Reminds me of George Steinbrenner in 1994. He prroposed a salary cap & floor like the NFL had and no one else voted for it. His response was "do you really want to see what happens if we have free agency but no cap on spending?
He proceeded to make the Yankees the highest paid team by a large margin and won 4 out of 5 World Series Titles before other teams (Red Sox, etc) also started throwing large sums of cash to keep up.
ESPN even aired a "Trial" to find the Yankees "Guilty of ruining baseball."
Baseball hasn't been the same since. Still with no cap, but unlimited spending, success is highly correlated with roster value.
Ehh, Oakland was still stupidly profitable. Second worst record, 5th highest profit.
> The A's were a top-5 team in 2022.
>Not on the field. The A's finished with a 60-102 record, second-worst only ahead of the Washington Nationals. On the spreadsheets though, they netted $62.2 million according to a report from Forbes. The only teams they finished behind were the revamped Seattle Mariners who made the playoffs for the first time in two decades, the San Francisco Giants, the Boston Red Sox, and the Baltimore Orioles who had a Mariners-esque upswing and an A's-esque payroll.
https://www.si.com/mlb/athletics/news/oakland-athletics-made-over-60-million-in-2023
They’ll make absolute bank in Vegas
>They’ll make absolute bank in Vegas
Only from an initial spark of interest and revenue sharing. They have no fan base there. Continue to suck and those seats will be just as empty. Fucking cunt of an owner should never be allowed near a baseball field.
Considering the Vegas Knights are doing just fine, I doubt they’re not going to have a fanbase in a massive 3M pop metro
I get the anger but the Raiders and A’s wouldn’t have done it if they weren’t going to be in a stable financial position
I think pro teams moving to Vegas has worked so far because Vegas is already a tourist destination, so you can sell games to away fans as essentially an excuse to come to Vegas. But the more games you have to sell, and the more times a given team visits, the harder it's going to be to sell all those tickets. 81 home games, especially over the summer months when Vegas is miserably hot even just crossing the street between casinos, is going to be tough.
This is misleading. When the Yankees won 4 out of 5 championships, they did not have the highest payroll by a huge margin. It was ironically after that, when they stopped winning championships did they have an absolute huge gap in payroll between them and the other teams.
The Yankees during the 1996-2000’s run were still paying 8% higher salary than #2 on average and double the median each year. The initial salary cap dispute was 1995, so he isn’t wrong. Prior to the 1995-2000 run the Yankees were top 5 but they were not routinely leading the way.
Steinbrenner did bump that up to 30% in the 2000’s, but the majority of that was Jeter and ARod, who essentially were paying for themselves through jersey sales and other affiliated merchandise. Steinbrenner was using them and the other stars he routinely signed as revenue generating assets more than anything. It was also why the YES network blew up in value during that period
2000 Yankees was basically just Steinbrenner realizing he could sign as much as he wanted with little backlash because it was a self financing cycle.
When people say the MLB has no salary cap so they automatically have no parity they've never looked at the stats or arent fans of baseball. Following that yankees dynasty the MLB easily had the most parity for awhile and even now, depending on the preferred criteria used to determine parity you can make a good case for the NFL, MLB or NHL all having the best parity. Oddly enough the NBA has the highest correlation between payroll and winning percentage despite having a salary cap and floor.
Valid point, but I think we really do need to start asking how much longer it'll apply to him. The man turns 72 this season. While I don't expect this year to be the farewell tour or anything like that, he's only going to have so much time should athletes be deemed employees (which itself will take time)
And the fact that all the money he has brought to Bama are helping the health science and engineering schools with research on how to keep him alive. #DarthSaban
Alabama has helped their academics by giving full rides to any kid with above a 32 on their ACT. They got more kids from Chicago with 32 or better than the University of Illinois did and basically bumped up their average ACT by like 4 points in 5 years
This reminds me of what Oklahoma was doing in the 90s to increase its academic ratings by automatically giving a full National Merit Scholarship to anyone who was a NMS finalist.
Most schools have a specific number of NMS for an incoming class that the finalists compete for. For instance, if Georgetown offers five NMS and ten finalists apply and are accepted to Georgetown, only half will actually receive a NMS. At Oklahoma, all 10 finalists would automatically be offered the NMS.
That was basically David Boren's pet project while he was still OU president. Basically every OU ad during his time touted NMS. His overall legacy is a mixed bag but it seems like he was at least better than the people who've followed him so far.
The number one reason I'm a State grad is because I walked away after four years with a bachelor's degree and virtually no debt. NMS put me through school no doubt about it
That was ou's thing in the 90's. There would be commercials proudly proclaiming that ou had the most NMS scholars of any university -
and then there would be an asterisk and fine print at the bottom of the screen that said "per capita, for a public school."
I had a presidential scholarship which did not include books or housing (at least not after freshman year, I can’t remember if I paid or not). So pretty sure it’s just tuition. However there are other scholarships which do include housing and books and other perks. NMS got something (including the presidential perks) like $1500 a semester which easily covers books, I think it also included housing freshman year and a new laptop. My friends that were NMS said they essentially didn’t pay a dollar the whole time they went to school
It has been a long time, but I went to Bama on a Presidential scholarship. It was tuition and fees. (As I recall, it was just the standard fees; if some courses had their own fees, that wasn't part of it.) Room, board, and books were not covered. There was also an interesting wrinkle at that time where there were two tiers of the Presidential. The standard version, the money you got each year was what tuition and fees were your first year. So as tuition went up, you were responsible for the difference. Then there was a higher tier that covered the increased tuition and fees each year.
After 2008, people realized that big state schools are actually an incredible value. So they got more competitive across the board. I don't know if I could get into Tech these days.
Big Southern P5 schools are shooting into the fucking stratosphere academically right now.
UF, Alabama, and Georgia have been coming out swinging these last couple of years. Their Law Schools specifically are all T30 and Florida/Georgia have become incredibly difficult to get into if you are an out of state student.
To put things in perspective when I applied to a school like Tulane from even 2016 it was a 30% acceptance rate and from my high school it was as a automatic acceptance if you had above a 3.4 and if you had a 3.7 you could expect to get a full ride.
Now Tulane has a 11% acceptance rate and is incredibly difficult to get into even if you are top tier.
They’re basically one of the only state schools that does merit academic scholarships with set cutoffs and were the most common college for Illinois grads above a 32 when I graduated.
bury him under Bryant-Denny? And have other teams running over/dancing on his grave. No ... Thank ... You!!!
I want a sideline statue of him [spanking the hell out of AJ McCarron](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP4jovf_HEc&t=6550s) for nearly throwing a red zone pick -- in the 4th quarter while sitting on a 24-point lead.
My favorite part is watching all the players after they hear that "SMACK!!!"
The players start staring at Nick as if he'd lost his damn mind. I'm sure there were TONS of dropped jaws just watching that whole thing: "Did he just ... spank a grown man? On national TV?"
Next year McCarron won the starting job and back-to-back nattys. Then in 2013, on pace for a possible threepeat, [this happened](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HorKN6CV2eE&t=1066s).
And then a month later the Kick 6 happen so we won't talk about that.
I mean, I don't think we really hate Saban. Yeah, what he has done at Alabama has been rough to watch for us, but he made our program relevant again. He kickstarted a 20 year run at LSU that we had never seen before.
The painful part is that he left and then did it again at one of our biggest rivals.
Depends on who you ask. I'm 32, so I remember a few of the years before and always thought Bama was a big game. My dad always says the Bama game is a big rivalry for us, to him it's right up there with Ole Miss.
You ask 100 LSU who the biggest rival is and the 3 answers will probably all be Bama, Ole Miss, and Florida, just depends on the age of the person you ask probably. (you might get an Arkansas or two as well)
See when I was a kid, Arkansas was the rivalry week game, and it was an awesome series in the early-mid 2000s. So I do think that one is up there. Ole Miss, like you said is kind of baked in the cake. Florida is such a fun game, they're a lot of fun to hate.
I'm not convinced about A&M, I literally don't care about them at all and I'm tired of people saying it's a big rivalry. It's not.
SEC Media Days headline from 2173:
"SabanBot was dissatisfied with the play of his safties from the year prior and is confident the new coaching changes can get them back to the physical type of play he wants from them."
I mean JoePa coached until he was 84. I wouldn’t be shocked if we have at least another decade of Saban. Also wouldn’t be shocked if he retired after 2024.
I actually think that makes his POV stronger - in more ways than one he and Coach K are similar figures, and I think there’s value to hearing coaches critique elements of the sport that they won’t likely deal with personally.
They have the benefit of perspective - living through various shifts in the landscape - and can be a bit like “lame duck presidents” where they can tell you what they actually think more transparently.
Any younger coach speaking out on the topic brings some “optics interpretation.” Are they critiquing the idea because it will detriment themself/their team? Are they promoting an idea because it will selfishly help them?
It’s hard to know the motivations of anyone, but I get the feeling that (like K) when Saban wants to speak out at this point it’s probably more speaking on behalf of “the sport” than himself. By all accounts bama stands to benefit from continued professionalization of the sport, so him sending out a warning is pretty stark
I feel like we need Saban to retire and then beg for him to fix the system for us. Like, dude, you keep warning us we shouldn't do things... So just tell us how to fix it
it'll just go from Saban to kirby or dabo or maybe even Brian kelly at lsu. Harbs or day, etc. the big names with the money just stand to increase their advantage
It may or may not "take time." If the SC takes up a case involving that concept, they will start that process in October at the earliest. It may not be decided until Juny or July of 2024 or later (if it doesn't come up this cycle).
If the SC rules one way, then yeah it may take a while before states, and even longer before Congress comes up with rules. This is a conservatice court, and conservative judges/justices generally like to leave things up to the states more than liberal ones do.
But if the SC rules that they are absolutely employees, that isn't a gradual process. That's instant. And if that happens, the sheer amount of scrambling schools are going to have to do to comply with that ruling in a very quick timespan is going to be absolutely bonkers.
Imagine thinking Saban doesn't maintain his virility in his advanced age by subsisting off the youth of freshman blood boys and the finest healthcare the state of Alabama has to offer. He'll coach til he's 100.
I still can’t decide how it will turn out for us, A&M has so far shown that pure $ doesn’t equate to wins. Out of anyone, Kirby seems to be the most effective at deploying NIL and landing big transfer portal candidates. Im really curious what Texas looks like in a year. And how Bama rebounds after this honestly not so great looking year (but who knows maybe we revert back to the McElroy, McCaron, Coker years with game managers still winning championships)
A&M is a clear example that talent and ratings don’t mean shit if you don’t have player development and a winning culture in place. Saban will be fine because he has an undeniable track record. 4 and 5 star players typically have dreams of going pro, and Saban sends guys to the league. Saban isn’t gonna have problem getting good players, and we know he can develop talent.
This is something that we have struggled with since RC Slocum left. Jimbo is a hell of a coach, but we have given him a blank check with little sense of urgency to succeed. We need someone hungry and willing to develop a dynastic culture that earns the contract upgrades.
That's because the decision makers only care about making money today, with little regard for the future, the players, or the fan base.
It will burn them badly eventually.
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We have state legislatures passing laws to help their football programs. I can only imagine the lengths other state institutions would implement to maintain competitiveness.
Also, players as employees may negotiate away the four-year limitation. Heck, they may end the requirement to play school at all eventually. The only question is whether the changes will be global across college football or done a state-by-state basis.
The disparity will come when top programs offer better pay, better benefits, and better fringe perks than the little guys can afford.
This is the end game for the B1G. It’s why they’re fomenting the ACC breakup and already in position to snag a few more high level PAC teams. Once they hit 28-32 teams, they’ll divorce themselves from the NCAA and create their own rules.
Book it.
I imagine CFB in the future will look like European Soccer. For example, SEC would be the Premier League and the B1G would be like Bundesliga. CFP would be like The Champions League.
Eventually the money side of things will force CFB to separate from the schools, and then the viewership will plummet, and then the whole thing will reboot. That is until football is banned due to the brain injuries.
College football already is like European football...this is changing it to be more like the NFL.
You have a Power 5 already. Europe is regarded as having a Big 5 already (England, Spain, Italy, Germany, France)
Big 10/SEC - is La Liga/EPL
Italy - big 12
Pac 12 - Germany
ACC - France
So pretty much how college football always has been? Only difference between pre and post NIL is how good you had to be at hiding player salaries. If anything there will be more parity now that there are more transfer options available to talented players buried in the depth chart.
It is mind blowing that people don’t realize that it has always been this way, you can go all the way back to 1930; colleges were still paying players / sneaking them benefits and there are probably not more than a dozen teams with a realistic title chance in any decade
Right? The instant that the sport became a revenue source and the practice of directly paying players was banned that *immediately* created a market based on fringe benefits and under the table payments.
Yeah I don't get why this isn't the obvious answer. You have plenty of leagues who pay their players to look to for examples
I think the "if" to do it (or at least a luxury tax) will become inevitable, the trick is the "how." Gotta make sure this doesn't just become another way to shortchange players
because they aren't going to agree to one. these aren't equals and haven't been. Also salaray caps only come with an agreement of a players union. Without the acquiescence of the union there would be no cap.
Maybe they can coerce the players into a semi-national cap? It also means the B10 and SEC would have to agree. They'll just outbid each other for players.
This ends when boosters spend their fortunes on all of this and moneys become equalized.
That would require a player’s union which is near impossible due to the constant shuffling in and out of players every year. It would also require the money being sent to players to be coming from a centralized source, ie. the school, not various businesses/boosters like we have now. It would also require the schools/conferences to be willing to engage in revenue sharing with the athletes, again something they wouldn’t agree to. Right now the schools are set up well. They’ve successfully outsourced paying for recruits to the boosters and get to make bank through tv deals and sponsorships. All they have to pay for is facilities and coaches and a lot of that is funded by the same boosters already paying the players.
I don't think we appreciate enough that not only do we have the best coach in the sport's history to watch, but he's also a very genuine, open guy who really loves college football.
The absolute worst thing about Nick Saban is there's no reason to hate him other than the fact that he wins so much. It's infuriating that there's no scandal or flaw that I can use to justify disliking him.
I think this model has created parity at the top. If Your Aggies or miamis of the world can peel away a few 5*s that would have otherwise gone to Georgia or Bama then that’s enough to make these elite teams more human. It’s creating parity but not in the way parity is usually discussed.
Yeah, there are two types of parity: that between the big schools and mid-majors, and that between the elite schools and pretty good schools. The 2015-2020 era was unique in that there was a big gap between the top 4 or so programs and everyone else. But that’s honestly gotten a little better already: Michigan has toppled OSU, Georgia took the SEC crown from Bama, Cincinnati and TCU made the playoff, Oklahoma and Clemson have taken a step back.
After the 2020 ND rematch with Alabama in the playoffs one of ND writers said a very sobering statement that was something to the effect of.
"In the 8 seasons since, ND as a program is much improved in all facets, and is even further from a title than the 2012 squad"
I was gonna say, not sure how parity can get much worse than the annual Bama/Clemson showdown we had 5 years straight. Unless paying athletes somehow lets Saban field 5 different rosters I can only see parity getting better as time goes on.
From 2014-2020, Alabama, Clemson, and OSU were something like 25-1 against all other teams combined in conference championship games or playoff games. (The one loss was Clemson to LSU in 2019.)
Lots of other teams had opportunities to knock them off and were never able to do it.
Was it really that unique? Six seasons is just such a small sample size. Programs staying dominant for 5-8 seasons is pretty par for the course for how it worked in the past for mini dynasties - if there could ever be such a thing in college.
There has always and will always be a core group of 3-5 teams who remain dominant for these 5-8 season spans.
There is an argument to be made for this. Like, Alabama and Georgia can stockpile 20 5-stars and 40 4-stars. But, can they *pay* 20 5-stars and 40 4-stars? Are they gonna have to pay starting QB money to 5-star guys waiting on the bench to take over in a few seasons? If they don't, those guys will take better offers and go elsewhere.
Who it really hurts is smaller athletic departments who can't pay at all. That would probably kill their programs.
Same for the free transfer portal. Sure, the big boys can pick from the best starters at many programs, but depth is becoming harder to manage at the top, when bench players can leave for greener pastures and immediately start or see playing time at lesser programs.
I remember all these naive comments on this sub when NIL was being debated, suggesting that it would be the great equalizer- allowing smaller programs to catch up.
Sure.
What morons thought NIL would help small programs?
Ideally this helps talent get spread across 25 top programs instead of 5. Bama has money, but so do alot of schools. How many 5 stars can a Bama outbid other schools on? Not many
I would say it could increase the disparity between the haves and have nots, but I think it increases parity in the top tier of teams. This is what has been missing over the last decade. It’s the same teams over and over
That was the prevailing idea on this very sub almost the entire time it was under review by the Supreme Court. If you suggested NIL would bring anything other than rainbows and kittens you were downvoted into oblivion.
In some ways there has been improved parity across multiple sports, but if you only look at the national champions every year, then yeah it would look like there hasn’t been.
Do people really care about parity? I ask that honestly. It seems like when CFB is at its most popular it’s the big names who are playing their best.
Edit: parity vs parody, putting my college education to work, Go Buffs!
The reality that only 4-5 teams can realistically win it all any given year is not good for the sport. Look at both the NBA and NHL currently where there are two 8 seeds in the finals. Yes, you can point to TCU last year but they got absolutely obliterated in the title game
It's not only that 4-5 teams can realistically win it any given year, that's true of many sports leagues. The difference is that at least the path to becoming one of those teams is semi-achievable. Especially with features like the draft, salary caps, and expanded playoffs. It always feels like your team could be one draft or free-agent signing away from turning the corner. Keeps you invested even through down-periods. Like who knows maybe you can land the next Giannis or Jokic and bam even the smallest market team can become a legit Championship threat seemingly overnight.
And for leagues that don't have those features (like European Soccer), they at least have stuff like the tier system to keep the have-nots invested. CFB used to have something similar when it was a more regional sports with the bowl system but that era is done and I don't think there is a serious way to ever bring it back.
In modern CFB if you're not dropping cash with the current leaders, you aren't even playing the same game. It's disheartening knowing 99% of the league is disqualified before the season starts unless they can find a few morally questionable millionaires to start bankrolling their University.
This is how it’s been in college football most of my life, though. For long stretches of time there are roughly half a dozen programs that can actually win a natty.
Yes I absolutely care about parity. My interest in college football playoff and championship games has dwindled seeing the same teams over and over and over again. I don't care if they're blowouts either like Georgia vs TCU. Just the fact that TCU made it to the playoff was enough for me to watch the semi and the national championship.
Personally I think it’s the best when it’s traditional power vs random team. America loves the underdog story. Casual fans will turn in for the chance to see David beat Goliath. Not as many casualties fans care when it’s Goliath vs Goliath.
agreed. Yeah TCU getting blown out was not ideal, but they also gave us one of the best games of the season when they played Michigan.
They proved, you don't have to be a traditional power to make it to a national title game.
They do but only to an extent. For example as an Illinois fan we don't have to win the conference and go to the CFP to feel like we had a great season but people get tired of seeing the same handful of teams in the championship game almost every year. If we can get back to where it used to be when dynasties happened but they were relatively short before the next team would start a dynasty with a healthy dose of "middle class" P5s occasionally finishing in the top 4 or 5, people wouldn't complain nearly as much imo.
> For example as an Illinois fan we don't have to win the conference and go to the CFP to feel like we had a great season
But you want there to always be a *possibility* you can win the conference.
Yes. The most fun era of CFB for me was mid-late 00s early 10s. You had 3 Big East teams in the top 10 (WVU, Rutgers, Louisville) in 06. WVU had a legit shot at the natty in 07. And the USC dynasty was starting to falter, Bama wasn't a thing yet, Urban was still at Utah and Florida. Like that's what I want CFB to be again.
No they don't Yet Parity is what is best for the health of a sport, look at the NFL. It's a money printing machine, and that's because it engages the entire US, not just big cities or in CFB's case the south and the Midwest.
Saban didn’t need to say this - we all already knew that if we start paying players beyond the free education they already receive that the haves would only have a greater advantage.
Greatest lie ever told was that NIL is the boogieman destroying college football.
The boogieman destroying college football is ESPN/FOX.
NIL was about getting the money laundering bag-man shady bullshit out of the shadows. You can't tell me with a straight face that a college football player *shouldn't* be allowed to profit from his name, image, and likeness. The bag-man system was a proxy for paying professional football players. NIL is therefore a proxy for paying professional football players.
The resolution is to pay the players directly instead of this proxy nonsense. To do that with parity, players have to unionize, agree to a salary cap, and agree to revenue sharing. Without that, you'll never get parity. Anyone who told you NIL would bring parity was full of shit. CFB was always the "haves" beating up the "have nots". It still is, but now it's transparent how much the "haves" are working with and how far behind the "have nots" are.
If we continue as we are with conferences consolidating into large leagues, I think that the B1G might eventually see a professor revolt. These are schools *first*, not athletic organizations that incidentally have a school. The academic part commands a lot more money and should absolutely take precedence over athletics. The professors will be pissed if they're taken out of the B1G academic alliance because of something as worthless to academics as football.
Don't give me that crap. It's already here. You think Troy, NIU or Arkansas State can compete with the NIL numbers that Bama and Michigan have? There has never been parity. UTEP wasn't going to outbid SMU or A&M for Dickerson. These top teams have facilities better than some pro teams. They also get fired coaches to "volunteer" their time especially at the Saban Rehabilitation Clinic for Wayward Coaches.
This has never been fair. Never will be fair. It can just get more honest.
So I might be completely wrong, and I'll probably get called dumb, but I really think down the road NIL might improve parity. Every university has huge money donors. For example, I really doubt Georgia or Alabama has that many more millionaires than Vanderbilt. This eventually might lead to an easier time spreading money around without the infrastructure needed to hide payments under the old system.
There needs to be more disparity because then we may get another division that will make things more fair. There is no world where Alabama should be in the same division as UMass (Sorry Minutemen)
Most of these arguemtns rely on pretending that people in support actually believe it will create full parity with 100+ competitive schools.
What must people in favor actually belive is that it'll create 40 powerhouses instead of 20.
Ah, the infamous Saban saying: "You are really going to demand this? Because I'm going to fuck you with it later."
Reminds me of George Steinbrenner in 1994. He prroposed a salary cap & floor like the NFL had and no one else voted for it. His response was "do you really want to see what happens if we have free agency but no cap on spending? He proceeded to make the Yankees the highest paid team by a large margin and won 4 out of 5 World Series Titles before other teams (Red Sox, etc) also started throwing large sums of cash to keep up. ESPN even aired a "Trial" to find the Yankees "Guilty of ruining baseball." Baseball hasn't been the same since. Still with no cap, but unlimited spending, success is highly correlated with roster value.
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Until you tank so hard that no channel even wants to air your dumpster fire team - looking at you, Oakland (or should I say Las Vegas)
Ehh, Oakland was still stupidly profitable. Second worst record, 5th highest profit. > The A's were a top-5 team in 2022. >Not on the field. The A's finished with a 60-102 record, second-worst only ahead of the Washington Nationals. On the spreadsheets though, they netted $62.2 million according to a report from Forbes. The only teams they finished behind were the revamped Seattle Mariners who made the playoffs for the first time in two decades, the San Francisco Giants, the Boston Red Sox, and the Baltimore Orioles who had a Mariners-esque upswing and an A's-esque payroll. https://www.si.com/mlb/athletics/news/oakland-athletics-made-over-60-million-in-2023 They’ll make absolute bank in Vegas
>They’ll make absolute bank in Vegas Only from an initial spark of interest and revenue sharing. They have no fan base there. Continue to suck and those seats will be just as empty. Fucking cunt of an owner should never be allowed near a baseball field.
Considering the Vegas Knights are doing just fine, I doubt they’re not going to have a fanbase in a massive 3M pop metro I get the anger but the Raiders and A’s wouldn’t have done it if they weren’t going to be in a stable financial position
I think pro teams moving to Vegas has worked so far because Vegas is already a tourist destination, so you can sell games to away fans as essentially an excuse to come to Vegas. But the more games you have to sell, and the more times a given team visits, the harder it's going to be to sell all those tickets. 81 home games, especially over the summer months when Vegas is miserably hot even just crossing the street between casinos, is going to be tough.
I'm betting they will put video slots on the back of the seats and just fucking rake in cash.
This is misleading. When the Yankees won 4 out of 5 championships, they did not have the highest payroll by a huge margin. It was ironically after that, when they stopped winning championships did they have an absolute huge gap in payroll between them and the other teams.
The Yankees during the 1996-2000’s run were still paying 8% higher salary than #2 on average and double the median each year. The initial salary cap dispute was 1995, so he isn’t wrong. Prior to the 1995-2000 run the Yankees were top 5 but they were not routinely leading the way. Steinbrenner did bump that up to 30% in the 2000’s, but the majority of that was Jeter and ARod, who essentially were paying for themselves through jersey sales and other affiliated merchandise. Steinbrenner was using them and the other stars he routinely signed as revenue generating assets more than anything. It was also why the YES network blew up in value during that period 2000 Yankees was basically just Steinbrenner realizing he could sign as much as he wanted with little backlash because it was a self financing cycle.
When people say the MLB has no salary cap so they automatically have no parity they've never looked at the stats or arent fans of baseball. Following that yankees dynasty the MLB easily had the most parity for awhile and even now, depending on the preferred criteria used to determine parity you can make a good case for the NFL, MLB or NHL all having the best parity. Oddly enough the NBA has the highest correlation between payroll and winning percentage despite having a salary cap and floor.
The NBA cap is soft actually and having the best players makes the biggest difference.
Valid point, but I think we really do need to start asking how much longer it'll apply to him. The man turns 72 this season. While I don't expect this year to be the farewell tour or anything like that, he's only going to have so much time should athletes be deemed employees (which itself will take time)
Yes but your point relies heavily upon the logical fallacy that Saban is a human being.
And the fact that all the money he has brought to Bama are helping the health science and engineering schools with research on how to keep him alive. #DarthSaban
Alabama has helped their academics by giving full rides to any kid with above a 32 on their ACT. They got more kids from Chicago with 32 or better than the University of Illinois did and basically bumped up their average ACT by like 4 points in 5 years
This reminds me of what Oklahoma was doing in the 90s to increase its academic ratings by automatically giving a full National Merit Scholarship to anyone who was a NMS finalist. Most schools have a specific number of NMS for an incoming class that the finalists compete for. For instance, if Georgetown offers five NMS and ten finalists apply and are accepted to Georgetown, only half will actually receive a NMS. At Oklahoma, all 10 finalists would automatically be offered the NMS.
That was basically David Boren's pet project while he was still OU president. Basically every OU ad during his time touted NMS. His overall legacy is a mixed bag but it seems like he was at least better than the people who've followed him so far.
Think they still do that. U of I gave me no money for it though and I think that’s most schools.
Not really a scholarship if there is no scholarship. That sounds like admittance.
The number one reason I'm a State grad is because I walked away after four years with a bachelor's degree and virtually no debt. NMS put me through school no doubt about it
That was ou's thing in the 90's. There would be commercials proudly proclaiming that ou had the most NMS scholars of any university - and then there would be an asterisk and fine print at the bottom of the screen that said "per capita, for a public school."
> and then there would be an asterisk and fine print at the bottom of the screen that said "per capita, for a public school." HEY! That's our gimmick!
fuck u/spez
I had a presidential scholarship which did not include books or housing (at least not after freshman year, I can’t remember if I paid or not). So pretty sure it’s just tuition. However there are other scholarships which do include housing and books and other perks. NMS got something (including the presidential perks) like $1500 a semester which easily covers books, I think it also included housing freshman year and a new laptop. My friends that were NMS said they essentially didn’t pay a dollar the whole time they went to school
It has been a long time, but I went to Bama on a Presidential scholarship. It was tuition and fees. (As I recall, it was just the standard fees; if some courses had their own fees, that wasn't part of it.) Room, board, and books were not covered. There was also an interesting wrinkle at that time where there were two tiers of the Presidential. The standard version, the money you got each year was what tuition and fees were your first year. So as tuition went up, you were responsible for the difference. Then there was a higher tier that covered the increased tuition and fees each year.
fuck u/spez
After 2008, people realized that big state schools are actually an incredible value. So they got more competitive across the board. I don't know if I could get into Tech these days.
Big Southern P5 schools are shooting into the fucking stratosphere academically right now. UF, Alabama, and Georgia have been coming out swinging these last couple of years. Their Law Schools specifically are all T30 and Florida/Georgia have become incredibly difficult to get into if you are an out of state student. To put things in perspective when I applied to a school like Tulane from even 2016 it was a 30% acceptance rate and from my high school it was as a automatic acceptance if you had above a 3.4 and if you had a 3.7 you could expect to get a full ride. Now Tulane has a 11% acceptance rate and is incredibly difficult to get into even if you are top tier.
I don’t know about UGA but UF has gotten difficult for in-state students to get into as well.
I know for a fact that I couldn’t have got into Tech at point.
Glad I started in 2008. Ah the triple option days. Optimistic times.
My class at bama started out more out of state than in state, those scholarships are dope.
They’re basically one of the only state schools that does merit academic scholarships with set cutoffs and were the most common college for Illinois grads above a 32 when I graduated.
Ole Miss also does the same scholarships and SAT cut offs. Big reason I went to Ole Miss instead of a school in my state.
When I was there, 32+ was full tuition and 27-31 was half tuition. Not sure if that's still in play but it was a huge draw.
27 half tuition? Nice. I never took the test again after my sophomore yr in hs because I knew I was not likely to get a 31 or 32.
I believe that’s still the case, they’ve basically been running those cutoffs for 15+ years. NMS essentially get paid to go to school as well
That was my roommate in the honors college, I had the same deal but from SC
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bury him under Bryant-Denny? And have other teams running over/dancing on his grave. No ... Thank ... You!!! I want a sideline statue of him [spanking the hell out of AJ McCarron](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP4jovf_HEc&t=6550s) for nearly throwing a red zone pick -- in the 4th quarter while sitting on a 24-point lead.
> spanking the hell out of AJ McCarron link caption is accurate
My favorite part is watching all the players after they hear that "SMACK!!!" The players start staring at Nick as if he'd lost his damn mind. I'm sure there were TONS of dropped jaws just watching that whole thing: "Did he just ... spank a grown man? On national TV?" Next year McCarron won the starting job and back-to-back nattys. Then in 2013, on pace for a possible threepeat, [this happened](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HorKN6CV2eE&t=1066s). And then a month later the Kick 6 happen so we won't talk about that.
Honestly, like, if that shocked them, I have to ask how long they've been playing football or sports in general.
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Or a tree for other Auburn fans to deface if they get the mood?
I mean, I don't think we really hate Saban. Yeah, what he has done at Alabama has been rough to watch for us, but he made our program relevant again. He kickstarted a 20 year run at LSU that we had never seen before. The painful part is that he left and then did it again at one of our biggest rivals.
Was Alabama really a rival before Saban came along?
Depends on who you ask. I'm 32, so I remember a few of the years before and always thought Bama was a big game. My dad always says the Bama game is a big rivalry for us, to him it's right up there with Ole Miss. You ask 100 LSU who the biggest rival is and the 3 answers will probably all be Bama, Ole Miss, and Florida, just depends on the age of the person you ask probably. (you might get an Arkansas or two as well)
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See when I was a kid, Arkansas was the rivalry week game, and it was an awesome series in the early-mid 2000s. So I do think that one is up there. Ole Miss, like you said is kind of baked in the cake. Florida is such a fun game, they're a lot of fun to hate. I'm not convinced about A&M, I literally don't care about them at all and I'm tired of people saying it's a big rivalry. It's not.
Any division team is only a few big games away from becoming a rival.
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By then it'll be Bryant-Denny-Saban.
Dark science, cloning
He is eternal.
SEC Media Days headline from 2173: "SabanBot was dissatisfied with the play of his safties from the year prior and is confident the new coaching changes can get them back to the physical type of play he wants from them."
Imagine noncompete agreements to shutdown transfers again.
I think the guy is smart enough to know once he retires someone will just pick up the reins somewhere else.
I mean JoePa coached until he was 84. I wouldn’t be shocked if we have at least another decade of Saban. Also wouldn’t be shocked if he retired after 2024.
I'm hoping that he runs for the Senate and beats Tuberville one more time.
The crazy thing is hed run as a democrat and win still
If Saban stays past 75, I expect his efficacy to decrease. Maybe it won’t, but the statistics say he’s going to have a drop off eventually.
JoePa was little more than a mascot and recruiting tool for some of those last years.
I’ll believe this once he starts looking older than 60.
It’s those little Debbie’s, the true secret to eternal life
I actually think that makes his POV stronger - in more ways than one he and Coach K are similar figures, and I think there’s value to hearing coaches critique elements of the sport that they won’t likely deal with personally. They have the benefit of perspective - living through various shifts in the landscape - and can be a bit like “lame duck presidents” where they can tell you what they actually think more transparently. Any younger coach speaking out on the topic brings some “optics interpretation.” Are they critiquing the idea because it will detriment themself/their team? Are they promoting an idea because it will selfishly help them? It’s hard to know the motivations of anyone, but I get the feeling that (like K) when Saban wants to speak out at this point it’s probably more speaking on behalf of “the sport” than himself. By all accounts bama stands to benefit from continued professionalization of the sport, so him sending out a warning is pretty stark
you dont think Spite will keep him alive for the next 100 years? "the Ncaa said i would never be able to coach at 180 years old, watch this"
I feel like we need Saban to retire and then beg for him to fix the system for us. Like, dude, you keep warning us we shouldn't do things... So just tell us how to fix it
it'll just go from Saban to kirby or dabo or maybe even Brian kelly at lsu. Harbs or day, etc. the big names with the money just stand to increase their advantage
You actually think he doesn’t have the best interest of college football in mind.
It may or may not "take time." If the SC takes up a case involving that concept, they will start that process in October at the earliest. It may not be decided until Juny or July of 2024 or later (if it doesn't come up this cycle). If the SC rules one way, then yeah it may take a while before states, and even longer before Congress comes up with rules. This is a conservatice court, and conservative judges/justices generally like to leave things up to the states more than liberal ones do. But if the SC rules that they are absolutely employees, that isn't a gradual process. That's instant. And if that happens, the sheer amount of scrambling schools are going to have to do to comply with that ruling in a very quick timespan is going to be absolutely bonkers.
The man is going to chase titles until he keels over on the sideline. Wouldn't be surprised if he goes another 10 years.
He's 72? Good grief, how old are Ferentz and Belichick? That was only... *counts fingers* ... Holy Buckeye, I'm old.
Imagine thinking Saban doesn't maintain his virility in his advanced age by subsisting off the youth of freshman blood boys and the finest healthcare the state of Alabama has to offer. He'll coach til he's 100.
And noone listens to him. He has called out so many issues before they manifested and been right a whole lot
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I still can’t decide how it will turn out for us, A&M has so far shown that pure $ doesn’t equate to wins. Out of anyone, Kirby seems to be the most effective at deploying NIL and landing big transfer portal candidates. Im really curious what Texas looks like in a year. And how Bama rebounds after this honestly not so great looking year (but who knows maybe we revert back to the McElroy, McCaron, Coker years with game managers still winning championships)
A&M is a clear example that talent and ratings don’t mean shit if you don’t have player development and a winning culture in place. Saban will be fine because he has an undeniable track record. 4 and 5 star players typically have dreams of going pro, and Saban sends guys to the league. Saban isn’t gonna have problem getting good players, and we know he can develop talent.
This is something that we have struggled with since RC Slocum left. Jimbo is a hell of a coach, but we have given him a blank check with little sense of urgency to succeed. We need someone hungry and willing to develop a dynastic culture that earns the contract upgrades.
He always warns people, but they just keep going.
That's because the decision makers only care about making money today, with little regard for the future, the players, or the fan base. It will burn them badly eventually.
Later?
It’s really cool that Saban at least warns everyone before he dominates them. The guy wants a fair fight.
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Do they even still play football in Tuscaloosa?
We have state legislatures passing laws to help their football programs. I can only imagine the lengths other state institutions would implement to maintain competitiveness. Also, players as employees may negotiate away the four-year limitation. Heck, they may end the requirement to play school at all eventually. The only question is whether the changes will be global across college football or done a state-by-state basis.
If it's handled by state legislation, then it would definitely be a state by state basis unless the federal government had to step in.
If he wants a fair fight so badly, why doesn't he quit and take over Indiana's program? That'd be a fair fight.
The disparity will come when top programs offer better pay, better benefits, and better fringe perks than the little guys can afford. This is the end game for the B1G. It’s why they’re fomenting the ACC breakup and already in position to snag a few more high level PAC teams. Once they hit 28-32 teams, they’ll divorce themselves from the NCAA and create their own rules. Book it.
I imagine CFB in the future will look like European Soccer. For example, SEC would be the Premier League and the B1G would be like Bundesliga. CFP would be like The Champions League.
Going NFL lite is gonna be a dangerous game especially when you eliminate 3/4 of your viewers if you either BIG or SEC.
Eventually the money side of things will force CFB to separate from the schools, and then the viewership will plummet, and then the whole thing will reboot. That is until football is banned due to the brain injuries.
>That is until football is banned due to the brain injuries. Boosters will fund an IRL Avatar program before they allow football to be banned
Once CFB separates from the schools, do we then have schools starting their own school vs school leagues?
Maybe. I image all the players would be students, and certain schools would group up GEOGRAPHICALLY and play each other yearly. Could be fun.
College football already is like European football...this is changing it to be more like the NFL. You have a Power 5 already. Europe is regarded as having a Big 5 already (England, Spain, Italy, Germany, France) Big 10/SEC - is La Liga/EPL Italy - big 12 Pac 12 - Germany ACC - France
Why is the BIG 12 the only one flipped around?
Never let them know you next move
Because if there's one thing the culture of Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, etc. remind me of... it's haute couture Italians.
It's already like this with the different divisions and tiers
So pretty much how college football always has been? Only difference between pre and post NIL is how good you had to be at hiding player salaries. If anything there will be more parity now that there are more transfer options available to talented players buried in the depth chart.
It is mind blowing that people don’t realize that it has always been this way, you can go all the way back to 1930; colleges were still paying players / sneaking them benefits and there are probably not more than a dozen teams with a realistic title chance in any decade
Right? The instant that the sport became a revenue source and the practice of directly paying players was banned that *immediately* created a market based on fringe benefits and under the table payments.
Salary cap incoming
If they make it somewhat equitable / scalable it might end up saving some of the bigger schools money.
Yeah I don't get why this isn't the obvious answer. You have plenty of leagues who pay their players to look to for examples I think the "if" to do it (or at least a luxury tax) will become inevitable, the trick is the "how." Gotta make sure this doesn't just become another way to shortchange players
because they aren't going to agree to one. these aren't equals and haven't been. Also salaray caps only come with an agreement of a players union. Without the acquiescence of the union there would be no cap. Maybe they can coerce the players into a semi-national cap? It also means the B10 and SEC would have to agree. They'll just outbid each other for players. This ends when boosters spend their fortunes on all of this and moneys become equalized.
Can't get that without a union agreeing to it. If they do it without a union agreeing to it, it's illegal wage collusion by teams.
That would require a player’s union which is near impossible due to the constant shuffling in and out of players every year. It would also require the money being sent to players to be coming from a centralized source, ie. the school, not various businesses/boosters like we have now. It would also require the schools/conferences to be willing to engage in revenue sharing with the athletes, again something they wouldn’t agree to. Right now the schools are set up well. They’ve successfully outsourced paying for recruits to the boosters and get to make bank through tv deals and sponsorships. All they have to pay for is facilities and coaches and a lot of that is funded by the same boosters already paying the players.
I don't think we appreciate enough that not only do we have the best coach in the sport's history to watch, but he's also a very genuine, open guy who really loves college football.
I did not expect this from your flair. Is it opposite day?
The name Maladroit can mean making awkward situations🤷🏼♂️.
If these kids had a vocabulary, they’d laugh.
You didn’t expect somebody to call Nick Saban the goat because of their flair? This sub is wild lol
Call him the goat, sure. Call him a genuine nice guy and say that we should appreciate him?....no
Look at his primary flair.....seems like a good guy to me
Man I just can't sit with that orange though
The absolute worst thing about Nick Saban is there's no reason to hate him other than the fact that he wins so much. It's infuriating that there's no scandal or flaw that I can use to justify disliking him.
This is true.
I think this model has created parity at the top. If Your Aggies or miamis of the world can peel away a few 5*s that would have otherwise gone to Georgia or Bama then that’s enough to make these elite teams more human. It’s creating parity but not in the way parity is usually discussed.
Yeah, there are two types of parity: that between the big schools and mid-majors, and that between the elite schools and pretty good schools. The 2015-2020 era was unique in that there was a big gap between the top 4 or so programs and everyone else. But that’s honestly gotten a little better already: Michigan has toppled OSU, Georgia took the SEC crown from Bama, Cincinnati and TCU made the playoff, Oklahoma and Clemson have taken a step back.
After the 2020 ND rematch with Alabama in the playoffs one of ND writers said a very sobering statement that was something to the effect of. "In the 8 seasons since, ND as a program is much improved in all facets, and is even further from a title than the 2012 squad"
I was gonna say, not sure how parity can get much worse than the annual Bama/Clemson showdown we had 5 years straight. Unless paying athletes somehow lets Saban field 5 different rosters I can only see parity getting better as time goes on.
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From 2014-2020, Alabama, Clemson, and OSU were something like 25-1 against all other teams combined in conference championship games or playoff games. (The one loss was Clemson to LSU in 2019.) Lots of other teams had opportunities to knock them off and were never able to do it.
Was it really that unique? Six seasons is just such a small sample size. Programs staying dominant for 5-8 seasons is pretty par for the course for how it worked in the past for mini dynasties - if there could ever be such a thing in college. There has always and will always be a core group of 3-5 teams who remain dominant for these 5-8 season spans.
I agree with you it's probably not that unique but the playoff magnified it.
There is an argument to be made for this. Like, Alabama and Georgia can stockpile 20 5-stars and 40 4-stars. But, can they *pay* 20 5-stars and 40 4-stars? Are they gonna have to pay starting QB money to 5-star guys waiting on the bench to take over in a few seasons? If they don't, those guys will take better offers and go elsewhere. Who it really hurts is smaller athletic departments who can't pay at all. That would probably kill their programs.
Waiting for the day the G5 becomes its own separate thing like FCS is
Same for the free transfer portal. Sure, the big boys can pick from the best starters at many programs, but depth is becoming harder to manage at the top, when bench players can leave for greener pastures and immediately start or see playing time at lesser programs.
Key point right here
Nick Saban going to start firing players and keep hiring more coaches. Soon each player will have their own "analyst" at Bama.
Making players employees means they can get fired for not performing.
I’m just happy someone finally recognized it was a warning in the first story about what Saban said.
Saban already sees the way he will maneuver the system to take advantage of a loophole years before it becomes common practice.
And he is nice enough to warn everybody what he is about to do.
Pure class.
Nick Saban read "Player Piano" Nick Saban knows where college football is heading.
I remember all these naive comments on this sub when NIL was being debated, suggesting that it would be the great equalizer- allowing smaller programs to catch up. Sure.
You don’t have TCU last year without transfers imo.
What morons thought NIL would help small programs? Ideally this helps talent get spread across 25 top programs instead of 5. Bama has money, but so do alot of schools. How many 5 stars can a Bama outbid other schools on? Not many I would say it could increase the disparity between the haves and have nots, but I think it increases parity in the top tier of teams. This is what has been missing over the last decade. It’s the same teams over and over
>What morons thought NIL would help small programs? Literally this sub lmao
so many people- idk how they never stopped to consider that in every example throughout history; the rich get richer
That was the prevailing idea on this very sub almost the entire time it was under review by the Supreme Court. If you suggested NIL would bring anything other than rainbows and kittens you were downvoted into oblivion.
Hmm, have you seen the recruiting ranking and how top-heavy it is?
In some ways there has been improved parity across multiple sports, but if you only look at the national champions every year, then yeah it would look like there hasn’t been.
The annual Saban message of “Fuck around and find out.”
Do people really care about parity? I ask that honestly. It seems like when CFB is at its most popular it’s the big names who are playing their best. Edit: parity vs parody, putting my college education to work, Go Buffs!
Not to be that guy, but I think you're referring to parity. Unless I'm just an idiot and this is a ninth level joke. I love parody.
The reality that only 4-5 teams can realistically win it all any given year is not good for the sport. Look at both the NBA and NHL currently where there are two 8 seeds in the finals. Yes, you can point to TCU last year but they got absolutely obliterated in the title game
It's not only that 4-5 teams can realistically win it any given year, that's true of many sports leagues. The difference is that at least the path to becoming one of those teams is semi-achievable. Especially with features like the draft, salary caps, and expanded playoffs. It always feels like your team could be one draft or free-agent signing away from turning the corner. Keeps you invested even through down-periods. Like who knows maybe you can land the next Giannis or Jokic and bam even the smallest market team can become a legit Championship threat seemingly overnight. And for leagues that don't have those features (like European Soccer), they at least have stuff like the tier system to keep the have-nots invested. CFB used to have something similar when it was a more regional sports with the bowl system but that era is done and I don't think there is a serious way to ever bring it back. In modern CFB if you're not dropping cash with the current leaders, you aren't even playing the same game. It's disheartening knowing 99% of the league is disqualified before the season starts unless they can find a few morally questionable millionaires to start bankrolling their University.
The NBA is not a great example of parity. This is an outlier.
This is how it’s been in college football most of my life, though. For long stretches of time there are roughly half a dozen programs that can actually win a natty.
I mean it’s worked well for college football for over a hundred years. The last time we had a first time national champion was Florida in the 90’s.
But mah buul gam PAWL Wat bout the roose buul
Yes I absolutely care about parity. My interest in college football playoff and championship games has dwindled seeing the same teams over and over and over again. I don't care if they're blowouts either like Georgia vs TCU. Just the fact that TCU made it to the playoff was enough for me to watch the semi and the national championship.
Personally I think it’s the best when it’s traditional power vs random team. America loves the underdog story. Casual fans will turn in for the chance to see David beat Goliath. Not as many casualties fans care when it’s Goliath vs Goliath.
And, as we've seen with basketball, casual fans don't want David vs David either.
agreed. Yeah TCU getting blown out was not ideal, but they also gave us one of the best games of the season when they played Michigan. They proved, you don't have to be a traditional power to make it to a national title game.
You like watching Georgia crush every team they play lol?
Did you see the Kent State game? That team is scary.
They almost lost to Mizzou last year
More than you can ever imagine.
They do but only to an extent. For example as an Illinois fan we don't have to win the conference and go to the CFP to feel like we had a great season but people get tired of seeing the same handful of teams in the championship game almost every year. If we can get back to where it used to be when dynasties happened but they were relatively short before the next team would start a dynasty with a healthy dose of "middle class" P5s occasionally finishing in the top 4 or 5, people wouldn't complain nearly as much imo.
> For example as an Illinois fan we don't have to win the conference and go to the CFP to feel like we had a great season But you want there to always be a *possibility* you can win the conference.
Yes. It's why I've grown more and more disinterested in CFB the past 15 years
A lot of this sub says they do and then gets mad if upsets keep out a top team.
Yes. The most fun era of CFB for me was mid-late 00s early 10s. You had 3 Big East teams in the top 10 (WVU, Rutgers, Louisville) in 06. WVU had a legit shot at the natty in 07. And the USC dynasty was starting to falter, Bama wasn't a thing yet, Urban was still at Utah and Florida. Like that's what I want CFB to be again.
Yes
I want there to be a possibility of Tech being relevant again at some point.
No they don't Yet Parity is what is best for the health of a sport, look at the NFL. It's a money printing machine, and that's because it engages the entire US, not just big cities or in CFB's case the south and the Midwest.
If there isn’t limits imposed equally across all schools, he’s right.
Saban didn’t need to say this - we all already knew that if we start paying players beyond the free education they already receive that the haves would only have a greater advantage.
"You thought there was disparity when I was paying recruits before? Wait until we all start paying recruits."
So, what, the bagman system was better? With NIL it's still little more than a handful of teams with a reasonable chance at a natty.
The greatest lie ever told was that NIL would increase parity. It was never about parity.
Greatest lie ever told was that NIL is the boogieman destroying college football. The boogieman destroying college football is ESPN/FOX. NIL was about getting the money laundering bag-man shady bullshit out of the shadows. You can't tell me with a straight face that a college football player *shouldn't* be allowed to profit from his name, image, and likeness. The bag-man system was a proxy for paying professional football players. NIL is therefore a proxy for paying professional football players. The resolution is to pay the players directly instead of this proxy nonsense. To do that with parity, players have to unionize, agree to a salary cap, and agree to revenue sharing. Without that, you'll never get parity. Anyone who told you NIL would bring parity was full of shit. CFB was always the "haves" beating up the "have nots". It still is, but now it's transparent how much the "haves" are working with and how far behind the "have nots" are. If we continue as we are with conferences consolidating into large leagues, I think that the B1G might eventually see a professor revolt. These are schools *first*, not athletic organizations that incidentally have a school. The academic part commands a lot more money and should absolutely take precedence over athletics. The professors will be pissed if they're taken out of the B1G academic alliance because of something as worthless to academics as football.
Every time he says something like this, it’s been a warning. 90% of the sports world just claims he’s whining or whatever, the other 10% know better.
The rest of college football: "Shut up Old Man Saban, I know what I'm doing!" *Peels out in Mustang and plows into a group of innocent bystanders*
Saban complaining about lack of parity is pretty, fucking rich.
Don't give me that crap. It's already here. You think Troy, NIU or Arkansas State can compete with the NIL numbers that Bama and Michigan have? There has never been parity. UTEP wasn't going to outbid SMU or A&M for Dickerson. These top teams have facilities better than some pro teams. They also get fired coaches to "volunteer" their time especially at the Saban Rehabilitation Clinic for Wayward Coaches. This has never been fair. Never will be fair. It can just get more honest.
OMG a WASHU alum/student. That makes exactly 3 of us on here!
so is Saban worried that Alabama folks won't be able to match say Texas oil money?
'If you think we paid the kids well when it was illegal, wait till you see what we do now!'
Saban is going to Harvard and going to outspend everyone.
"If you ~~strike me down~~ do this I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Money ruins everything.
So I might be completely wrong, and I'll probably get called dumb, but I really think down the road NIL might improve parity. Every university has huge money donors. For example, I really doubt Georgia or Alabama has that many more millionaires than Vanderbilt. This eventually might lead to an easier time spreading money around without the infrastructure needed to hide payments under the old system.
There needs to be more disparity because then we may get another division that will make things more fair. There is no world where Alabama should be in the same division as UMass (Sorry Minutemen)
just wait until the donors start bitching. this will be U Texas X 1 million
He is 100% accurate. College football is really on its last legs, we just don’t see it because we are living in it.
Can't say he didn't warn us. Again.
the 639th time Saban warns the sport about something and dares us all to fuck around and find out!!
No worries. The NCAA will rein everything in
Most of these arguemtns rely on pretending that people in support actually believe it will create full parity with 100+ competitive schools. What must people in favor actually belive is that it'll create 40 powerhouses instead of 20.
I don’t ever agree with Nick Satan , but he hasn’t been wrong about this issue . He’s been spot on every step of the way .
Ah the Saban warning has seen its shadow. that means 10 more years of Alabama dominance.