Luke Winn, senior writer for Sports Illustrated, Just released an article asking if there is a link between booking foreign tours and landing recruits. In this article he claims that since 2010, seven division 1 colleges have booked tours with with Promosport & Tours, S.L., on Gran Canaria, a Spanish island. Two of those schools are Minnesota (Richard Pitino) and Louisville (Rick Pitino).
Here is an excerpt from the article…
Pitino’s father, Rick, had a similar CBA-Promosport connection at Louisville. On Nov. 19, 2013, the Cardinals signed 7-foot Norwegian center Matz Stockman out of CBA in what multiple news outlets called a “surprise” addition to Louisville’s 2014 recruiting class. Five months later, on April 25, 2014, the school signed a $167,850 contract with Promosport for a minimum 30-person trip to Madrid, Zaragoza and Barcelona that was scheduled for August 2015—the first summer the Cardinals were eligible for a foreign tour after traveling to the Bahamas in ‘11.
SI obtained emails between Promosport and Louisville indicating that in 2014, the school paid two installments on the tour totaling $75,000. According to Louisville spokesman Kenny Klein, the school then canceled the Spain tour on Feb. 24, 2015, in favor of internally arranging an August 2015 trip to Puerto Rico for exhibitions against the island’s junior and senior national teams—the latter of which Rick Pitino had agreed to coach in that summer’s Pan American Games and Olympic qualifying.
As a result of canceling the Promosport trip, Louisville lost a $25,000 deposit and half of a $50,000 payment, thus forfeiting a total of $50,000 to Promosport. Klein said that the Cardinals worked with Promosport on a recommendation from another school, and that “there were no connections on signing Matz Stockman and our plans to use the company.”
When It rains, it pours. It seems that people are looking for anything to write about Louisville right now. Be prepared for a brutal March Card family. Let’s just endure this with class and come out better on the other side.
Here is the full article.
