Former Alabama head coach Nick Saban spent hours at a Capitol Hill roundtable on Tuesday explaining that the world of college sports he once knew is gone.
And for the record, that's not a good thing in Saban's eyes.
"All the things that I believed in, for all these years, 50 years of coaching, no longer exist in college athletics," Saban said. "It was always about developing players, it was always about helping people be more successful in life."
Now, as college athletes land lucrative NIL deals, Saban says it's all about the money.
Saban discussed how his wife, Terry, used to speak with the mothers of his players, telling them that the Sabans were there to help develop their sons into well-rounded individuals on and off the field. But in Saban's final years as coach, his wife questioned why they were doing what they were doing.
"She said, 'All they care about is how much you're gonna pay them, they don't care about how much you're gonna develop them, which is what we've always done, so why are we doing this?'" Saban explained.
The roundtable was hosted by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Saban's former boss, Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne, ACC commissioner Jim Philips and TCU athletes Haley and Hanna Cavinder were also participants.
Saban went on to champion a revenue-sharing model for college sports that would benefit student-athletes but also maintain competitive balance.
"If we had some sort of revenue sharing proposition that did not make student-athletes employees ... I think that may be the long-term solution," Saban said. "You could create a better quality of life for student-athletes, you could still emphasize development, you can still create brand and athletic development with a system like that and it would be equal in all institutions. You couldn't raise more money at one school to create a competitive advantage at another."
