The Internet Is Slowly Catching On To The Hypocrisy of the NCAA As Barstool's "Hottest College Football Girlfriend" Gets An Instagram Ad Deal from Jolly Rancher
Slate – Where does all the money go in college football? It filters down to coaches like Alabama’s Nick Saban, who makes $7 million a year. It goes to assistant coaches, an increasing number of whom clear more than $1 million per season. And donations from boosters abet the construction of gridiron palaces like the University of Oregon’s “football performance center,” a building that cost roughly $138 million.
The money has to go somewhere if, as mandated by NCAA rules, it can’t go to the players themselves. The latest landing spot? The bank account of a player’s girlfriend.
Earlier this year, Dodd—who is dating Tennessee wide receiver Josh Smith—was crowned the “hottest college football girlfriend of the season” by Barstool Sports.
Though there’s no trophy or cash prize associated with this title, the honoree is entitled to unlimited free evaluations of her attractiveness by anonymous Barstool commenters. Dodd, though, has been able to capitalize on her fame, earning a position as a social media candy endorser.
..
Oh hey, welcome, rest of the internet. The NCAA is hypocritical and doesn’t make any sense? You don’t say?
A representative from the Hershey Company confirmed for me that Dodd’s Instagram post, which went out to her 23,000 followers on Wednesday afternoon, is part of an ad campaign. Hershey’s Jolly Rancher brand “partnered with 50-plus collegiate influencers” for a campaign called #FinalsSuck. Jolly Rancher found Dodd and all those other “influencers” via a firm called Influential, which uses IBM’s Watson to match Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook users with companies that are seeking “organic brand messaging.” When asked whether Dodd was chosen as an “influencer” due to her relationship with a college football player, a spokesman for Influential said her “relationship with a student-athlete was not a factor.” According to the Hershey rep, Dodd “aligns with the brand’s passion points, attends one of the colleges, Tennessee, where the brand is activating and had a strong social following.”
If Josh Smith posts that on Instagram he loses all his eligibility and gets a minimum wage job in the campus bookstore. His girlfriend that got internet famous for dating him gets a check in the mail. Welcome to the wide world of the NCAA.
Oh and I obviously, obviously have no problem whatsoever with Breana doing this. Get your money girl. When you’re hot enough to get 25K Instagram followers and have Jolly Rancher reaching out to sling candy for them you take that deal and run. Not her fault the NCAA is a pile of shit. Just for the love of God please don’t give any Jollys to Josh next time you’re at the movies or watching Netflix on the couch. Impermissible benefit like you read about. UT needs those 23 catches.
