Dressed in a pink golf polo shirt, dark slacks and loafers, Nick Saban leans back in a cushioned chair, props his foot on a coffee table full of championship rings and makes one thing very clear: He is not against players earning compensation from their name, image and likeness.
However, the Alabama football coach does not support the current mechanisms by which it happens.
“Guys are not going to school where they can create the most value for their future,” Saban says. “Guys are going to school where they can make the most money.”
In a recent wide-ranging interview with Sports Illustrated, Saban discusses the current NIL landscape. He addresses his involvement with proposed federal legislation from Senators Tommy Tuberville (R, Ala.) and Joe Manchin (D, W.Va.); asserts that athlete compensation should be more standardized and equal across a team; and addresses the brewing issue of athlete employment.
Saban gives his thoughts around on-field issues—on the NCAA’s latest rule changes, saying he is against a coaches’ replay challenge system and makes a suggestion on how games can be shortened while also reducing injuries. The coach also spoke about the SEC’s future football scheduling format.
“When a team can snap the ball within seven seconds of the [play] clock, is that really good for player safety?” he says. “I’m just asking the question.”
Here are the highlights from our interview with Saban:
Wade Payne/AP Photo
Sports Illustrated: The NIL scene is evolving quickly. Collectives are popping up everywhere, distributing millions to athletes. What are your thoughts on this situation?
Nick Saban: The issue is, when you create those [collectives] for people, are you establishing a pay-for-play type of environment that can be used in recruiting? So now, all the sudden, guys are not going to school where they can create the most value for their future. Guys are going to school where they can make the most money. I don’t think that is even the best thing for the player.
You went to college. I went to college. Why were we going? We had goals and aspirations for how we wanted to create value for our future. Sometimes these things can be a distraction academically as well as athletically. But I’ll say it again: I think name, image and likeness is good for players. The whole concept of collectives is what has created this environment that we are in, and I’m not sure that anybody really had the insight or the vision to see that was going to happen. So therefore, we had no guidelines, and now we’re trying to develop some.
SI: So what is the solution to this in your mind?
NS: I don’t know that I completely have the answer to that. I think one of the things is everybody having a different state law. A lot of people blame the NCAA for a lot of this, but the NCAA sometimes gets caught. … Because of the changes we’ve had in what’s legal and not, they can’t enforce their own rules and they’re in a little bit of a dilemma, too.
Maybe it needs to be changed at the federal level so you don’t have different state laws and there are guidelines for what you can and can’t do. Players should create their opportunities, and what we’ve done now is some schools are creating opportunities for them. I don’t think that was the intent.
SI: There seems to be optimism around a federal bill from Tuberville and Manchin. You have close relationships with them both. What do you know about the bill?
NS: They are trying. I think they are making some progress, but there’s some people that … like [SEC commissioner] Greg Sankey and top athletic directors and commissioners, they understand the issues and they have spent a lot more time to try to input the best solutions.
I don’t think we realize sometimes what [universities] are all trying to do to help players—get an education, develop a career off the field, develop personal characteristics that are going to help them be successful in life, all these things we do to help them develop athletically. We invest a lot in that. That’s important for their future success.
We can improve the quality of life for players while they’re going to college, but it needs to be more.
One player should not be [earning] up here and another down here. It should be more equal. When you put these two things together—transfer whenever you want and the system we have now for name, image and likeness—you create a double-edged sword and you have people out there trying to get between the player and money who are trying to create a market.
Are you transferring to make more money, or are you transferring because it’s going to help you be more successful? The combination of those two things have really made it tough.
SI: How involved are you with Manchin and Tuberville’s legislative effort?
NS: I talk to them on occasion, but I’m not trying to spearhead a solution. I talk to Greg Sankey a lot. I talk to [SEC associate commissioner] William King. I hear the other coaches in our meetings. I’m just trying to help provide information to [the senators] so they know what the issues really are. I’m trying to also direct them to people I think can input the solution, like Greg Sankey and those kinds of people. Everybody needs to look at the issue from 1,000 feet. I don’t want to take opportunities away from players. I just think the mechanisms around how they get those opportunities need to be more standard for everyone.
SI: It seems like third parties—i.e., collectives—are taking donor dollars that might normally go to a school and then just siphoning them to players. Wouldn’t it be easier if there was a regulated system where a school could oversee that or even directly compensate players?
NS: Yeah, there probably is. I think that’s kind of what they do in the NFL. They have a collective bargaining agreement, a salary cap, and they share revenue with ownership. But now you’re going to make college students employees. That has issues that have to be sort of figured out. How does that get managed?
SI: The NCAA has proposed three clock rule changes: (1) prohibiting consecutive timeouts; (2) no untimed downs at the end of the first and third quarter after a defensive penalty; and (3) clock continues to run after a first down. In a fourth proposal that was not advanced, the clock would run after an incomplete pass once the ball is spotted.
NS: I’m kind of for the first down thing, but I’m an old NFL guy. I’m not quite as in favor of the incomplete pass. You throw a pass 50 yards down the field, it takes people time to get back, and now the clock is running? If you talk to the fans, they think the game stoppages for [replay] review are too long. What the NFL has done, where the guy doesn’t go over and always has to look in the thing and that decision gets made by video review quickly, I think that would help it. I lived in the NFL where you had to throw the flag out there [to challenge]. You don’t have time. Unless it’s an obvious mistake, you really don’t have time between plays. And if the other team knows there’s a controversy, they are going to go fast so you have less time.
I like the college system better. I think it needs to be implemented in a better way.
SI: So you are against colleges going to a coaches’ challenge for replay?
NS: I didn’t like it in the NFL, because you never had a legitimate chance to review the play. The way they do it now, if they are reviewing the play or if they think it needs to be reviewed, they hit the buzzer and stop the play. In the NFL, you don’t have a chance to do that. Somebody in the press box has to say right now, “That is a fumble!” You’re not going to get it right doing it that way. When I was coach of the Dolphins, if we were playing on the road and there was a controversial play and they didn’t show it on the big screen, I’d throw the flag out there because I knew, if it was in their favor, they’d be showing it. [Coaches] in the press box, it’s hard. You don’t have all the views. Maybe you have one view. You wouldn’t get it right doing it that way.
SI: The first-down rule would shorten games by an average of seven to eight plays. Do you think the games are too long? Is there another way to shorten them?
NS: Everybody in college pretty much goes no-huddle and fast. Compared to the NFL, where everybody almost gets in a huddle, that makes a huge difference with how many plays are in a game. I’m not saying that should be regulated, but that’s why there are a lot of plays in the game.
The way it used to be, the [official] would spot the ball and you couldn’t snap the ball [immediately]. When a team can snap the ball within seven seconds of the [play] clock, is that really good for player safety? I’m just asking the question. When you are on the defensive side, you can’t even change personnel.
