We’ve found a situation where you truly don’t want to ‘be like Mike’ and not surprisingly it involves the NCAA.
In the wake of North Carolina suspending 13 players for selling team-issued shoes, Michigan, one of the other programs outfitted by Nike’s Jordan Brand is now looking into whether they too had players profiting off some unique items exclusive to the program. The Wolverines signed a massive nine-figure deal with Nike and became one of the first programs in college athletics to move to the Jordan Brand back in 2016.
“We are aware of the report at North Carolina. Our compliance office is looking into this matter and will determine if anything needs to be reported to the NCAA,” a UM spokesperson emailed The Detroit Free Press in a statement.
At the center of the story for the Wolverines is an ESPN report on Friday that said a shoe-marketplace called “StockX” had listings “for 23 pairs of Michigan team-issued shoes.” The site was first discovered by UNC as part of their investigation into their own players but the Tar Heels tipped off Michigan, Cal and Marquette that they had also found shoes exclusive to those schools on the same exchange.
It’s possible the shoes were put up for sale by people who are not current Wolverines players but you can bet that compliance back in Ann Arbor is now quickly going through records and interviewing players to get to the bottom of things.
Michigan opens the season with a top 25 battle at Notre Dame on Sept. 1st in primetime on NBC.