Yahoo Finance Michigan's Isaiah Livers wears NCAA protest T-shirt during March Madness game
Michigan forward Isaiah Livers, one of the three basketball players at the forefront of an athlete-led movement calling for NCAA reform, wore a #NotNCAAProperty T-shirt during his team's first-round NCAA tournament game on Saturday.
Livers, a senior starter, did not play in the top-seeded Wolverines' game against No. 16 seed Texas Southern. He has been sidelined by a foot injury since the semifinals of the Big Ten tournament. On Saturday, he was in a walking boot on the Michigan bench.
Instead of a Michigan warmup shirt, or some sort of other NCAA-sanctioned attire, he wore the T-shirt, which appears to have been produced by The Players Trunk, a start-up that helps former college athletes sell memorabilia.
Livers and other players, including Rutgers' Geo Baker and Iowa's Jordan Bohannon, have specifically called for “rule changes to allow all athletes the freedom to secure representation and receive pay for use of our name, image, and likeness by July 1.”
"It's time we student-athletes deserve the chance to create our own money from name, image and likeness," Livers tweeted Thursday.
It’s time we student-athletes deserve the chance to create our own money from name, image, and likeness. We are calling for:👇🏽👇🏽#NotNCAAProperty pic.twitter.com/ZIixWgVqMH
— Isaiah (@isaiah__02) March 18, 2021
“We’re doing this for future athletes, we’re doing this for our future kids,” Livers told The New York Times this week.
NCAA president Mark Emmert has said that the organization will not punish players who display #NotNCAAProperty on apparel.
It's unclear what else, if anything, the players plan to do. But Livers and others have said that there are plans.
“I can see some delays [of games]” Livers told the Times. "There’s definitely plans ahead. I don’t want to break the news, but we’re going to use our voices, our actions.”
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