TMW: Nick Saban
That Moment When...Nick Saban is set to earn 11.125 MILLION dollars in 2017 and is set to earn between $65 and $71 million through 2025. Can I earn that much money??? What do I have to do?? Well to start off, winning 5 college football national championships and four with the team that is going to be paying you their entire life savings is probably step one. Seriously though, why is Nick Saban paid so much? Is anyone really worth that kind of money? Hang tight and let's think this one out.
Let's start with the obvious counterpoints to this argument. First of all, Nick Saban is hired by the University of Alabama, a public college that is in part funded by taxpayers. Now of course the school is also funded considerably by donations and...ahem...tuition and fees. My question as a college student now is, "is my tuition money seriously going to Nick Saban and not my degree?". To be honest, probably not. Alabama earns close to the tune of $100 million a year from their football program and about $50 million in profit. Therefore Alabama probably doesn't feel the dent of Saban's paycheck too much from their football budget. When you have a stadium that holds 101,000 people and you can sell nosebleed seats for over $200 a piece, I'm sure it isn't too difficult to get $100 million a year to pay your star coach.
Past the financial negatives of it, there are a lot of positives including tangibles and intangibles. A lot goes into making the University of Alabama tick and Nick Saban is right at the center of it. From my experience, Nick Saban deserves every penny or more of what he makes and here are the reasons why:
Intangibles
Nick Saban is the leader of the Alabama football team, but more than that he is a leader of the University. From encouraging his athletes to perform well in the classroom and stay out of trouble with the law, he is a voice to all the students. I remember standing in the crowd on a cold cold (....45 degree) Alabama morning in January of 2016 after we won the National Championship and hearing Saban go on and on about how thankful he is for the fans and the Alabama community. And you can tell that he means that, too. Nick Saban takes tons of time out of his life to go see the marching band and the top students at the University and really motivate the community. Coach Saban goes to church just miles from the stadium. Alabama citizens have been saying "Roll Tide" for a long time now, but Saban embodies that phrase.
Now I am not going to sit here and write that making some fancy speeches and saying 'hi' to a few people mean that a guy deserves a $65 million contract. What I am saying is that UA is a school that lives and breathes on its legacy and Nick Saban is building and continuing that legacy every day. When you come to Alabama you will see signs everywhere about historic buildings, legendary coaches, 16 football national championships, countless other national championships, a growing academic program that is starting to become one of the best in the nation, and a school that is proud of its former presidents. Every talk that Saban gives and every event he goes to builds on this "southern comfort" image that Alabama loves and a legacy of success and care that they strive to uphold. By being such a winning coach on the field and such a gentle person off of it, he earns that paycheck. Alabama is never going to let go of a man who is growing their University at an astronomical rate and making them millions of dollars every year.
Tangibles
If you went to the University of Alabama ten years ago and came back today you wouldn't recognize the place. 22,078 students were registered for classes for the fall of 2007. In the fall of 2016, 37,665 students enrolled. That is an increase of over 50% in 9 years which is unheard of growth. Now the question is...when did Nick Saban come to the University of Alabama? I'll give you a hint...*cough*...the enrollment was 22,078 students that fall. Is it just a coincidence that over the 9+ years that Saban has been at Alabama that the school has EXPLODED in growth? I'd say it is not. That's not to say that Saban is so good at recruiting that he can go and recruit 38,000 college students, but he can embody the success of coming to Alabama and bring in enough money to start new scholarships, dorms, roads, and classrooms.
I, like many other students at Alabama, am an out-of-state student coming to the college. In fact, over 53% of campus is from out of state. Yes, you heard that right, a state school is over 50% out-of-state students. At 48,000 dollars a year you would think that the American economy is booming and young students are all rich nowadays. While we can all be hopeful...that is sadly not the case (I can attest to that). The real draw for out-of-state students is the possibility of coming to a great academic school (out of 629 public 4-year universities, UA ranks 46th...UC Berkeley ranks number 1), a school with an outstanding football program (look above), and a school that has a tuition-paid scholarship for hard working high school students. In fact, if you had a 32 or higher on the ACT and a 3.5 GPA you can come to UA tuition free for 8 semesters bringing your expected cost from $48,000/yr to $21,000/yr. AKA... a $200,000 degree or a $80,000 degree. The money and popularity that Saban has brought to the University has made it possible for so much growth. Without him and his football dominance Alabama would barely be a blip on anyone's radar, so much as a top choice for the top scholars in the country.
In addition to the growth in the student population, the campus has grown a ton too. From a new marching band practice field, a new wing to the school of music, a new entire classroom building (North Lawn Hall), redone roads throughout campus, etc...the campus seems to get more and more new infrastructure every year. With the growth of students that the University has had, they need to do some major construction to keep up and they have. The students that Saban has helped bring to campus have helped to bring millions of dollars to Tuscaloosa and UA and have paved the way for tons of new projects like a new performing arts hall, residential halls and an ENTIRE NEW SECTION OF CAMPUS. The University of Alabama is just now starting to build on their new "North Campus". It is going to add another 50% to the already huge University.
You may call me crazy, or just a big Alabama fan, but I think that Saban isn't paid enough to do the job that he has done. He has turned Tuscaloosa from a redneck little ghost town in West Alabama into a place where students crave to attend and money just seems to flow like water. Without Coach Saban nothing of this would be possible, I do believe, and I am eternally grateful to have been at this school at a time where I can see him coach. If you want to see all this for yourself, take a trip down sometime and work your way around the construction zones and closed roads to enjoy a growing campus that, at its heart, as it has been for over 100 years, is Alabama football. Thank you, Nick.
----For more insights into college football keep checking back at "Off the Bench". Hope you enjoyed! Please comment your opinions and I'll see you in the next blurb.-----
Past the financial negatives of it, there are a lot of positives including tangibles and intangibles. A lot goes into making the University of Alabama tick and Nick Saban is right at the center of it. From my experience, Nick Saban deserves every penny or more of what he makes and here are the reasons why:
Intangibles
Nick Saban is the leader of the Alabama football team, but more than that he is a leader of the University. From encouraging his athletes to perform well in the classroom and stay out of trouble with the law, he is a voice to all the students. I remember standing in the crowd on a cold cold (....45 degree) Alabama morning in January of 2016 after we won the National Championship and hearing Saban go on and on about how thankful he is for the fans and the Alabama community. And you can tell that he means that, too. Nick Saban takes tons of time out of his life to go see the marching band and the top students at the University and really motivate the community. Coach Saban goes to church just miles from the stadium. Alabama citizens have been saying "Roll Tide" for a long time now, but Saban embodies that phrase.
Now I am not going to sit here and write that making some fancy speeches and saying 'hi' to a few people mean that a guy deserves a $65 million contract. What I am saying is that UA is a school that lives and breathes on its legacy and Nick Saban is building and continuing that legacy every day. When you come to Alabama you will see signs everywhere about historic buildings, legendary coaches, 16 football national championships, countless other national championships, a growing academic program that is starting to become one of the best in the nation, and a school that is proud of its former presidents. Every talk that Saban gives and every event he goes to builds on this "southern comfort" image that Alabama loves and a legacy of success and care that they strive to uphold. By being such a winning coach on the field and such a gentle person off of it, he earns that paycheck. Alabama is never going to let go of a man who is growing their University at an astronomical rate and making them millions of dollars every year.
Tangibles
If you went to the University of Alabama ten years ago and came back today you wouldn't recognize the place. 22,078 students were registered for classes for the fall of 2007. In the fall of 2016, 37,665 students enrolled. That is an increase of over 50% in 9 years which is unheard of growth. Now the question is...when did Nick Saban come to the University of Alabama? I'll give you a hint...*cough*...the enrollment was 22,078 students that fall. Is it just a coincidence that over the 9+ years that Saban has been at Alabama that the school has EXPLODED in growth? I'd say it is not. That's not to say that Saban is so good at recruiting that he can go and recruit 38,000 college students, but he can embody the success of coming to Alabama and bring in enough money to start new scholarships, dorms, roads, and classrooms.
I, like many other students at Alabama, am an out-of-state student coming to the college. In fact, over 53% of campus is from out of state. Yes, you heard that right, a state school is over 50% out-of-state students. At 48,000 dollars a year you would think that the American economy is booming and young students are all rich nowadays. While we can all be hopeful...that is sadly not the case (I can attest to that). The real draw for out-of-state students is the possibility of coming to a great academic school (out of 629 public 4-year universities, UA ranks 46th...UC Berkeley ranks number 1), a school with an outstanding football program (look above), and a school that has a tuition-paid scholarship for hard working high school students. In fact, if you had a 32 or higher on the ACT and a 3.5 GPA you can come to UA tuition free for 8 semesters bringing your expected cost from $48,000/yr to $21,000/yr. AKA... a $200,000 degree or a $80,000 degree. The money and popularity that Saban has brought to the University has made it possible for so much growth. Without him and his football dominance Alabama would barely be a blip on anyone's radar, so much as a top choice for the top scholars in the country.
In addition to the growth in the student population, the campus has grown a ton too. From a new marching band practice field, a new wing to the school of music, a new entire classroom building (North Lawn Hall), redone roads throughout campus, etc...the campus seems to get more and more new infrastructure every year. With the growth of students that the University has had, they need to do some major construction to keep up and they have. The students that Saban has helped bring to campus have helped to bring millions of dollars to Tuscaloosa and UA and have paved the way for tons of new projects like a new performing arts hall, residential halls and an ENTIRE NEW SECTION OF CAMPUS. The University of Alabama is just now starting to build on their new "North Campus". It is going to add another 50% to the already huge University.
You may call me crazy, or just a big Alabama fan, but I think that Saban isn't paid enough to do the job that he has done. He has turned Tuscaloosa from a redneck little ghost town in West Alabama into a place where students crave to attend and money just seems to flow like water. Without Coach Saban nothing of this would be possible, I do believe, and I am eternally grateful to have been at this school at a time where I can see him coach. If you want to see all this for yourself, take a trip down sometime and work your way around the construction zones and closed roads to enjoy a growing campus that, at its heart, as it has been for over 100 years, is Alabama football. Thank you, Nick.
----For more insights into college football keep checking back at "Off the Bench". Hope you enjoyed! Please comment your opinions and I'll see you in the next blurb.-----
Comments
Post a Comment