Nick Saban stresses importance of keeping non-revenue sports after President Donald Trump's executive order

On Thursday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order with the intent of ending third-party, pay-for-play payments in college athletics. In the middle of all that, though, Nick Saban wants to ensure the protection of other collegiate sports outside of football and men’s basketball.

In an appearance on FOX News on Friday, Saban stressed the need to take care of the non-revenue sports. That’s because of what the profits made in football and men’s basketball have meant to the other sports outside of those two for many years now.

“Well, I think that, you know, I’m for keeping all the sports that we have, as many that we can have. But, you know, there are financial concerns relative to how many sports can you promote that don’t create revenue?” Saban said. “I think one of the things that people need to understand about college sports – they say it’s a business, but it’s really not a business. It’s revenue-producing and two sports have created the revenue to have 20 other sports, and I think that’s why it’s important that we have a system in place.

“And I think, you know, President Trump has made the first step toward that. I think, you know, the SCORE Act in Congress right now would be another step in that direction, would protect the opportunities that we’ve been able to provide for male and female, non-revenue sports because I think it’s everybody’s goal to keep all those opportunities intact.”

Again, of everything to factor into what name, image, and likeness and revenue sharing looks live moving forward, this aspect is of note. That’s with football and men’s basketball making all of the profits as compared to every other sport around college athletics.

Saban reacts to Trump’s executive order relating to college sports

When President Donald Trump initially expressed concern about the current state of collegiate athletics back in May, he turned to Nick Saban for advice, as, after meeting in Tuscaloosa, Trump tabbed the legendary former coach as a co-chair on a yet-to-be-realized presidential commission on college sports. And, while Trump’s proposed presidential commission never went beyond those initial discussion phases, Saban’s input helped create the framework of what would become Trump’s recent executive order, titled “President Donald J. Trump Saves College Sports,” which the White House announced Thursday.

A day later, Saban praised the president’s executive order. He called it “a huge step” toward moving college athletics back to an “educational model” after the House v. NCAA settlement effectively ended the NCAA’s “amateur” model and ushered in revenue-sharing with student-athletes beginning July 1st.

“I think President Trump’s executive order is a huge step in providing the educational model which is what we’ve always sort of tried to promote to create opportunities for players, male and female alike, revenue and non-revenue, so they can have development as people, students and develop careers or develop professionally if that’s what they choose to do,” Saban said during a Friday morning appearance on FOX’s Fox and Friends. “I think we need to make a decision here relative to do we want to have an education-based model, which I think the President made a huge step toward that, or do we want to have universities sponsor professional teams. And I think most people would choose the former.”

The “Save College Sports” executive order delivers on multiple agenda items the NCAA and Power Four administrators have lobbied Congress for in recent months. That includes directing key members of his administration — specifically his secretaries of Education, Health and Human Services and the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission — to develop a plan to provide antitrust protections for the NCAA and its conferences so it can properly create and enforce rules governing the future of collegiate athletics.

An executive order streamlines some of the top items on the NCAA’s wishlist. The order “requires the preservation and, where possible, expansion of opportunities for scholarships and collegiate athletic competition in women’s and non-revenue sports.”