Nick Saban reveals his thoughts on the potential of football players unionizing

Nick Saban, through on-field success and longevity on the sidelines, has rightly ascended to something of an elder statesman for college football while still coaching at Alabama. And the Crimson Tide head coach recently shared his thinking about the possibility of college football players get organized and unionizing.

He readily admitted he doesn’t have the expertise to game out the short- or long-term consequences. But Saban said he’s never really opposed dealing with a group that’s decided to be organized as opposing to piece meal.

“I think that — it never scares me that people are organized. I think there’s some good in that. I think, you know General Motors and the automotive industries had unions for a long time and they survived fairly well,” Saban said in an interview with Fox Sports’ Joel Klatt.

And while Saban would be fine with dealing with an organized group of players, he understands others would be reticent.

Part of that reticence stems from the knowledge that the end point on the road of organization is likely recognizing football players as employees of schools as well as students. That would be a required step to athletes forming a real union and not some more generalized labor organization.

“But there’s a lot of people who are a little skeptical and I can understand why: That you make college student athletes employees. And I think when you organize them, that’s maybe what the ultimate result may be. So, and I can’t honestly say that I’m qualified to know exactly what the cause and effect of that would really be,” Saban said.

One of Saban’s elder statesmen peers said he expects football players to become employees sooner, rather than later

North Carolina head coach Mack Brown had a bold prediction for where college athletics is headed — albeit the boldness of the idea fades by the day. On the “Paul Finebaum Show” in late June, Brown said he thinks in the next few years, schools and athletes will move to an employee-employer relationship with regards to intercollegiate athletics.

Brown has some concerns about this, but seems to be anticipating it more than predicting it at this point. He doesn’t seem to think college sports has a chance to undo this Pandora’s Box that has been opened.

“So I think we’re going to see major changes over the next two years. I think we’ll see student student athletes becoming employees of universities. I think we’ll more of a salary cap. Athletes will start getting the same amount of money. Whether the collective goes back inside the university, because then it gets under some Title IX jurisdiction or stays out, who knows,” Brown said.