Brand Recruiting

Coach Pitino (Louisville), Picture Courtesy of Complex.com

 College Basketball is on the rise, and not just because of it's player or the game itself. College Basketball has always been surrounded by money but never like this before. The contracts are getting bigger and seem to be warning labels in many ways. The affect of that label could cost coaches these days and there seems to be a big struggle between different labels because of loyalty.

Imagine you live in NYC and because of that you decide to go to St. John's University just because you are from NYC. Well...It's sort of like that anyway right now, it's just with the different sneaker apparels. Nike, Under Armour and Adidas have college basketball in a headlock, almost literally. These 3 different sneaker apparels are the huge elements that make up a large backbone for college programs, not for just basketball but all sports. That backbone could be the reason that a player might not attend a certain program

The biggest connections are the AAU programs. The AAU programs have so much loyalty and with that loyalty comes value. If a certain AAU program can find that top player, then they might have a leg up on what is provided for the future. Most of the AAU programs that have been elite, have been elite for years. Those programs such as Boo Williams, BABC, Team Final, Baltimore Elite, NJ Playaz, Grassroots Canada have been around ever since I first got involved with grassroots basketball. Now with the additions of programs such as WR1 and King James (just to name a few), the money is become even more reachable.

So now the connection builds because you have AAU programs who get money and apparel from Nike, Adidas and Under Armour. Of course Nike is the biggest of them all controlling well over 50% of the market but there's always going to be a dog fight for players. The dog fight comes because Nike has their universities/colleges that they sponsor and those schools amongst themselves are trying to get the best players they can. Kentucky has been winning the battle with recruiting ever since Calipari came to Lexington. He created a large avenue for Nike to do some things with the program and also help launch players in the NBA draft.

Now that we have everything down to size, here comes Pitino. Legendary Coach Pitino is not happy at all. Pitino was having problems with getting the top players in the country and it made him upset because that's now how it use to be. He realizes that in today's generation, you can't just recruit to recruit, you have to recruit based on factors. The biggest factor seems like the loyal of players to their AAU programs and not their parents. Those AAU programs because they have the elite players, they have the elite contracts with those brands. So now AAU programs because of their contracts with these brands get their players to go to their brand schools.

Pitino's Louisville Cardinals have a $39 million contract with Adidas. He also has his own deal with the brand but he claims that the pot of players he can pick from has shrink. In Pitino realizing that, he now focuses on players based on their values and try to go after players that he knows are not affected by that value system. Pitino suggest that the NCAA should have all control and the apparels should be out of the deal financially for all programs (AAU and NCAA).