With the SEC Spring Meetings underway in Destin, Florida, Nick Saban spoke to the media yesterday about a wide range of topics including NIL and the business of college sports, or in his mind, the fact that college sports is not a business.<\/p>\n
“I think the big mistake that people make is that college athletics is not a business. People say it’s a business, it’s not a business, it’s revenue producing. When I was a coach with the Miami Dolphins and Wayne Huizenga owned the team, that was a business. He took a profit, he made money, he made a huge investment, that doesn’t happen in college athletics. We reinvest every cent into non-revenue sports, into scholarships, into things that create opportunity, into things create opportunities, which is really good,” Saban stated.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Saban, while he has gotten on board with NIL, has cautioned about the dangers of turning college athletics into a business from the beginning. To say a billion dollar industry like college athletics is not a business however, feels a bit like coach Saban is getting caught up in the semantics of the definition of the word “business”.<\/p>\n College athletics is absolutely a business, whether Saban likes it or not. Over the coming years, the evolution of NIL and the big business of college sports will be a fascinating thing to monitor.<\/p>\n