Conversations regarding NIL in college football have heated up again this week after UNLV quarterback Matthew Sluka decided to redshirt the remainder of the 2024 campaign. His decision came after a monetary dispute with the Rebels.
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While no other college player has followed in Sluka’s footsteps at this point, there are massive concerns his move could spark a new trend in college sports.
When asked his thoughts on the situation during an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, former Alabama head coach Nick Saban offered a solution right out of the professional sports leagues’ playbooks: revenue sharing.
“Name, Image and Likeness has kind of turned into ‘pay for play’. So, if we’re going to do that, why don’t we just revenue share with the players? [Then] they could still have [NIL], but it’s gotta be something that creates marketing value for some company.”
Saban touched on what he believes to be the biggest issue with the current system moments later, saying “the way we are right now… [players] don’t have any contract. [Players] don’t have any responsibility or obligation to [their] team.”
Continuing on, Saban mentioned players who bolt into the portal sometimes suffer major short-term and long-term ramifications.
Saban says two-in-five transfers lose their scholarship
Part of the concern with Sluka and many players who wind up in the transfer portal is their ability to actually find success at another collegiate institution. The biggest-name players, such as DJ Uiagalelei, almost always land on their feet.
But a large number of lesser-known players, as Saban explained, aren’t as fortunate.
“People don’t ever really think about the 40% of the guys who get in the portal who lose their scholarship cause they got in the portal and didn’t get an opportunity to go someplace else because they thought the grass was gonna be greener.”
He added that players may be benefitting in the short-term like never before, but their long-term aspirations are being negatively impacted by the now-common methods of college football’s new era.
“There’s a lot of consequences of this kind of behavior, and the culture we’ve created in college athletics. We’re really not trying to create value for people’s futures; we’re trying to see how much money we can make right now while we’re going to college.”
The final two aspects of Saban’s message played a big role in his retirement at the conclusion of the 2023 season. His Alabama program thrived on building up players year-over-year, an approach 99% of this player base doesn’t embrace.
Nobody denies coaches have to constantly adapt to stay on top. Over the past two decades, no one in the sport did so better than Saban. So is he right? Is the NIL at the heart of the issues plaguing college football right now? And can they adapt to a new system before the train completely falls off course?
