The NCAA takes a lot of criticism for a lot of things, but one allegation they the organization will not suffer is the charge that it do not provide athletes free wifi during the NCAA Tournament.
UNC-Asheville guard Trae Bryant made that claim Wednesday in a since-deleted tweet, claiming his lack of internet access at the hotel was preventing him from completing his homework.
This guy puts the student in student-athletehttps://t.co/AzcewTIMuE pic.twitter.com/RzmwaM5pkN
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 17, 2016
The TruTV studio show promptly mentioned the tweet on air and had a brief conversation about the importance of studying and all that.
The segment apparently caught the NCAA’s attention because a little while later Bryant tweeted that “The wifi problem is good,” and TruTV offered this very serious report about how every team is provided wifi.
To make sure everyone was on the same page, the NCAA then tweeted this:
The NCAA provides free wi-fi to student-athletes at all of the team hotels during the DI men's basketball championship.
— Inside the NCAA (@InsidetheNCAA) March 17, 2016
This situation is kind of like when your roommate is listing all the things you do wrong, and she’s making some good points, and then he claims you don’t do the dishes enough but actually you do the dishes plenty, so you start yelling about how often you do the dishes while ignoring all those other valid complaints.
Sure the NCAA is a bloated corporation that usually puts academics second and doesn’t fairly compensate its players, while meting out arbitrary punishments for innocent offenses it deems existentially vital (tattoos? autographs? groceries?), BUT it definitely does give free wifi to its players at the NCAA Tournament!