How Is LeBron Able To Give Beats Headphones To Ohio State?

With the Buckeyes making the College Football Playoff title game, Ohio State players got a nice gift of some red Beats By Dre headphones, courtesy of LeBron James. So if this school was punished for players trading jerseys for tattoos recently, how the fuck is this legal? Well, first off LeBron didn’t gift them himself: they were donated to the school by Beats (on his behalf, of course). And the always-complicated NCAA regulations allow schools in national title games (only) to award gifts to their players, as long as the cost is less than $400 (keep in mind Urban Meyer makes $4M a year). Beats are listed as $300 at retail, which makes the gift legal, but the players cannot sell or trade the headphones for goods or services, or everyone gets in trouble.

Got it? Yeah, it’s confusing, which is probably why some Buckeyes had to tweet some clarifying statements. But don’t feel bad, Ducks fans: Oregon reportedly got some Beats, too (and Mark Helfrich makes about $2M a year). And whoever wins tonight will be able to give another $415 of non-sellable gifts to their students as the college administrators fly back from Dallas on the private jet.

Read more at College Football Talk.

Special thanks to @KingJames @beatsbydre for their support to the Buckeyes! pic.twitter.com/ccAUo4pvaB

— Urban Meyer (@OSUCoachMeyer) January 10, 2015

S/o to @KingJames for hookin the team up pic.twitter.com/5fl379Tvrm

— Ezekiel Elliott (@EzekielElliott) January 10, 2015

Obviously if it was illegal with the NCAA for us to receive Beats from Lebron then Gene Smith would not have let us receive them

— Ezekiel Elliott (@EzekielElliott) January 10, 2015

Read More Stories From the IB Wire

.

.