{"id":78620,"date":"2025-12-23T00:12:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T00:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/78620\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T00:12:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T00:12:08","slug":"nick-sabans-new-role-with-nashville-predators-nbc-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/78620\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Saban\u2019s new role with Nashville Predators \u2013 NBC New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nick Saban knows his strengths with\u00a0seven national championships\u00a0as a college football<\/a> coach. He also understands how to put coaches and athletes in the best position to succeed.<\/p>\n

That’s what he hopes to bring to the NHL’s<\/a>\u00a0Nashville Predators\u00a0after joining the franchise as a minority owner.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m no expert in hockey, so don\u2019t look at me like I\u2019m going to make some huge impact coaching around here because that\u2019s not going to happen,” Saban said Monday. \u201cBut I do have a pretty good idea of what it takes to have successful organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saban made his first appearance Monday in his new role as a minority owner alongside Predators chairman Bill Haslam.<\/p>\n

The Predators announced\u00a0Saban’s purchase Dec. 16\u00a0through Dream Sports Ventures LLC, an entity controlled by Saban and business partner Joe Agresti. That business group features 10 car dealerships, including two in Nashville.<\/p>\n

Haslam, a former Tennessee governor, was working on a possible WNBA<\/a> expansion franchise when Saban told the Predators controlling owner that he also might be interested in hockey.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, \u2018Well, that\u2019s the greatest no brainer of all time,\u2019” Haslam said. “You have somebody who understands building a championship culture, who understands, I think, better than almost anybody in sports the process that\u2019s needed to get to where you can compete as a champion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saban grew up in West Virginia with no hockey around. He became interested in hockey when coaching at Michigan State and became friends and shared ideas with that team’s coach. Saban called this an opportunity to be involved with a team for the first time since he announced his retirement Jan. 10, 2024.<\/p>\n

So what will Saban bring to the NHL and the Predators in his newest role?<\/p>\n

His experience building programs both in college football and six seasons in the NFL working for Bill Belichick in Cleveland and as head coach of Miami. A \u201ctransformational leader\u201d as Saban put it. Once college football season ends, Saban said he will be involved as much as Haslam wants.<\/p>\n

Saban already has spoken to coaches and some players during what he called a minicamp. Saban also has met a couple times with general manager Barry Trotz, saying his goal is to support Trotz and everyone else with the Predators.<\/p>\n

Nashville won the\u00a0Western Conference\u00a0before losing the\u00a0Stanley Cup Final in 2017\u00a0to Pittsburgh in six games. The Predators won the\u00a0Presidents’ Trophy\u00a0for the 2017-18 season but ranked 26th out of 32 NHL teams Monday five points back of the second wild-card spot in the West.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be a part of the hockey team here is something special, and we’d love to build it into a championship,\u201d Saban said. \u201cWe’d love to partner with Mr. Haslam to do anything that we can do to help this organization be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCNBC senior sports reporter Michael Ozanian explains why the University of Texas\u2019 athletic program is valued at $1.48 billion.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nick Saban knows his strengths with\u00a0seven national championships\u00a0as a college football coach. He also understands how to put…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[11590,12612,27552,9,11,10,539],"class_list":["post-78620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-college-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-nhl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}