Nick Saban reiterates call for revenue sharing with athletes, explains why NIL collectives are not the answer

During his final few years as Alabama head coach, Nick Saban made his stance clear on the role of collectives in the NIL space. He thinks the collective model has flaws, and famously took aim following a back-and-forth with former Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher.

Earlier this week on Capitol Hill, Saban reiterated that stance, and he shared more of his thoughts during an interview with FOX News’ Bret Baier on Thursday.

Saban called for athletes to have a say in the ever-changing landscape and for them to get a slice of the pie through revenue sharing. By moving on from the collective system, he argued the money going to those entities could go back to the schools – and maybe to the non-revenue sports.

“I’m for college athletes, and I’m for college athletes having a seat at the table to try to come up with a solution for all this,” Saban said. “But instead of having a collective-driven name, image and likeness [system], I thought a revenue-sharing with name, image and likeness would be a lot better system that we would be able to continue to support athletes and athletics in all sports.

“Football and basketball are gonna be fine because they’re revenue-producing. But all the non-revenue sports have always been funded by the revenue sports, and we want to be able to continue to do that. So we’ve got to come up with a system that allows us to do that. And people giving all this money to collectives can give it back to the athletic department or to the university in some way that will be beneficial to creating opportunities for student-athletes and helping them be successful.”

Collectives operate as third-party organizations that can sign athletes to NIL deals and help facilitate others. NCAA rules prohibited their involvement in recruiting, but after a judge’s ruling last month, president Charlie Baker announced updated guidance. That means, with the transfer portal set to open, NIL can be discussed during the recruiting process.

But, Nick Saban argued, revenue sharing would still allow athletes to find opportunities through NIL. While there are questions about whether that would lead to athletes becoming employees, Saban said he didn’t think that was necessary.

“I think the revenue-share approach, if we can go down that road a little bit further, you can do that without making people employees,” Saban said. “Then the revenue share does not impact women’s sports – even though they don’t create revenue, you’re still going to be able to create opportunities. It leads to a more relative approach to how we could move forward. We can make the quality of life better for players that are not employees.

“They still have name, image and likeness opportunities. They can still do name, image and likeness –they still have those opportunities. But it’s not going to be created. It’s going to be something that they all earned. In other words, I’m not really for collectives. I respect what these folks over here do. But I think those funds should go to the institution. Not to create opportunities.”