Mr. Saban went to Washington, and the world got just what it needed: more unproductive discourse on name, image and likeness and the ills of college sports.
In case you missed it — lucky you — Nick Saban took a break from retirement on Tuesday to participate in the latest Congressional hearing on NIL, believed to be the 1,573rd since July 2021. This one was a roundtable titled “Safeguarding Student-Athletes from NLRB misclassification,” which told you all you needed to know. It was hosted by Sen. Ted Cruz and featured Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips and now-former women’s basketball players Haley and Hanna Cavinder.
Surely a few current football players — or at least former football players — with a huge stake in this debate were invited but could not attend.
Saban, to his credit, tried to weave a balanced approach. He called NIL “a great concept,” and suggested revenue sharing with athletes. But Saban also voiced deep worries about the system, saying it’s become “pay for play.”
“It’s whoever wants to pay, the most money raised, the most money to buy the most players is going to have the best opportunity to win.”
Ah, that sounds … kinda like it’s already been, just over the table now?
Saban went on:
“You’re going to create a caste system where the rich will get richer and the poor get poorer, and eventually the fans will look at it like, ‘I really don’t want to watch the game.’”
Maybe? Even though the initial evidence — increased TV ratings, continued sellouts — indicates fans aren’t turned off yet. But maybe it’s coming, and maybe this chaos is what chased Saban, 72, into retirement.
Either way, this wasn’t Saban’s first trip to D.C. — again, there have been a lot of these — and this would not merit further waste of ink if not for the reaction. Such as from ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt, normally a reasonable source of analysis, who said this Tuesday night:
“It’s fantastic that players get to make money now. But every single coach, in every single revenue sport, if you’re paying attention, is saying the same thing. This is the only thing that any recruit is asking about now when they come on visits. And I don’t believe it’s pearl-clutching to wonder if maybe that’s not ideal. Maybe something about the school and your development there as a human being oughta comment on your process there and your line of thinking because overwhelmingly these athletes are going to have to find a job that isn’t football when they leave.”
Well, OK, where to start with that?
It’s a clear exaggeration to say “the only thing that any recruit is asking about” is NIL. Yes, many do. Georgia’s Kirby Smart showed his annoyance at this on Wednesday when, at his program’s pro day, he was asked if he sold recruits on all of his players who have been high NFL Draft picks.
“It’s a great sell to the kids that will listen to it,” Smart said. “There’s a lot of them that want to ask about NIL. They don’t want to ask about what your NFL players have done. But I think it’s much more important how you develop players than how much NIL you’re getting.”
So, noted. And several people in the industry who were contacted about Van Pelt’s comments said he’s right or close to it. But a few other people disputed that, such as Shannon Terry, founder of On3 and before that 247Sports and Rivals:
Only takes a few mins in the feeds to see that many are incredibly underestimating and discounting the intelligence and compass of young Elite athletes and their families. No, “NIL” is not the “only” thing Elite’s are talking about or asking for as it relates to recruiting. Not…
— Shannon Terry (@ShannonTerry) March 13, 2024
But here’s the other thing: Even if NIL is all a recruit cares about, that’s their choice. Money exists for a reason, and for many of these athletes coming from modest circumstances, it’s hard to begrudge them. Or for many of these players who won’t go to the NFL, this is their best chance to earn money off their football abilities.
The issue may be about more than that. It may be more about control. College coaches used to have a lot more of it, and it was one reason Saban left the NFL for Alabama back in 2007. But things changed a lot when the rules changed.
The NIL era meant more rights for players and thus their families, agents and whoever else got involved. Maybe not ideal. But also not ideal was the schools and coaches holding all the power over players, knowing that leaving their school meant sitting out a season.
It’s also naive to think players weren’t being paid under-the-table pre-NIL. Whether it was direct and organized or just overzealous boosters, we all know it happened. And the programs willing to do it had an advantage over the programs that weren’t willing. Now that it’s all basically legal, the field is evened, or at least joined, thus pushing the payouts up. Market Economics 101.
The result is a lot of money flowing to players, which is good, but combined with the transfer rules it has allowed players to leverage the portal for more money. That’s where the frustration is real and legitimate: not knowing what your roster will look like or developing players and cultivating relationships, only to have it turn because of money. It stinks.
But we’re also not unwinding to the old era and old rules. The U.S. Supreme Court, and the courts below it, have made sure of that. It has seemed apparent for a while that Congress isn’t going to ride to the NCAA’s rescue. It needs to get itself out of the hole.
That may mean engaging with the players themselves. At a minimum, it means coming up with plausible, realistic solutions. That may be some form of employment status, and endorsing a college football players’ union, because collective bargaining is the surest way to make your rules and avoid court hassles. It’s how the pros get away with salary caps and trades: contracts and collective bargaining of rules.
Saban and college coaches are right to want some rules that stop the current chaos. They’re right to want more stability on their roster, and less NIL-related shenanigans from recruits, transfers or their handlers. Getting the power brokers in college sports to do the hard work of creative solutions is the right way to get there.
Complaining to politicians is not.
(Photo: Gary Cosby Jr. / USA Today)
