Hours ago, news broke that President Donald Trump is reportedly forming a commission to address the chaos in college sports, with former Alabama head coach Nick Saban expected to serve as co-chair.
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According to reports from The Athletic, the commission will investigate everything from NIL and transfer portal policies to conference realignment, athlete compensation, and even Title IX implications. The legendary CFB coach also allegedly met with Trump in Tuscaloosa and urged him to take action, claiming that NIL has badly damaged college athletics.
For most NIL critics, these developments must be music to their ears. However, not everyone is optimistic about this initiative. Take Fox Sports analyst RJ Young, for example.
During a segment on The Number One College Football Show, Young wasted no time in making it clear that he doesn’t believe any commission can fix what’s broken in college football — not even one led by a CFB stalwart like Nick Saban.
“Do you think Nick Saban and Donald Trump can fix college athletics?” he asked rhetorically. “Because I am skeptical as you are.”
Young began by laying out just how massive the system has become. Television rights deals in the Big Ten and SEC are pushing close to a billion dollars annually. Coaches are making eight-figure salaries. Players, thanks to NIL, are landing seven-figure deals before even taking a snap. The money is everywhere, and it’s still growing.
So what exactly is this commission planning to fix? RJ Young says that’s the first problem: the scope.
“You got to identify what it is you’re trying to fix,” he said. “Is it NIL? A salary cap? You can’t have a salary cap without a players union. And college football is probably never going to have a players union.”
He pointed out that creating any sort of structure, like a collective bargaining agreement, would require a fundamental shift in how the NCAA and conferences currently operate — and that’s not likely to happen anytime soon. He also noted that politicians like Ted Cruz and Tommy Tuberville have weighed in over the years, with little to no progress.
Then, RJ got blunt: “You’re not gonna fix this. Because we want it to stay broken.”
He compared the current state of NIL and college sports to game theory. In a perfect world, everyone works together for the good of the group. But in reality? Every school, conference, coach, and athlete tends to act in its/their own interest. “Human beings are irrational,” Young said. “We do things that are against our own benefit all the time.”
His point? The chaos in college sports isn’t accidental. It’s a feature, not a bug. Everyone wants the advantage, even if it means perpetuating a system that’s inherently unstable.
So can Donald Trump and Nick Saban fix NIL and college sports? According to RJ Young, the answer isn’t just no. It’s that fixing it might not even be the goal.
