{"id":639384,"date":"2026-04-29T23:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T23:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/639384\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T23:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T23:48:09","slug":"nick-saban-calls-for-equilibrium-in-college-football-points-to-nfl-salary-cap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/639384\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Saban calls for \u2018equilibrium\u2019 in college football, points to NFL salary cap"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now nearly a year into the rev-share era, the cap in place under the House settlement is expected to grow this summer. But as schools are finding other ways to fund their rosters, Nick Saban<\/a> called for \u201cequilibrium\u201d in college football.<\/p>\n

As Ross Dellenger<\/a> previously noted, schools are finding ways to blow past the rev-share cap<\/a>. Following the transfer portal<\/a> this offseason, On3\u2019s Pete Nakos<\/a> also reported the expectation is \u201cmultiple<\/a>\u201d rosters could cost upward of $40 million this year.<\/p>\n

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As he evaluated the state of the game, Saban reflected on comments he made<\/a> late in his tenure at Alabama<\/a> about the role of collectives and the idea of \u201cpay-for-play\u201d in college football. While programs have been able to turn around in the new era, he also pointed to the salary cap in the NFL and other pro leagues while arguing for more balance with regard to spending.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, the first time somebody had a collective \u2013 and I\u2019m not going to mention any names because I got in trouble for that before \u2013 I just made the statement, they didn\u2019t do anything wrong, but is this what we want college football to become?\u201d Saban said Wednesday on The Paul Finebaum Show. \u201cAnd that\u2019s exactly what happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like the fact that some programs have been able to improve because of the circumstance, but I also think there should be some equilibrium. One team shouldn\u2019t have a $40 million roster and another team have a $5 million roster, and they\u2019re out there playing each other. \u2026 Every league \u2013 NFL, basketball, hockey \u2013 they all have a salary cap or something that creates parity in the league so everybody has an equal opportunity to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Once the House settlement received final approval, a $20.5 million cap went into place as schools began to directly share dollars with athletes through revenue-sharing. That figure is set to grow to $21.3 million on July 1, per terms of the settlement agreement.<\/p>\n

Nick Saban: \u2018Concern is the health of college athletics\u2019<\/p>\n

Looking beyond football, Nick Saban said he has questions about the future of college sports as a whole. He was in attendance for a roundtable on college athletics hosted by President Donald Trump and has spoken in support of the executive order Trump signed<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n

In Trump\u2019s order, he took aim at eligibility, and the NCAA advanced conversations<\/a> about a new age-based rule this week. It also called for a limit to transfer movement.<\/p>\n

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But Saban called out issues he sees with Olympics sports and how schools balance support for those programs with revenue programs such as football and basketball. Last week, Arkansas<\/a> announced its plans to discontinue its tennis programs<\/a>, which Saban also noted while vouching for non-revenue sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really think that the concern is the health of college athletics, not just football. I think people look at football and basketball. But how about the 22 other sports we have that are really, probably, non-revenue sports that create lots of opportunities, actually trained 85% of our Olympians in the last Olympics? We\u2019re the only country in the world that the university system and college athletics actually develop our athletes for the Olympics.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo if we\u2019re creating a situation where there\u2019s not enough balance between the revenue sports and the non-revenue sports. Then, people are going to start dropping these sports, which you saw Arkansas drop tennis \u2026 the other day. That\u2019s exactly what we don\u2019t want to see.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Now nearly a year into the rev-share era, the cap in place under the House settlement is expected…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,309585,594,593,16751,7889,85],"class_list":["post-639384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-college-athletics","tag-college-football","tag-nfl","tag-nick-saban","tag-salary-cap","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}