Jay Bilas will tweet truth to NCAA power. The ESPN basketball analyst will also tweet it, at length, to NCAA compliance officers at Winthrop University. He is a one-man social media reform campaign.
Bilas, a former college basketball player and longtime opponent of the NCAA's treatment of student athletes, spoke out on Twitter on Tuesday about the NCAA's prohibition against student athletes profiting from their own likenesses. The commentary came just a day after ESPN reported that Florida State was investigating quarterback Jameis Winston over the possibility that he signed autographs for money and less than a week after Georgia running back Todd Gurley was indefinitely suspended for an alleged NCAA rules violation that reportedly involved him accepting extra benefits from memorabilia dealers for his likeness.
In an attempt to highlight NCAA hypocrisy, Bilas tweeted a screengrab from the official online store of Florida State showing replica football jerseys with Winston's No. 5 being sold.
With 745,000 followers on Twitter, Bilas' tweet garnered plenty of attention and responses. Many of the those replying seemed to be reading his tweet as an attack on Winston or Florida State rather than the NCAA rule. Bilas did his best to keep the focus on the NCAA and its rule prohibiting athletes from profiting on their likeness or being paid by schools some portion of the money generated by athletics.
As you'll see from the many tweets exchanged below, Bilas had varying degrees of his success in forwarding his points, or even keeping the debate on topic.