Nick Saban Testifies before Senate on Protecting College Sports

[0:00] can you make sure to turn your microphone on? Thank you, Chairman Cruz. I could use a little [0:06] of that Cuban coffee because I didn't sleep much last night worrying about this testimony. [0:11] Ranking member Cantwell and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to [0:16] testify. And I really want everybody here to know that I'm not here to represent a conference or a [0:23] team, but to preserve college athletics as a whole. You know, I think we all have to ask ourselves a [0:31] question. What is our guiding principles for the future of college athletics, including Olympic [0:37] women and non-revenue sports? You know, I've spent my adult life in college athletics. I believe in [0:44] it. I've seen people come, young people come in the program, need structure, need discipline, [0:51] need coaching, need academic support, need accountability. And I've seen them leave with [0:57] a degree, a career, a family, and a better chance to be successful in life. I think the current system [1:04] that we have in college athletics right now makes it more and more difficult to do these things. [1:10] We've moved away from development to focusing on money and not life skills. So to put this in [1:16] perspective, if you had the biggest, baddest Ferrari that you could ever have and it was going 150 miles [1:22] an hour toward the Grand Canyon, somebody needs to tap the brakes. And I think that's what we all need [1:28] to do here. And I'm going to veer a little away from my testimony and just give you some examples of [1:35] you know, things that I think people may not know that are happening in college football that are huge [1:40] problems. First of all, I think student athletes should profit from name, image, and likeness as long as [1:46] those things are authentic endorsements. They create branding for themselves, they sign with the [1:53] company, they do promotions. I think these things are all healthy for their education as well as their [2:00] quality of life. I think name, image, and likeness has become pay for play. You know, I said five or six [2:08] years ago when a school that I'm not going to mention who didn't do anything wrong had what is called a [2:15] collective. A collective is an organization that raises money basically from alumni to be able to [2:25] pay players and disguise it as marketing opportunities. When a school did that, the first school that did it, [2:32] I said, is this what we want college football to become? And I got really criticized for that. But it [2:39] has become that. And it's become pay for play. And we've also extended the opportunities now to funnel [2:48] money from operations which come to the universities as marketing opportunities from the university [2:55] standpoint to funnel that money out of operations into paying players. So now if you take that 20 [3:02] million dollars or whatever it is, you could fund five or six Olympic and women's sports. So these are [3:10] things that I think need to be addressed. And I think this bill takes a big step forward in doing that. [3:18] So I think this bill also creates a competitive balance. You know, the NFL, the NBA, Major League [3:25] Baseball, they all have some kind of rules that govern how they compete. It creates parity. It creates, [3:37] you know, something that gives you the opportunity to have a framework to build a fair play system in, [3:46] which I think is really, really important. And I think this bill does that right now in college [3:50] football. We have no rules. We have state laws. We have different in every state. We have litigation. [3:57] The NCAA cannot enforce their own rules because every time they try to enforce the rule, there's a lawsuit. [4:04] So, I mean, an example would be Ole Miss's quarterback. They say he can't play next year. He's playing next year because of litigation. [4:13] But this is just the way it is. It's become an arm race. Who spends the most has got the best chance to win. [4:20] But I think it's a race to the bottom because if you don't spend to win, you lose your fan base and you [4:26] don't have any revenue. So how do you manage the other sports? So the one thing that I think this bill does, [4:34] you know, sort of enhance the enforcement of the House settlement, which to me is a start, [4:40] which sort of creates a revenue share, kind of a cap, and also controls some of the name image [4:48] and likeness things that this bill tries to control. So transferring, you know, I think transferring is [4:55] a good thing. I don't think a player should be trapped in a bad situation. But I also think multiple [5:01] transfers have a negative effect. I think there can be legitimate circumstances where you can [5:07] transfer more than once. I think if you graduate, you should be able to transfer again because you [5:12] might have a fifth year where you can have more success someplace else. But unlimited transfers creates [5:20] free agency. Free agency with a collective. Now you're talking about bidding more for players. And then [5:27] you've got agents out there that are not certified that are enhancing players or encouraging players [5:34] to get in the portal. I can get you more money. So now we have this unbelievable number of players that [5:41] get in a portal every year and we have nothing to control agents. We have nothing to control tampering. [5:48] You know, Clemson had a player that was on campus for a whole week and they come and got him off the [5:53] campus and took him someplace else. So these kinds of things going on in college football are absolutely [5:59] not what anybody of any of us signed up for relative to the educational institutions that, you know, [6:05] we've all tried to represent. So what's the cause and effect of transferring? I think every time you [6:15] transfer, you have less and less of an opportunity to graduate. You know, this hits home with me because [6:22] I actually coached 50 years ago when people didn't graduate and we saw 30 for 30s on what happened to [6:29] their life. And we worked hard for a long time to get graduation rates where they are. And I'm proud of [6:36] the fact that we had 668 or whatever the number is, you know, graduates at Alabama over 17 years. So we need [6:45] to get back to, you know, that kind of atmosphere in college athletics. But if you transfer all the time, [6:53] so first of all, we had players transfer that were in business. So they transferred, [6:58] they couldn't get business school with the school they transferred to. So they got general studies so [7:02] they could be eligible. So they minimized the importance of their degree because they transferred. [7:09] And then also, could they graduate? You got guys transferring three or four years. We have guys [7:15] playing seven or eight years of college football, which is ridiculous. We had 50 players in the draft this [7:21] year that were over 25 years old competing against 17 and 18 year olds only because we have no structure [7:28] in terms of what is eligibility. So the eligibility rule of five years is a really good thing, I think. [7:35] I think we should protect prep schools. If somebody wants to improve their academic circumstance, [7:40] their clock shouldn't start. And they should still have five years after that. And I think defining who is a [7:45] pro. I know a guy came from the G League. That's a pro. There's also guys coming from Europe that are pros [7:52] that are not under the same rules and regulations. I think all those things need to be controlled. [7:58] So the collective, what if we continue to invest more and more in football and basketball? Let me give [8:06] you the history. My first year we had collective at Alabama, 2.7 million. Next year, 7 million. Next [8:13] year, 10 million. I retired. Next year, 17 million. Next year, 24 million. Now you have schools that have [8:19] close to $40 million rosters. So if we continue to do that, we're going to lose Olympic sports. We're going to [8:26] lose non-revenue sports. We're going to lose scholarships. And basically, what's going to [8:30] happen is you're going to have football and basketball succeed. And we'll have club sports [8:35] for everything else with no scholarships. That's horrible. I mean, we can't let that happen. And I [8:41] think we have to continue to figure out ways that we can raise revenue so that we can keep all sports [8:47] and all opportunities for all young people intact. I think we have to protect scholarships. We mentioned that [8:53] injury, roster decisions, athletic performance should not be reasons to get rid of a player. But what we've [9:00] created now with the portal, which we think is a good thing, all the coach has to say to a player that's not very [9:07] good is get in the portal. I don't want you on the team. So he gets in the portal and maybe he doesn't get an [9:13] opportunity. 30% of the people who get in the portal don't get an opportunity. So nobody talks about those things. And it [9:20] minimizes because everybody recruits out of the portal, how many young people out of high school [9:24] get an opportunity to get a scholarship and play college football and start a career. So I think [9:29] medical protection, injury protection and health care are something that's really, really important. [9:35] But I also think that Congress does not need to micromanage college athletics. There's lots of people [9:40] out there that can help us do that. Congress does need to fix the mess and the courts create a national [9:46] framework so people inside college sports can enforce fair rules. Without legal certainty, every rule becomes [9:54] another lawsuit, every standard becomes another risk, and the system keeps drifting toward the professional model. [10:00] I believe we want an education based model that compensates athletes fairly, protects athletes properly and [10:07] still preserves development, competition, opportunity and tradition. That is what this bill is trying to do. It isn't [10:14] perfect. And I'm sure many, many adjustments need to be made. And I think there's a lot of people who [10:20] can add to that. But this is a serious bipartisan effort to bring order to a system that is badly needs [10:29] fixing. I don't think this is bipartisan. I think it should be nonpartisan. It's that important in terms of [10:37] college athletics, in terms of the future for young people. It protects athletes, it protects opportunity, [10:44] it protects competitive balance, it protects the sports that do not always generate revenue, [10:49] but still matter. It gives college athletes a chance to move forward with rules that are clear, [10:56] national and enforceable. For these reasons, I support the Protect College Sports Act and urge Congress [11:04] to act. Thank you.