A social media effort to raise awareness about inequities in college sports by some prominent basketball players came with calls for rules changes and requests for meetings with the NCAA president and lawmakers.
The players who got #NotNCAAProperty trending on social made no threats of protests at tournament games. The tournament opened Thursday night and will have millions of viewers all weekend.
The NCAA's vice president of basketball says he is not aware of any player protest that could disrupt the games.
Many current and former athletes have tweeted the hashtag. They hope the NCAA will loosen its grips on allowing players to profit off their name, image and likeness.
"The NCAA has used the word amateurism to remain one of the most exploitative industries in the entire country," said Ohio State guard Seth Towns.
Also at issue is that women's basketball players are being given fewer amenities than men's players.
"We acknowledge that some of amenities teams would typically have access to have not been as available inside the controlled environment," Lynn Holzman, NCAA vice president of women’s basketball, said in a statement. "In part, this is due to the limited space and the original plan was to expand the workout area once additional space was available later in the tournament. However, we want to be responsive to the needs of our participating teams and we are actively working to enhance existing resources at practice courts, including additional weight training equipment."
