Three Key Quotes from Nick Saban's Protect College Sports Testimony: Just a Minute

Saban revealed the yearly numbers of Alabama's NIL football spending, the negative impacts of the transfer portal and the issues of college sports' "arms race."

Oct 19, 2024; Austin, Texas, USA; Alabama Crimson Tide former football coach and current ESPN analyst Nick Saban on the set of ESPN's College Game Day at the University of Texas on the South Mall, before a game between the Texas Longhorns and the Georgia Bulldogs at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Sara Diggins/USA TODAY Network via Imagn Images | Sara Diggins/USA TODAY Network via Imagn Images

Former Alabama head coach Nick Saban testified before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee on Capitol Hill on Wednesday morning in support of the newly proposed "Protect College Sports Act" from senators Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell.

Saban gave an 11-minute opening statement, and he covered several topics surrounding NIL, the transfer portal, player eligibility and much more. Here are three of his most intriguing quotes from the testimony.

Alabama's NIL Spending Under Saban

The name, image and likeness era of college sports kicked off in the summer of 2021, and it has grown exponentially ever since. Saban, who retired from Alabama after the 2023 season, revealed how much the Tide spent on NIL on Wednesday morning. For reference, Yea Alabama, UA's NIL collective, was introduced several months before Saban's last season.

"My first year [in the NIL era] we had collective at Alabama, $2.7 million," Saban said. "Next year, $7 million. Next year, $10 million. I retired. Next year, $17 million. Next year, $24 million. Now you have schools that have close to $40 million rosters.

"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 we'll have club sports for everything else with no scholarships.

"That's, that's horrible. I mean, we can't let that happen. And I think we have to continue to figure out ways that we can raise revenue, so that we can keep all sports and all opportunities for all young people intact."

What College Sports Culture Has Become

Alabama has lost out on recruits and transfers for several reasons, but oftentimes, the schools that these recruits choose have the reputation that they'll pay the most money. That said, UA athletic director Greg Byrne has been adamant over the past couple of years that the Tide's NIL funding is top tier.

When a team loses out on a recruit or transfer these days, fans across the country will start to see their team in a negative light, and Saban acknowledged that on Wednesday.

"It's become an arms race," Saban said. "Who spends the most has got the best chance to win, but I think it's a race to the bottom, because if you don't spend to win, you lose your fan base, and you don't have any revenue. So, how do you manage the other sports?

"So, the one thing that I think this bill does is sort of enhances the enforcement of the House settlement, which to me is a start, which sort of creates a revenue share kind of a cap, and also controls some of the name, image, and likeness things that this bill tries to control."

The Cause and Effect of Transferring

Former Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson received praise with every win in the early part of last season for a variety of reasons. But the college football world almost always brought up the fact that he waited his turn for three years rather than transferring. It was treated as if Simpson was an alien because of how normalized and frequent transferring has become over the past couple of years.

There are student-athletes out there who have transferred 4-5 times and the large frequency is something Saban has been against for quite some time. He's argued in the past that transferring to another school just because you're on the bench stunts long-term development and overcoming adversity, but he took another approach on Wednesday.

"I think every time you transfer, you have less and less of an opportunity to graduate. This hits home with me because I actually coached 50 years ago when people didn't graduate, and we saw 30 For 30 [ESPN documentary] on what happened to their life, and we worked hard for a long time to get graduation rates where they are, and I'm proud of the fact that we had 668 or whatever the number is, you know, graduates at Alabama over 17 years.

"So we need to get back to that kind of atmosphere in college athletics. But if you transfer all the time, so first of all, we had players transfer who were in business [school]. So they transfer, they couldn't get business school with it, so they got general studies, so they could be eligible. So they minimized the importance of their degree because they transferred."

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