CBS Article:
“It’s going to be difficult for the people who are spending tons of money to get players,” Saban said as part of a 7-minute answer to a question about NIL that was recorded and published by AL.com. “You’ve read about them. You know who they are. We were second in recruiting last year. [Texas] A&M was first.
“A&M bought every player on their team—made a deal for name, image and likeness. We didn’t buy one player. But I don’t know if we’re going to be able to sustain that in the future because more and more people are doing it.”
He went on to say:
“People blame the NCAA, but in defense of the NCAA, we are where we are because of the litigation that the NCAA gets like [for] the transfer portal. If the NCAA doesn’t get some protection from litigation—whether we got to get an antitrust [exemption] or whatever it is from a federal government standpoint—this is not going to change because they cannot enforce their rules. ...
“Jackson State paid a guy $1 million last year who was a really good Division I player to come to their school. It was in the paper, and they bragged about it. No one did anything about it. These guys at Miami that are going to pay basketball there for $400,000; it’s in the newspaper. The guy tells you how he’s doing it. But the NCAA can’t enforce their rules because it’s not against the law, and that’s an issue. That’s a problem. Unless we got something that protect them from litigation, I don’t know what we’re going to do about it.”
I like what he’s saying but there’s some hypocrisy in his comments as I recall him bragging about a QB being able to make one million playing at Alabama.
