid to run their kids' club teams could be a breach of amateurism rules.

Visit ACCXtra.com to find a link to the full story.

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