Let me start off by saying I'm a reporter on the national desk at 247Sports and have been a sneaker collector for nearly two decades. A niche hobby for most of us 'sneakerheads' has turned into a crazy successful business of reselling for some and I wanted to drop my two cents in on the NCAA's recent crackdown of player-exclusives leaking out to the marketplace.
This detail regarding Michigan, in my opinion, is too far down in ESPN's initial story (from Friday) and is an extremely important point:
"Michigan football spokesman Dave Ablauf said the number of sales tracked by StockX doesn't mean Wolverines players sold the shoes. Ablauf said executives and celebrities receive the special shoes, as do Nike's Michigan endorsers in the pros. The school itself also might have donated, at times, some pairs to charity."
Specifically related to StockX and how that company operates, unless someone talks the NCAA has no way of determining the location of these "player-exclusive" Jordans nor how they were acquired, or from whom. When you sell a pair of shoes on StockX, you have zero contact with the buyer. They are shipping to one of StockX's holding cells for authenticity confirmation before being shipped to the buyer. And I'd imagine privacy laws will protect sellers in this regard if the NCAA digs deeper.
These sneakers aren't necessarily players' pairs via StockX either. Nike and Jordan schools are sent special pairs in limited numbers that are also seeded to celebrities, team personnel and VIPs associated with the program. And if those are the pairs that are being resold for thousands (many are), there's no NCAA violation there.
I interviewed a sneaker boutique store owner based out of North Carolina earlier this week and asked about the acquisition process of player-exclusive sneakers. At one point, he had 11 pairs of the UNC Jordan 3s prior to this recent NCAA shakedown. Not all pairs were sold to him by players. That's an important note that seems to be missing in various new thoughts on exclusive college-issued pairs.
In short, there's a ton of misinformation out there in terms of sneaker reselling when it comes to college-issued pairs getting out to the public. I can assure you, the NCAA knows very little about online sneaker marketplaces like StockX and is just in its infancy gathering info on the subject.
This is from brad Crawford .. a national writer for 24/7
@TUA TAGOVAILOA This is all that I can find right now. shyts quiet. maybe cause it the weekend?