Nick Saban Claims NIL Compensation in NCAA Factored Into His Retirement: Wife Told Him ‘All They Care About Is How Much You’re Gonna Pay Them’

Legendary college football coach Nick Saban acknowledged his retirement was, in part, due to the current state of NIL compensation in the NCAA.

Saban announced his retirement shortly after the Alabama Crimson Tide lost in the first round of the College Football Playoff. The 72-year-old won six national championships with the program.

On Monday, the retired coach appeared in Washington, D.C. to take part in a roundtable discussion about name, image, and likeness (NIL) compensation in college athletics. Due to players frequently entering the transfer portal in search of more compensation elsewhere, the last few months have seen growing calls for proper legislation related to NIL.

During the discussion, Saban explained just how different the college football landscape has become and likened the use of the transfer portal to free agency in the NFL.

“All the things I believed in for all these years, 50 years of coaching, no longer exist in college athletics,” Saban said. “So, it always was about developing players. It was always about helping people be more successful in life.

“We have all the recruits over on Sunday with their parents for breakfast, and [my wife] would always meet with the mothers and talk about how she was going to help impact their sons and how they would be well taken care of; and she came to me right before I retired and said, ‘Why are we doing this?’ And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ She said, ‘All they care about is how much you’re gonna pay them. They don’t care about how you’re gonna develop them, which is what we’ve always done. So, why are you doing this?’ So, to me, that was sort of a red alert that we really are creating a circumstance here that is not beneficial to the development of young people, which is why I always did what I did.”

Though Saban expressed disappointment for the current state of college athletics, he reaffirmed that he’s not opposed to the idea of student-athletes being compensated. He simply wants structure.

“As I’ve said before, name, image, and likeness is a great opportunity for them to create a brand for themselves,” Saban continued. “I’m not against that at all; but to come up with some kind of a system that still can help the development of young people, I think, is paramount to the future of college athletics.”