College Sports: One Thing Trump Can't Fix
By recruiting coaching legend Nick Saban, President Trump is trying. But the industry's problems are likely too complex
College sports is in such a state of transition, it was probably only a matter of time before the King of the South and the King Maker got together.
Earlier this month, President Trump gave the commencement address at the University of Alabama graduation ceremony. His warm-up act happened to be Nick Saban, the retired Alabama football coach and winner of seven national titles.
They spoke, with Trump reportedly telling Saban he wanted to help fix college sports. Trump hasn’t spoken at length publicly about what the “fix” would entail, but reports say it’s related to the unwieldiness of Name, Image, and Likeness. Players can now receive compensation, with no salary caps and no restrictions. Saban, an analyst for ESPN, has lobbied for federal legislation as a fix for NIL. It’s smart politics for Trump to engage in the NIL discussion, certainly with Saban, the most famous coach in America not dating a woman 50 years his junior. Association with Trump raises Saban’s profile on the issue, gets reporters all in a tizzy, and injects the subject into the national news cycle. A win for all involved.
As busy politicians are wont to do, Trump pitched Saban on a “commission” to discuss such matters. “Have my people talk to your people and we’ll get the ball rolling,” that kind of thing. There were ensuing reports that Saban would co-lead the commission with a Texas billionaire oilman. But to borrow a famous expression from “Game Day” legend Lee Corso, “Not so fast, my friend.”
Last week, Saban himself spoke at a golf tournament and gave hazy comments about any planned “commission.” From CBS Sports:
To be honest with you, I don't really know much about this commission. I don't really know what the commission will do. I think we know what needs to be done; I just think we need to figure out who's got the will to do it.
It’s understandable why Saban, who once described his most important role as football coach as a “problem solver,” would not be comfortable coexisting in the amorphous world of Trump. Saban wants details. Trump prefers abstract. Somewhere in between isn’t going to cut it, because the devil is always in the details.
Such details are the reason we are seeing delays in the much-ballyhooed House settlement.
A billion-dollar class action lawsuit brought by a group of former college athletes was reportedly to be finalized in April. Many terms were agreed on, including the end game for amateur college athletics: schools could legally make direct payments to college athletes, providing a framework for a radically new revenue-sharing model. At the April 7 hearing in California, Judge Claudia Wilken kicked the can down the road, citing various issues, mostly around roster limits. Football programs will have to cap the number of players rostered at 105, forcing cuts. Judge Wilken warned schools against doing this and demanded more details on the placement of displaced players. Reports say to expect a final settlement any day now, which may include an enforcement CEO. If so, after July 1, athletes will start getting paid not solely by Billy the Booster but by, for example, Texas A&M University.
Just how many zeroes are on an athlete’s direct deposit slip depends on the university, gender, and sport. The House settlement puts a limit on university distributions (expected to be $20.5 million per school) but (and here lies the rub) no ceiling on additional payments, otherwise known as NIL. In the current climate, with no rules, the marketplace determines how much money a college athlete is worth. Some universities are better equipped to keep up with the market, or in the case of Ohio State or Texas, set the market. This creates a payroll disparity gap, and other than billionaire boosters happy to write seven-figure checks, no one believes it to be good for college sports.
What if your school doesn’t have a J.R. Ewing? Or a Mark Cuban? You’re SOL.
Saban said having to negotiate NIL deals with 18-year-olds was a major factor that drove him out of coaching. Now, in retirement, he wants to leverage his clout to help democratize pay-for-play. The House settlement provides a baseline but not a cap. A bill coming from Congress could conceivably protect colleges from future lawsuits with athletes asking for all sorts of freedoms—movement, payments, eligibility, etc. It’s easy to see why those in charge of college sports want antitrust protection: In the four years since NIL was first legalized, players are batting close to 1.000 when challenging NCAA restrictions. Athletes and their legal representation are discovering more creative ways to extend college eligibility. Why not? The transfer portal has become a free agency instrument, and unlimited payments make being a college athlete a lucrative side hustle. Why be a sixth-round pro draft choice and risk being cut in training camp when a player can stay in college, not have to attend classes, make millions, and be a local celebrity? Sign me up for that!
But these scenarios create an unstable market, one not sustainable.
What Saban and others like NCAA President Charlie Baker want from Congress: a law that involves all 50 states and eliminates the competitive advantage a school with more generous NIL rules has over one with less generous rules. This request is not new—NCAA members and other college reps have been making trips to Capitol Hill for years to pitch politicians on the idea. But there’s never been enough momentum to get Congress to act.
That’s before Trump got re-elected, flew to Tuscaloosa for a speech, and met Saban.
I don’t know how much Trump cares about the future of college football. But he can sniff out a winning P.R. campaign and loves to rub elbows with famous people. Now that Shedeur Sanders has taken his talents to the NFL, no one is more famous in college sports than Saban. But King Nick didn’t win all those rings by going along with the popular crowd. He’s not going to publicly rinse and repeat the same talking points of Trump sycophants. He knows the challenges of the situation.
Saban from CBS Sports:
I learned one thing about coaching all these years, when you get a subject like this that's very complex, it's probably good not to talk about it off the cuff.
As Saban is learning fast, when in Trump’s orbit, off-the-cuff is the modus operandi.
And college sports is not an industry that can be fixed by simply signing an executive order.
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