Zach Bohannon is a senior forward for Wisconsin, which is one of eight teams playing in the Sweet 16 on Thursday night.
He's far from a star -- averaging less than one point and one rebound while playing just about two minutes per game -- but he is part of the gigantic entertainment and marketing spectacle called March Madness, which brought in an estimated $1.15 billion in advertising revenue alone last year.
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Nonetheless, Bohannon and other players are not allowed to accept any compensation beyond their athletic scholarships. (Although a landmark ruling Wednesday could help change that soon.)
Turns out, in some cases at least, they can't even bring the wrong brands of water to their own practices.
Here's a tweet posted by Bohannon on Thursday morning, when Wisconsin had a pre-game shoot-around in Anaheim, Calif., before tonight's game against Baylor.
I wasn't allowed in by security to our CLOSED team shoot-around this morning until I took the label off my bottled water. Thanks, @NCAA!— Zach Bohannon (@ZBohannon) March 27, 2014
In a later tweet, Bohannon said he was drinking a bottle of Nestlé Pure Life water. So why would that not be OK? He confirmed one fan's educated guess.
@JPFinkel @CAPAssociation @NCAA BINGO! Dasani is!— Zach Bohannon (@ZBohannon) March 27, 2014
But Bohannon is just a basketball player and he might be wrong here, right? A quick look at the NCAA's website shows that Dasani's parent company, Coca Cola, isn't just an "Official NCAA Corporate Partner" -- it's an "Official NCAA Corporate Champion."
Meanwhile, a spin through the host manual for the "Frozen Four" -- NCAA hockey's equivalent of the Final Four -- shows that the NCAA takes its sponsorship deals very seriously. The manual stipulates that when athletes there sign autographs, for example, the host site in Philadelphia must provide "water or other refreshments" that should be a "Dasani, Powerade or other Coca-Cola product when possible, otherwise unmarked."
It's possible Bohannon was simply hassled by an overzealous security guard on Thursday morning -- but if so, you can see you how the guard could have felt pressured into excessive or even incorrect rule enforcement.
In other news, NCAA president Mark Emmert was paid $1.7 million last year. Talk about madness.
UPDATE: After Wisconsin won on Thursday night to advance to the Elite Eight, Bohannon posted this tweet:
Of course the @NCAA picks me to do the "random" post-game drug test! #Badgers #Elite8 @JayBilas— Zach Bohannon (@ZBohannon) March 28, 2014
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