Legal expert defends Nick Saban's recent meeting with Donald Trump, comments on NIL: 'I don't think there's anything wrong with that'

President Donald Trump is reportedly considering signing an executive order surrounding name, image and likeness after a recent meeting with former Alabama head coach Nick Saban. The order would “increase scrutiny” on NIL, which Saban had argued was something that has “damaged college sports,” per the Wall Street Journal.

Michael McCann, legal expert for Sportico, author and professor at UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law, joined Paul Finebaum to provide analysis on the situation. Finebaum would aske McCann for his opinion on Saban sharing his thoughts on NIL with the president.

“Well, I think Nick Saban could certainly share his viewpoints with the president or others. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that,” McCann told Finebaum. “I think it’s what the president does with that information, and then takes it to sort of insert himself into this topic. And I think that’s where it becomes potentially problematic, not only for the president, but again, I don’t think the NCAA wants this. I don’t think the NCAA wants the president to come in to issue executive orders that would then create new litigation that even if the NCAA isn’t a party, would have a huge stake in.

“Who knows what Nick Saban said, or the manner in which he said it. He may have said, these are just my views. I don’t think he was acting as some emissary of the NCAA, or anything like that. It was just sharing his viewpoints as a obviously super successful coach who knows a lot about college sports, but what the president then does with that is sort of the trickier part, and that’s not necessarily unique to sports, either. It’s any any person who has a conversation with him, if he then takes that to say, here’s a new policy that didn’t go through the sort of necessary channels, it can create some chaos.”

The meeting between the president and longtime college football head coach took place on Thursday night, where Saban expressed concern regarding the amount of NIL dollars added to the college sports landscape. Trump reportedly agreed with Saban that NIL was damaging college athletic, and told aides to begin studying what a potential order would look like.

Saban reportedly expressed interest in “reforming NIL,” and creating a more even playing field, echoing previous sentiment regarding competitive balance within college athletics. How Trump plans to address the situation from this point remains to be seen.