Did Nick Saban retire because of NIL and the transfer portal?

No, according to Nick Saban on This Past Weekend with Theo Von. Saban said name, image and likeness payments existed for his last three seasons and were not a big issue, because he had managed a salary cap in the NFL. What he noticed was players making more transactional decisions, choosing schools by how much they would be paid rather than how they would be developed, which meant Alabama would have had to change how it recruited.

• Saban says Alabama's proof of value was a high graduation rate, fewer players in trouble, and the most draft picks and first-round picks.
• Saban says paying players means raising money from alumni, who then expect a say in the program.

▸In their words

“In fact, we had name, image, and likeness, I think, the last three years that I coached.” Nick Saban · at 48:06 — open in the transcript →

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von (2026-10-06). Read the whole episode summary →

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