Nick Saban has been an excellent addition to ESPN’s “College GameDay,” adding deep and digestible film analysis, well-prepared insight on teams around the country and a sense of humor that may surprise some — culminating in Saturday’s back and forth with the show’s “celebrity guest picker” from Tuscaloosa, his wife, Terry.
But he has a lot of work to do on what’s actually happening with the economics of college football, which is disappointing because he should be an important voice on player compensation and movement. On Saturday he was a disingenuous voice, painting a picture of the past that insults the intelligence of anyone who follows the sport and pining for a future that would amount to going backward.
The panel got into a discussion of the big story of the past week, UNLV quarterback Matthew Sluka’s announcement that he’s done for the season because promised financial obligations weren’t met. Sluka’s agent told ESPN he was “verbally promised” at least $100,000 and Sluka’s father, Bob, told The Athletic’s David Ubben that the negotiation happened in February — and that the family didn’t ask for more during UNLV’s 3-0 start to become a College Football Playoff contender.
That’s been disputed, and absolute truth on this story is unlikely. “College GameDay” host Rece Davis said, appropriately, of the situation: “If the promise was made, let’s not let (whoever made it) off the hook either. That’s despicable, that’s sleazy, to try to get a kid like that.”
Saban, unfortunately, was eager to interject.
“But at the end of the day, what kind of value did that young man create for himself by making this decision?” Saban said. “Being put in this situation and then making this decision. What kind of real value does he create for his future by doing this? And that’s the unfortunate thing about all this.”
“Yeah, chasing short-term money, affecting their future,” Kirk Herbstreit added.
So let’s try to answer that question, regardless of what exactly happened with Sluka and UNLV. If he were promised this money and didn’t get it, he wasn’t trying to “create value” for himself — he was understandably frustrated about being wronged despite demonstrating value. If his camp is lying about the promise, that’s obviously wrong of them — but if he’s received just $3,000 for his work at UNLV, which has not been disputed, that’s ridiculous and unacceptable in today’s market.
The market is hazy, sure, but we know enough about it to know that a quarterback of Sluka’s quality joining an FBS program — which has millions of dollars at stake as a viable candidate for the 12-team Playoff — should have five figures in the bank before he completes a pass.
So if I’m hearing correctly, pay for play started with NIL. Per the former Alabama coach who had a lot of amazing players over the years who were all fine with tuition, room, board, books, etc.
— Joe Rexrode (@joerexrode) September 28, 2024
The answer to Saban’s question is that Sluka has already created value, by graduating from Holy Cross, by starring there and earning an opportunity to play at a higher level, and then by excelling at that level. This means he should and will have another college opportunity next season, and he should be paid market value for it.
It’s almost as if Saban thinks everyone is an NFL prospect — Sluka likely isn’t — or as if having millions of dollars makes it difficult to understand what $100,000 can do for the life of a young person who is not destined for millions.
It’s disappointing. Because Saban should offer a lot of value to this discussion and has made other points that resonate.
He has said he retired from coaching in part because the discussion from his players after last season ended in the CFB semifinals was all about money, and I believe him. He’s right that there can be a benefit to sticking out tough times when things don’t go well early for a player. He’s right about the high value of having a university and program as a home base, with enduring connections, long after playing.
He would have been better off Saturday talking about locker-room dynamics in this era, as opposed to advocating for a future with a combination of revenue sharing — which is, of course, court-mandated and inevitable — and a “true NIL” based solely on marketing opportunities.
This remains an apparent NCAA fantasy as well, though the richest programs in college football will continue to pursue the best players so they can win and profit as a result. Which will always create a market beyond obligatory compensation. Which isn’t new.
It’s just that a lot more money is going to players, in tandem with constant player movement, which means some form of players organizing and signing standardized contracts must come next. There will be unintended consequences as with any major change, but it’s necessary and inevitable. I’d like Saban to embrace that reality and talk about how that will affect his previous profession.
Instead, he said this: “We’ve turned it into pay for play, because we have donor-raised funds to be able to pay people. So that system does not create value long-term for players. I mean you’re supposed to go to college to create value for your future. Now we have guys making decisions about how much money they’re gonna make. Which I’m not sure that’s what we want the college experience to be.”
Did he seriously suggest that just now we’re getting to “donor-raised funds to be able to pay people?” Is he seriously claiming such funds weren’t pooled in the past, by the very richest programs, to pay the very best prospects to help those programs win and profit? After decades of thinly disguised — and in some cases reported and NCAA-punished — bidding wars for some of those players leading up to signing days, is he really saying that just now guys are making decisions based on money?
Anyone who cares about college football should be insulted by that. Just as I’m sure Saban was when he saw the guy who helped run his Alabama recruiting operation from 2007-09, Jeremy Pruitt, cheat in such a brazen, sloppy way at Tennessee that his coaching career evaporated over it in 2021.
No one really cares about that stuff anymore, now that we’ve taken the amateurism mask off college football. Also, no one is expecting coaches to start writing tell-all books about where the bags of cash were hidden.
But we can have more honest, less disingenuous, conversations about the past, present and future. Saban talks about “value” a lot, and he knows it well — Forbes estimated he made $150 million in his coaching career. He shouldn’t devalue what a free market can and must mean to the labor force of an industry like college football.
And he should whisper one of the all-time great Saban-isms — “Don’t waste a failure” — to himself before he tackles this topic in front of millions of viewers again.
(Photo: Ken Ruinard / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
