Just a Minute:Nick Saban and Greg Byrne Spent time at the Capitol on Tuesday.
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00:00 I'm Joe Gaither and this is just a minute.
00:03 It's Tuesday, March 12th and it's a busy day for head coach Nick Saban, even though he's
00:07 in retirement.
00:08 Coach Saban was in Capitol Hill today in Washington with Greg Byrne, James Miller, the ACC commissioner,
00:15 and several other senators, the Cavender twins as well, to talk about name, image, and likeness.
00:20 They took part in the roundtable for future of college athletics hosted by Senator Ted
00:24 Cruz.
00:25 That's Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, as well as several
00:30 other senators taking part in the presentation today.
00:33 But essentially Greg Byrne and Nick Saban discussed how name, image, and likeness and
00:38 discussed how revenue is dealt with at the University of Alabama and discussed how the
00:42 transfer portal has affected the University of Alabama and affected college athletics
00:47 as a whole.
00:48 It was a really insightful look for Nick Saban's mindset.
00:52 Nick Saban said, "Everything that I believe in college athletics over the last 50 years
00:57 has all been gone."
00:58 Nick Saban gave us a little insight in a conversation that he and Terry Saban had.
01:03 Ms. Terry was talking to some of the recruits' mothers and came to Coach Saban and said,
01:07 "Why are we doing this?
01:09 Why are we doing this?
01:11 Essentially all these players are after money at this point."
01:14 Now, it was very interesting to hear from Greg Byrne on the flip side, talking about
01:18 the money in football and how the money in football and basketball here at the University
01:22 of Alabama are really the only revenue-producing sports.
01:28 They had what?
01:29 21 sports here at the Capstone and 19 of them lose money.
01:34 He said if you didn't have football and you didn't have basketball, you'd have a $40 million
01:38 loss on the 19 other sports.
01:42 So the future of college athletics hinges on being able to really keep some sort of
01:49 a guardrail on football because football is obviously king while basketball brings up
01:54 the rear and also makes a little bit of money.
01:56 Football is the king and you've seen conference realignment over the last decade really change
02:01 and shift the landscape of college athletics.
02:04 And then you throw in NIL as it has been over the last three years with no guardrails.
02:09 Every state making their own laws and their own rules.
02:13 Today, Greg Byrne, Nick Saban, James Miller, lots of other high prominent players in college
02:20 athletics, the Cavendish Twins as well, took part in the roundtable for the future of college
02:24 athletics to try to get Congress to start discussing, start drafting some sort of federal
02:31 legislation for the name, image, and likeness to send the sport down a path that has productivity.
02:38 And so it was really interesting to hear from Greg Byrne today and really interesting to
02:42 hear from Nick Saban.
02:43 You can see that right there on Senator Ted Cruz's YouTube channel.
02:46 If you want to watch the entire hour and a half presentation, it's called the Senator
02:50 Ted Cruz host roundtable on future of college athletics.
02:54 This has been just a minute.
02:55 I'm Joe Gaither and we're here for Bama Central.
02:58 We'll be back with more just a minute tomorrow, right here on Bama Central, your home for
03:01 the Alabama Crimson Tide.
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