Here’s what Nick Saban said at Senate hearing in support of college sports bill
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Former Alabama head coach Nick Saban testified in front of the US Senate on Wednesday morning during a hearing regarding the Protect College Sports Act.
Saban is supportive of the bill and made several comments regarding NIL and the evolving college football landscape.
In written sworn testimony, Saban said he believes players should be able to profit from their name, image and likeness but was critical of the current “pay-for-play” system. Here’s his written statement, obtained by Yahoo! Sports:
Saban later said the current college football arms race is a “race to the bottom.”
“… If you don’t spend to win, you lose your fan base and you don’t have any revenue,” Saban said.
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The former Tide coach also shed some light on the type of NIL figures that are being thrown around college athletics. He said Alabama’s NIL fund started at $2.7 million but soon ballooned to $24 million annually.
“Now you have schools that have close to $40 million rosters,” Saban said. “So if we continue to do that, we’re going to lose Olympic sports. We’re going to lose non-revenue sports. We’re going to lose scholarships. And basically what’s going to happen is you’re going to have football and basketball succeed and have club sports for everything else.”
Saban, who retired from coaching after the 2023 season, made more than $11 million in his final season with Alabama. He now works for ESPN as an analyst for College GameDay.
Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
