When longtime Alabama football coach Nick Saban retired in January, there was speculation that NIL contributed to his decision.
Saban denied it, but during a roundtable discussion about the future of college athletics on Capitol Hill Tuesday, he allowed that it had a role in hanging up his whistle.
“All the things I believed in for all these years, 50 years of coaching, no longer exist in college athletics. It was always about developing players, it was always about helping people be more successful in life,” he said.
Saban related that his wife came to him just before he retired and said, “All they care about is how much you’re going to pay them. They don’t care about how you’re going to develop them, which is what we’ve always done, so why are we doing this?”
“To me that was sort of a red alert that we really are creating a circumstance here that is not beneficial to the development of young people,” Saban said.
Saban’s comments came in response to a question from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who hosted the discussion about how much the “current chaos and state of the law” contributed to his decision to retire.
Congress has several bills pending on regulation of name, image and likeness in college sports, but none have gained traction. At least 30 states, including Utah, have passed legislation governing NIL to some degree.
“As I said before, name, image and likeness is a great opportunity for them to create a brand for themselves. I’m not against that at all,” Saban said. “But to come up with some kind of system that can still help with development of young people is paramount to the future of college athletics.”
Saban said that when he got into college coaching, it was about personal development, academic support and preparing young people for the time when they couldn’t play football anymore. But the transfer rules and NIL have created a pay-for-play that has upset the competitive balance in college sports.
“It’s whoever wants to pay the most money, raise the most money, buy the most players, is going to have the best opportunity to win,” Saban said. ”I don’t think that’s the spirit of college athletics.”