And they covered everything up. He always complained when anything changed and he wasn't the first in line to adopt it.
spread offenses in the name of “player safety”?
“I’m for student-athletes being able to share in some of this revenue,” he said. “The No. 1 solution is if we could have some kind of a revenue-sharing proposition that did not make student-athletes employees. That may be the long-term solution.
“I don’t want them to be employees, but I want them to share in the revenue some kind of way.”
What he doesn't want is unregulated pay-for-play. Evidently you favor that, given your disapproval of Saban's position?
So the NFL is unfair also? Second, I didn't hear Saban say anything like what you suggest. AFAIK, he doesnt care if a company wants to pay a college player whatever it wants to do endorsements for them. That, however, is not what's happening right now under the guise of "NIL." And that's what he thinks needs some guardrails.
I know it'll never happen, but it doesn't mean I can't be in favor of it.
Until coaches are willing to accept a cap on their salaries, I struggle with the idea that players should have a cap on their potential NIL earnings.
until a fair deal is reached to compensate players a fair percentage of football related revenues (ideally in the 45%-50% range like their counterparts in the sports industry - NFL, MLB, NBA).
The lack of a cap on coaches’ salaries did not ruin college football. The lack of a cap on players’ is ruining college football.
So the arms race that was kicked off by obscene coaching salaries and palatial practice facilities didn’t ruin college football but some kid making a couple of hundred thousand for his labor is.
I’ll never understand this argument from a fiscal or moral standpoint.
I'd wish it was possible to move all players who feel they need to be compensated beyond scholarship, training, etc out of the system & limit college football to "amateur" students only. The fact that the quality of play would drop significantly is of absolutely no importance to me. The thing that college football has turned into should have absolutely no connection to universities. It is culturally poisonous.
Especially given the fact that what you describe hasn’t existed…..ever. Except in the minds of fans who bought into the well done propaganda that the NCAA and the schools put out there.
Ringers were being brought in the 30s and 40s.
There was massive cheating scandals in the 50s and 60s led, in no small part, by Bear Bryant himself.
The 70s and 80s saw the rise of booster culture.
pay for play is considerably more extensive,
not even close,imo. Remember this is an
opinion and if you like this direction, enjoy.
You can back to the 20s and literally every decade has brought a different kind of scandal. This pay for play simply took something that was the shadows and brought it into the light.
player movement,etc.
You have a narrative
and use the facts to
fit it. Fine, everyone
does it but the present
situation is much LARGER,
not talking about smaller
scale stuff in various eras.
It’s out of control and needs a massive amount of work to make to fair to the players and to the teams and coaches.
But if you want to argue that NIL is on par with player movement as a threat to the fabric of the game, we’re going to disagree. I’ve met a real life bag man for an SEC team. I’ve heard the stories. And while I didn't believe everything he told me, he told me enough for me to know how out of control it was.
At the very least NIL brought what was already happening in the shadows into the light. But as others have suggested, and reform of NIL has to start with players being fairly compensated for their contributions to the multi billion dollar industry that is college sports. If that bankrupts some athletic departments along the way, so be it. It it forces some small schools to go down a level, so be it.
As long as other elements that fit the amateur athletics model are included (and would prevent a culturally poisonous system, to use your term):
- cap HC salaries more in line with amateur sports - high school, FCS, DII, DIII head coaches/teachers - $95,000. Move all coaches who feel the need to be compensated beyond that to the NFL or a new minor league.
- cap AD salaries more in line with amateur sports - $145,000. Move all ADs who feel the need to be compensated beyond that to the NFL or a new minor league.
- Strength and conditioning coaches capped at $30,000, might need to come from ranks of Physical Education staff.
- No more than 15 additional employees in the athletic department, capping total payroll at $900,000 above and beyond AD.
- Limit student-athlete required training/game play to 15 hours per week.
- 11 games per season. Minimum of 8 games played within the time zone or within a 2-hour drive.
- Eliminate playoff system - a bowl game would serve as a 12th game for qualifying teams.
The only way players could get more than the scholarship would be if boosters, etc. paid them under the table. Same with coaches I guess.
Does athlete compensation whether capped or uncapped ruin any of the other professional sports?
Personally, I don't feel like it's being ruined. Sure, it's changing, but I don't think most of those changes are for the worse. But, let's concede your argument that the changes are ruining college football. It's not the lack of a cap. It's trying to hold on to the farce of amateurism rather than just conceding they aren't amateurs and contracting accordingly. I'm not a fan of a cap on compensation because I think there are too many buyers and too little supply and any cap will immediately be undermined by a grey market similar to the system we had before with $100 handshakes and have now with NIL.
Just let the two parties contract like any highly valued professionals contract including termination clauses and clawbacks and reasonable non-competes, etc.
To the original point of the thread, Nick Saban's opinion should be listened to, but it should also be acknowledged that he earned generational wealth on the back of the free labor system and had the following clause in his contract.
In pro football, for example, there is a LIMITING.or CONTROLLING factor. GB spends a high percentage of its available money on an elite QB, the other positions suffer. It’s this controlling factor, I think, Saban wants to work into the new system in some manner to maintain some sort of balance between teams and conferences.
I also feel Saban’s financial gain from football is of secondary interest. The main focus should be, in my view, on structuring this new financial incentive into college football in as functional a way as possible. Your view on being clearer that it is no loner an armature sport is indeed a promising option.
That the salary cap also helps to spread the talent and increase league parity is only a nice byproduct.
I just don't think a salary cap will work in college football as it's currently constructed. Maybe once the Big Ten and SEC form their own governing body and there are only 35 to 40 members with a strong centralized league office and commissioner then a salary cap will be able to work.
If Nick Saban is willing to answer truthfully to his God that he is unaware of any illegal payments made to players he recruited and coached over his career then I'll take his comments about balance seriously. Otherwise, I interpret them as typical old man "things aren't good like they used to be" rhetoric.
but I do know that things right now are fucked up. Ten years from now, I'm guessing people will look at the changes cfb is undergoing right now and wonder how anyone could have thought it would be good--on net--for kids/players.