The Sports Economist agrees that contracts between coaches and shoe companies are, in economic terms, no different than contracts between universities and shoe companies.

Regardless of whether there's any real economic impact, the legality of the contracts depends on the Connecticut Ethics Code. Based on a quick read, the Code doesn't seem to contain any blanket prohibition of outside contracts for a state employees or any blanket prohibition of benefits that arise out of the employee's work.

The Code would prevent Geno from entering any contract that would cause "substantial conflict with the proper discharge of his duties or employment in the public interest," that would "impair his independence of judgment as to his official duties," and so on. Those sorts of provisions (like almost all anti-bribery and anti-gratuity laws) are notoriously difficult to interpret and apply.

Like many other people, I do find something vaguely creepy about Nike paying Geno to enforce a pro-Nike dress code on his players. The problem is: I'm not exactly sure why I find it vaguely creepy.

Maybe it's just because I don't like dress codes. Rules requiring players to cover tattoos, for example, strike me as unnecessary, inconsistent, and probably racist.

Whatever the reason for my as-yet-unexplained intuition, it doesn't seem to have much to do with Geno. In other words, I would feel just as uneasy if Nike paid UConn (rather than Geno) to enforce a pro-Nike dress code on its players. Beyond that, I just don't have much traction on this one -- economically, legally, or ethically.