According to the Courier-Journal's Andrew Wolfson, suspended Louisville Cardinals basketball coach Rick Pitino got 98 percent of the money that Adidas had given to the school under a deal that is set to expire on July 1. After that, a new deal announced this past August (worth a whopping $160 million over 10 years) will go into effect, and is supposedly earmarked for the athletic department and the university's student athletes. (That is if Adidas doesn't pull it amidst the FBI's college basketball bribery investigation.)
"In 2015-16, for example, $1.5 million went to Pitino under his personal services agreement with the apparel company while just $25,000 went to the program," Wolfson wrote. "The year before, Pitino also got $1.5 million, while the department banked just $10,000." Wolfson added that whatever money Adidas gave to coaches under the aforementioned agreements, in both the old and new deals, was/will be taken out of what would be given to the athletic department.
Despite that, department spokesman Kenny Klein argued last month that "Players come here in part because of Coach Pitino. Coaching is part of what we give to student-athletes." He further stated Adidas already had an agreement with Pitino before the university made their pact.
Meanwhile, the school's interim president, Greg Postel, is investigating if the dough from Adidas is "tainted." According to Marc Tracy of The New York Times, the FBI is investigating Adidas for their alleged "efforts to secretly funnel money from Adidas to three players and their families in exchange for the players' commitments to play at two Adidas-sponsored college programs and to later sign sponsorship deals with the company once they turned pro."
As for Pitino, as we said up top, he is currently suspended and will almost certainly never coach another game for Louisville again.
