Nick Saban laughed when asked Tuesday morning about what he wanted to accomplish this week at SEC spring meetings.
This isn’t an Alabama staff meeting where he’s king “so,” he said, “I just do whatever I’m told.”
But does he have strong opinions on the matters at hand? That’s a safe yes.
And he didn’t hold back when a few of those matters came up later in his pre-meeting chat with reporters.
From taxation to unionization, Saban had his say on player compensation models often thrown around in league meetings. His comments on the matter have stirred the nest in the past and this year’s won’t change that.
“I think the big mistake that people make is college athletics is not a business. People say it’s a business. It’s not a business. It’s revenue-producing. When I was the coach of the Miami Dolphins, Wayne Huizenga owned a team. That was a business. He took a profit he made money, he made a huge investment. That doesn’t happen in college athletics.
“We reinvest every cent that gets made into to non-revenue sports, to scholarships, to a lot of things that create a lot of opportunity for a lot of people, which is really, really good. So we’re not talking about the same thing. It’s not really a business, it’s revenue-producing, and nobody takes a profit. All the money gets reinvested in other opportunities for other people, whether it’s facilities, whether it’s scholarships, whether it’s opportunities for people to play.”
Alabama athletics reported department-record revenue of $214.4 million and total expenses for $195.9 million in 2022. Those numbers will surge in 2024 when the new TV deal with ESPN pumps even more cash into what will be a 16-team SEC by then.
Saban, the highest-paid coach in college football last year making $10.957 million, was then asked about using that steadily increasing revenue to pay players in an employee model.
“Yeah, I have no problem with that,” Saban said. “Unionize it, make it like the NFL. I mean, if it’s going to be the same for everyone, I think that’s better than what we have now because what we have now is we have some states and some schools in some states are investing a lot more money in terms of managing their roster than others and I think this is going to create a real competitive disadvantage for some in the future. And it’s also going to create an imbalance in the competitive nature of the sport, which that’s not good for the sport.
“Everything they do in the NFL is to create what? Parity. Parity. And if they could have every team going into the 17th week 8-8, that would be like a dream for the NFL. … Well if you think there’s disparity in college football right now, there’s going to be a lot more in the future.”
There’s also the matter of the Internal Revenue Service.
Talking about the money already invested into athletes from an educational perspective, Saban offered a complicating factor with the employee model.
“So you’re going to have to start paying tax on all that just because you got a tutor, you got to pay tax on what it cost,” he said. “I don’t know. Do you have to pay tax on the gear that you get? So all of these things to me … I made the statement years ago and I got very criticized for it, is this what we want college football to become?
“So now it’s kind of becoming that. And I don’t think it’s going to be a level playing field because some people are showing a willingness to spend more than others where if you want to bring the NFL into it, they have a salary cap, they have all the things that level the playing field. And we could put guidelines on some of this stuff that would do the same thing.”
The SEC spring meetings run through Friday in Destin.
Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.
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