If you thought Nick Saban would quietly ride off into retirement, forget it. The Alabama legend, who made Tuscaloosa a college football dynasty, is in the news again, only this time, he’s trading in the headset for a place at the policy table. Saban is in the limelight as the alleged co-chair of a new presidential commission on college sports, an idea floated by President Donald Trump following a recent discussion at Alabama’s graduation ceremony. Cody Campbell, Texas Tech board chair and a leading figure in the NIL, is likely to join him.

The commission, still in the planning stages, expects to tackle a slew of hot-button issues: the transfer portal’s chaos, NIL’s unregulated booster money, debates over athlete employment, Title IX implications for revenue sharing, and even conference realignment. But here’s the twist: Saban himself doesn’t entirely support the idea. On The Paul Finebaum Show, he admitted, “I’m not very informed about the commission, to begin with. Additionally, I feel that we don’t necessarily need a commission. There are plenty of people who are very much aware of the issues in college football and what needs to be accomplished to resolve them. The key is to bring people together so we can make progress.” 

On 15th May, On3 Sports posted on X. “I’m not opposed to players making money,” says Nick. “I just think the system that we (are using), the way it’s going right now is not sustainable, and probably not in the best interest of the student-athletes across the board or the game itself.” 

Saban has never been ambiguous: he’s not opposed to college athletes making money off their name, image, and likeness. Indeed, he believes that players should reap the huge sums of money generated by their sports. What concerns Saban is how this system plays out. Currently, there are few rules or fences. Boosters and collectives are ladling out enormous amounts of money to recruits, producing what Saban and others describe as a “pay-for-play” atmosphere.

With President Trump (and perhaps the White House more generally) intervening, the plan is to bring people like Saban together to make a more sustainable, equitable system. Saban’s words capture his optimism that, with good national leadership, college sports can strike a balance: allowing players to profit but also preserving the sport and the players themselves from the unintended effects of an unregulated marketplace.

Fans react to Nick Saban’s confusion over the commission

Saban never says anything without creating a little bit of drama, and his last comment-“I’m not sure we need a commission” has certainly created a firestorm among college football fans. If you scroll through Twitter or listen to sports radio, you’ll find that the fans are divided right down the middle, and everybody has an opinion.

“Lol, Nick starts by saying we might not need it, and then demonstrates why he should be on it,” one fan wrote. I mean, man’s right. It’s quite obvious that Saban is sort of lost on the POTUS’s position regarding commissioning the athletes. However, he’s arguing the case for the commission without realizing so! He discusses how the system, as it stands, is not sustainable, how NIL is getting out of hand, and how the portal system is making a mess. He even states that what is truly lacking is leadership and cooperation. That’s pretty much the definition of someone as co-chair of a commission.

Another fan also gave his opinion. “It absolutely needs a commission to keep conferences from doing what they are now, which is trying to push others out. It turned into a brand contest, not a football contest.” Now, this one nails it. Today, college football is not merely about who is greatest out there on the field; it has become a frenzied competition for brands, TV contracts, and control. Conferences are out here behaving like competing corporations, attempting to poach the largest schools and leave everyone else in the dust. Just consider all the recent conference realignment drama: teams are defecting left and right, and they are casting aside old-school rivalries for more lucrative paydays and media attention. The issue is, without some sort of commission or central body, there’s no one ensuring the sport as a whole remains healthy.

“If Trump says we need a commission, we need a commission.” Oh, this one is just full of old-school internet sarcasm! Let’s be honest: whenever a president gives his weight to an idea, it immediately becomes the buzz, whether you like him or not. The tweet is mocking the way, in the modern era, mentioning something by a large personality makes it seem like a national crisis. Now, everybody is jumping up and down as if a commission is a magic solution because Trump mentioned that during a graduation speech.

However, there is a school of thought within college football that doesn’t shy away from criticizing Nick Saban for benefiting from the pre-NIL system. One fan wrote, “Let’s see. Nick was paying players for the last 40 years. And now he’s on the commission.” For decades, there have been rumors (okay, sometimes outright conspiracy theories) that powerhouse programs such as Alabama were “taking care of” their players long before NIL legalized it. And who’s been at the forefront of that powerhouse? Good ol’ Nick Saban. So now the irony is just too rich: the person everyone joked was already operating his shadow payroll is now assisting in regulating how players get paid. It’s akin to putting the fox in charge of the henhouse, rather, making the “CEO” of the old system the chairman of the new system.