Nick Saban claims athletic departments could ‘go broke’ in latest media blitz to pass Protect College Sports Act
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Nick Saban’s efforts to help pass the Protect College Sports Act expanded beyond College GameDay this week, as the legendary former Alabama football coach appeared on ESPN’s morning shows to make the case for the bill, which passed the U.S. Senate on Monday evening.
Saban was reportedly integral in shaping the bill’s language and has appeared in political advertisements advocating for its passage. The coach expressed a concern he said he shares with leaders in the sport: college sports would “go broke” without a salary cap. He also argued that player compensation and coach compensation are “totally different markets.” When asked why college athletes do not have a seat at the table in crafting the PCSA, Saban said: “I really can’t answer that.”
The appearances — technically to promote his new docuseries at ESPN — were the latest sign of how much influence Saban has within the Worldwide Leader, giving him access to a pulpit where he can push for the new rules largely unchallenged.
Yet, as with U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s interview on College GameDay earlier this month, Saban’s comments hardly paint a full picture of the controversial and wide-ranging bill.
“There’s not any business in the world that can function without a budget and some guidelines,” Saban said on Get Up. “If you ask an NFL owner, what would you do if all your players were free agents every year? ‘Oh, we couldn’t operate.’ What would you do if you didn’t have a salary cap? ‘Oh, we couldn’t operate. We’d go broke.’
“Well, what’s going to happen in college sports is you’re going to either take money from the academic side to support athletics because we’re in a runaway, you know, financial situation, or you’re going to drop other Olympic sports and non-revenue sports that are very important to creating opportunities for young people.”
Nick Saban weighs in on the Protect College Sports Act and how it would “enhance players’ opportunities to be more successful.”
— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) September 29, 2026
While Saban faced more pushback on First Take, where host Stephen A. Smith (an opponent of the PCSA) forced him to address the bill’s detractors, the coach’s answers further laid bare how the bill, in its current form, appears to benefit coaches and athletic directors more than players.
“I really can’t answer that, to be honest with you,” Saban said of why college athletes are not helping to shape the PCSA.
“I can only tell you that we use student-athlete involvement to come up with some of the ideas that they were happy with in terms of how we move this forward so that we weren’t taking anything away from student-athletes.”
The Athletic reported that between 2005-23, revenue growth for college athletic departments outpaced expense growth. And that expense growth was attributed far more to facility overhauls, coach and AD salaries, and staff like nutritionists and barbers, before universities could ever legally pay athletes.
But Saban argued on First Take that player and coach compensation are “totally different markets.”
“That’s like asking me ‘Does a student’s scholarship equal the professor’s pay?'” Saban said. “I mean, how much value does a coach create for a university?”
This morning on ESPN’s First Take, Nick Saban argued player and coach pay are “totally different markets.”
“That’s like asking me ‘Does a student’s scholarship equal the professor’s pay?’ I mean, how much value does a coach create for a university?”
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 29, 2026
Rather than capping coach pay, Saban said, the NCAA should focus on limiting contract length or buyout prices. Half of last year’s College Football Playoff teams were led by a coach from Saban’s tree. At least a dozen other programs, per ESPN, were coached by former Saban staffers as of last season.
A Sportico analysis this week noted that the antitrust exemption granted to the NCAA under the PCSA would make it substantially harder for college athletes to legally challenge the NCAA or their schools over compensation. Yet Saban argued that college athlete collective bargaining still might not “fit” in college sports.
“Now look, I don’t know how unions, collective bargaining fits in college athletics because it’s different,” he said. “You have two sports that make money, you have 20 sports that don’t.”
Part of the Saban media tour has also focused on his emphasis that he did not leave Alabama because of changes to player compensation and mobility.
“It was just time for me … to have some quality of life,” he told Mike Greenberg on Get Up.
That may be true, but the coach has worked hard since he retired from coaching to make sure his counterparts around the country regain power over their programs and players.
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