Alabama coach Nick Saban is supportive of college athletes' ability to make money off their name and image rights. But he's also a proponent of federal rules to govern how athletes can make that money.
Saban said Sunday morning that he believed college football will have a competitive imbalance without some sort of national guidelines for college athlete endorsements and sponsorships. After years of procrastination, the NCAA stopped enforcing its archaic rules preventing athletes from making endorsement money ahead of the 2021-22 seasons.
"I think what is a little concerning is how is that used to get players to decide where they go to school, because I don't think that was the intention," Saban said. "I don't think that would be the NCAA's intention. I think we probably need some kind of national legislation to sort of control that to some degree, because I think there will be an imbalance relative to who can dominate college football if that's not regulated in some form or fashion.
"And the more we get to players making money and players actually having the opportunity to make money, which I'm not opposed to, maybe there's some circumstance where there has to be some kind of an agreement between both the school and the player as to what their commitment is to what they choose to do because that is something, making commitments and fulfilling them, that is probably important to having a chance to be successful."