The man who could be in charge of a presidential commission to examine issues in college athletics isn’t sure that the commission needs to exist in the first place.
Former Alabama coach Nick Saban said Wednesday that he didn’t know much about a planned commission created by President Donald Trump for college sports. Sources told Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger a week ago that Saban would be one of the leaders of the commission along with Texas Tech booster and board chair Cody Campbell.
“So first of all, I don’t know a lot about the commission first of all, secondly, I’m not sure we really need a commission,” Saban said on “The Paul Finebaum Show” on Wednesday. “I think that a lot of people know exactly what the issues are in college football and exactly what we need to do to fix them. I think the key to the drill is getting people together so we can move it forward. I’m not opposed to players making money, I don’t want anybody to think that. I just think the system — the way it’s going right now it’s not sustainable and probably not in the best interests of the student-athletes across the board or the game itself.”
The longtime Alabama coach hasn’t been shy about expressing his displeasure for the way that college sports are now operated in the era of name, image and likeness payments. The NCAA created a system without many rules when it was forced by state courts around the country to change its outdated amateurism rules.
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Saban’s name has been floated by many as a great choice for college football commissioner — a position that doesn’t exist in the sport’s current form. He met with Trump when Trump spoke at Alabama’s graduation ceremonies earlier this month.
“First of all, the way all this started was when President Trump spoke at commencement at Alabama,” Saban said. “He said ‘all my friends are saying college football is really messed up, let’s get together so we can figure out how to fix it.’ So that’s how this all got started. But I really don’t want to get into the implementation of what I would do. I think the first thing is, is everybody’s got a different state law which creates advantages and disadvantages and everybody’s trying to create advantages. So we probably need an inter-state commerce-type something that gets it all there. I don’t think it’s in the best interest of the players to necessarily be employees [of the schools]. And I think authentic name, image and likeness is good for players, but I don’t think pay for play is necessarily what we want.”
The easiest way to override varying state laws governing payments to players would be a federal framework. The NCAA and its leaders have been asking Congress to do just that, but those efforts have not been fruitful. The impending House settlement — if it’s approved by a judge — will also have wide-ranging impacts on college sports.
Trump, meanwhile, was also reportedly considering an executive order directed at college sports after meeting with Saban. It’s unclear, however, just what authority an executive order could have given the executive branch’s lack of oversight when it comes to college sports.
This news was originally published on this post .
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