Nick Saban’s ‘epic period’ of teaching is over, however the exploitation of gamers in big-time faculty soccer isn’t

When Nick Saban, the legendary College of Alabama soccer coach, introduced his retirement at age 72 in January 2024, numerous analysts and colleagues depicted his departure because the end of an “epic era” of coaching.

“WOW! Faculty soccer simply misplaced the GOAT to retirement,” the outspoken College of Colorado coach, Deion Sanders, stated on X. Sanders went on to lament how faculty soccer has modified a lot that it “chased the GOAT away.”

Surely, Saban’s faculty teaching document of 297 wins, 71 losses and 1 tie – to not point out seven nationwide championships – places him in an elite group of faculty coaches.

Nonetheless, because the creator of a ebook on the racially exploitative nature of college sports, I don’t see Saban as having been “chased away.” Somewhat, I see Saban’s retirement as his stepping away from an evolving faculty sports activities system that’s more and more empowering athletes in ways in which he vocally condemned.

Saban was no champion for school athletes’ rights. As an alternative, he sought to keep up a establishment that exploited players whereas enriching coaches, faculties and company sponsors.

Opposed athlete endorsements and switch portal

Saban is outspoken about his discontent with recent rule changes regarding title, picture and likeness, or NIL. The brand new guidelines enable faculty athletes to signal endorsement offers and revenue from their fame.

Saban felt the NIL adjustments would enable packages to lure gamers to their groups by providing extra money for the gamers and their households. In different phrases, any college with rich donors may use attractive NIL packages to safe the highest expertise and outbid different faculties with much less sources. Mockingly, the NIL adjustments did not widen the existing recruiting gap between the highest Energy 5 faculties – resembling Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State and Louisiana State College – and their friends throughout the identical subdivision.

And but, had he stored teaching, Saban would have earned a staggering US$11.1 million wage in 2024. That included a $1.1 million annual base wage and a $10 million talent fee, which was to extend $400,000 every year. Expertise charges are usually paid by universities utilizing income generated from sponsorships and rights offers, and canopy having the ability to use the coach’s NIL. He additionally was capable of profit from multimillion-dollar endorsement deals from Nike, Chevrolet and different manufacturers because of his high-profile teaching standing.

Saban additionally criticized changes to the NCAA transfer portal, which, starting in 2021, has enabled gamers to modify faculties with out having to take a seat out a 12 months after the switch. Saban mentioned the portal makes it tougher for coaches to keep up participant loyalty.

In the meantime, for years, coaches may leave programs abruptly for better-paying jobs no matter guarantees made to their recruits or former gamers. Saban himself left Louisiana State to teach the NFL’s Miami Dolphins in 2004.

A system that exploits gamers

Faculty soccer gamers are the first labor power for the multibillion-dollar faculty sports activities business. Given how a lot cash they make for his or her universities, coaches and company sponsors – and the truth that a majority of them won’t make it to the NFL – this can be a interval of their lives after they have plenty of incomes energy.

However not like their coaches, who’re compensated primarily based on their market worth, the gamers’ compensation – by way of scholarships – are artificially capped. Their earnings are restricted to tuition, room and board, a meal plan, termed medical protection and small stipends.

This implies athletes in Energy 5 soccer and Division I males’s basketball are being denied full economic rights, or the chance to be paid market worth for his or her labor.

Moreover, scholarships aren’t assured every year – a coach can deny an athlete’s scholarship from being renewed. The scholarship agreements additionally require gamers to attend practices and conferences, keep tutorial eligibility, adhere to in-season and out-of-season teaching mandates, and carry out in athletic competitions.

One research of Pac-12 athletes discovered that gamers spend on average 50 hours per week on athletics. Along with attending practices, movie classes and competitions, they must spend time on athletic coaching, journey and bodily remedy remedies. Though the NCAA has a 20-hour-per-week most relating to required athletic actions, there are actions which are described as voluntary, whilst noncompliance involves penalties.

Then there are accidents.

In a research of 300 faculty soccer gamers, Harvard professors discovered that one-third reported having had at least one concussion. Two-thirds reported having had a number of accidents of one other sort. This highlights the occupational hazard and long-term well being dangers related to the game.

A brand new golden period

In different phrases, the presumed epic period of teaching excellence that ESPN analysts believe Saban represents was additionally a interval of exploitation and disempowerment for school athletes.

This extremely exploitative system is opposite to the NCAA’s stated mission, which claims to worth its athletes greater than its employees or company companions.

And this exploitation has had obvious racial implications.

The Division I coaches, conferences, NCAA and company sponsors secured many thousands and thousands of {dollars} for themselves whereas systematically depriving a largely Black college football labor force from incomes their market worth.

A brand new bill regarding NIL rights intends to offer federal pointers for NIL parameters and set up an impartial oversight group. But the authors of the laws nonetheless search to forestall faculty athletes from being labeled as staff. With out worker and union standing, the advantages that might be achieved via collective bargaining and create a extra equitable taking part in discipline for school athletes will stay elusive.

Nick Saban will inevitably be inducted into the Corridor of Fame. Nonetheless, his retirement, I imagine, doesn’t symbolize the top of a golden period of teaching excellence. Somewhat, it marks a possible shift towards a real golden period of equitable big-time faculty sports activities, one which treats faculty athletes as deserving of their justifiable share of the revenues they generate.