Jay Bilas is a college basketball analyst for ESPN and former collegiate basketball player. He was a four-year starter for Mike Krzyzewski on the Duke University men’s basketball team from 1982-86 and helped lead Duke to the 1986 ACC Championship and NCAA Championship game. Bilas joined ESPN in 1995 and since then has gained popularity through his extensive knowledge of men’s basketball and his prominent voice against the NCAA’s exploitation of student-athletes.
Jay voices his complaints most significantly through his Twitter account where he has over 1.1 million followers. Here is an example of a 2013 tweet that criticized the NCAA and garnered huge attention:
In this tweet, it showed his followers that if you searched for a specific college athlete on the NCAA’s online store, for example Johnny Manziel (a quarterback at Texas A&M), you would be directed to a page selling jersey’s with that player’s number. Jay Bilas wanted to highlight how the NCAA is profiting off these college athletes without compensating them for their achievements. In response to this tweet, the NCAA shut down their store website but it sparked a significant debate over this topic and the NCAA’s exploitation of student-athletes.
Additionally, a more recent tweet from today criticizes Georgia football coach, Kirby Smart, for restricting transfers from Georgia from going to any SEC school. This again highlights that Jay Bilas is not afraid to speak his mind:
As you can see, Jay Bilas has a personal brand of speaking his mind and not being afraid of going against the “status quo” or even a huge power like the NCAA. This has allowed both him and ESPN to gain popularity in addition to traffic on TV and twitter. In the article Risks of Personal Brand Journalism, Ann Freidman explains the pros and cons of journalists having their own brands. She explains, “On one hand, news outlets can bump up their traffic significantly with a single hire. On the other, the journalist can always take that traffic with her if she jumps ship.” Jay Bilas brings a lot of traffic to ESPN with his loud opinions but he also brings a lot of traffic to competitors and other sources that he uses in his writing and his tweets. Ultimately I think that Jay Bilas is a significant contributor on ESPN and ESPN would not be as successful without his loud opinions.
In Ed Sherman’s 2014 interview with Jay Bilas, Jay talks about his views on the NCAA and what it’s like being a noteworthy figure in the pay college athletes debate. Below are some of the questions that Ed Sherman asked.
1. You’ve kind of become almost the go‑to guy, the face of the pay-for-play issue. How do you feel about that?
Bilas: “I’m a little torn about it because I’m not stupid. I realize I’d be better off if I just kept my mouth shut and I took the money that’s coming to me and I was a cheerleader for the sport, and I am a cheerleader for college basketball. College basketball is the best sport in my opinion. But it doesn’t mean that everything is right with it, and when you love something, you say when it’s wrong. I say what I think. That’s what I’m paid to do.”
2. The conventional wisdom is that paying athletes can’t be done. The money isn’t there. Why do you think otherwise?
Bilas: “It’s a lame excuse. Sometimes I like to take things to the absurd to make a point, but it’s really funny how nobody ever says, like when they started this playoff, this College Football Playoff, nobody said, it’s just too complicated. How are we going to figure it out? How are we going to figure out what venue to use and how are we going to play all the vendors? Do we pay all the vendors the same thing? Do we pay the parking attendants the same thing that we pay the announcers? How do we do it? Do we pay all the teams? How do we pay the coaches? Do we pay the assistants the same way that ‑‑ it’s funny how they can make all these decisions according to the free market, but the athletes, boy, you can’t do that. I don’t believe, nor does any reasonable economist believe, that this entire enterprise teeters upon the athletes staying amateur. It doesn’t.”
Below is another example of Jay Bilas voicing his opinion on whether or not college athletes are exploited:
Ultimately, Jay Bilas personal brand of speaking his mind and not being afraid to go against higher powers or prominent sports figures has made him gain a significant amount of respect and popularity in his field of work. He is one of the most well-read analysts at ESPN and will continue to garner support and attention for his criticism of those he does not agree with.
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