March Madness: How the shoe company influence has been neutralized WSB-TV Channel 2 [Video]

For about 40 years Nike and Adidas ran college basketball. They sponsored the teams. They paid the coaches. They stocked the rosters … via everything from running vast grassroots systems in order to identify and control recruits to flat out paying players to sign with their preferred “blue blood” programs.

Their top teams, not surprisingly, dominated the game in general and March Madness in particular.

The last couple Final Fours suggest Nike’s and Adidas’ influence over the on-court results may be waning, at least to the extremes of the past.

A year after a Final Four with three first-time participants (Florida Atlantic, Miami, San Diego State) here comes three more who either have never been (Alabama), or are ending lengthy drought that date to 1983 (North Carolina State) and 1980 (Purdue). Each of them were constructed in ways that wouldn’t have made sense even five years ago.

Connecticut, meanwhile, is …