A federal jury in Manhattan found an Adidas AG executive and two others guilty on fraud charges stemming from payments they steered to families of top-ranked high-school basketball players, a verdict that could have far-reaching implications for efforts to root out alleged corruption in college sports.

Jim Gatto, director of global sports marketing at Adidas, was convicted on all three counts he faced: wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with the University of Louisville, and wire fraud in connection with the University of Kansas. Former Adidas consultant Merl Code and aspiring sports agent Christian Dawkins were convicted on the two counts they faced, related to Louisville. They weren’t charged in the Kansas case.

Prosecutors from the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office alleged that the three men bribed the recruits’ families to induce them to attend Adidas-sponsored universities, including Louisville and Kansas. The victims of the schemes, prosecutors alleged, were the universities themselves, which awarded the players athletic scholarships not knowing they were ineligible under National Collegiate Athletic Association rules because of the payments.

At trial, lawyers for the defendants argued that while their clients violated NCAA rules, they weren’t intending to defraud the schools, but help them by drawing top talent to their basketball programs. Mr. Gatto “thought he was helping, not committing federal wire fraud,” his lawyer said in closing arguments last week. “This was a win-win-win.”

A lawyer for Mr. Dawkins, Steven Haney, expressed disappointment with the outcome but respected the jury’s verdict. “Christian turned down the opportunity to testify against others and can hold his head high knowing he fought the case and faced it like a man,” Mr. Haney said. Lawyers for Mr. Gatto and Mr. Code didn’t respond to requests for comment.