On Thursday, former Alabama coach turned ESPN analyst Nick Saban got a lot of attention for a seven-minute introduction of U.S. president Donald Trump as the school’s commencement speaker. But that wasn’t Saban’s only connection with Trump this week. Josh Dawsey, Rachel Bachman, and Laine Higgins of The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Saban used his time with Trump to lobby for an executive order to “reform” college sports’ name, image and likeness (NIL) payments, and that Trump seemingly agreed:
NEW: Trump Considers Executive Order on College Athlete Payments After Nick Saban Meeting
w/@jdawsey1 + @lainehiggins17 https://t.co/XsfdcxqQac
— Rachel Bachman (@Bachscore) May 2, 2025
Here’s more on that from that piece:
The Trump administration is considering an executive order that could increase scrutiny of the explosion in payments to college athletes since 2021, after the president met with former Alabama coach Nick Saban, White House officials said.
Trump met with Saban on Thursday night when he was in Tuscaloosa to deliver the University of Alabama’s commencement address. Saban talked about “NIL” deals with Trump, telling the president how he believed the influx of money had damaged college sports.
…Trump said he agreed with Saban and would look at crafting an executive order, people familiar with the meeting said. Trump told aides to begin studying what an order could say, the people said.
Saban didn’t propose ending NIL but “reforming” it, according to a person with direct knowledge of the meeting. He described how it was causing an uneven playing field, the people said, with an arms race among powerhouse schools.
It’s not particularly clear exactly what Saban wants here and exactly what Trump could or would do with an executive order on the NIL front. But it is certainly notable to hear about Saban’s lobbying here, especially with that coming around his rather-surprising introduction of Trump. And another former college football coach and ESPN analyst, current U.S. senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama), also posted about a NIL-related meeting with the president:
Had a great conversation with President Trump last night about the importance of establishing national standards for NIL.
College football is the heart and soul of America — but it’s in danger if we don’t level the playing field. pic.twitter.com/GlUycduFxY
— Coach Tommy Tuberville (@SenTuberville) May 2, 2025
Ahead of that conversation with Trump, Tuberville offered a few more specific comments on what he’d like to see on the NIL front to Tuscaloosa radio station 109.9 The Game Wednesday. Here’s some of what he said, via Fox News’ Ryan Morik:
“The one thing we can do is we can make every state be on the same level [for NIL money]… Now, between that, we have to come up with some rules for transfer portals and possible contracts for players, all the things that make college football the greatest sport ever. We do not want to turn into minor league sports. We can do things, we just gotta get it passed.”
“I think we can get it on the floor, the problem is getting it past a Democrat group that really wants nothing to do with making this country better. They don’t care about college sports or education, they worry about the power that they control in this country. It’s a hard way to go, but if anybody can get it done, it’s President Trump, and hopefully we can have some discussion to get on the right track toward helping the NIL and college sports.”
Tuberville also tied his comments here to Trump’s various remarks about and pushes against transgender athletes:
“There’s nothing more important than women’s sports, women’s athletics, and he stopped the nonsense of biological men and boys in women’s sports.… We’ve gotta save Title IX, we’ve gotta save women’s sports, and President Trump is the one that will stand up and fight for women. He’s done that, he understands it, and that will be in our entire discussion about NIL. If we continue down this path, there’s not gonna be any money left.… If we don’t do something soon, we will lose a lot of non-revenue sports, and most of those include women’s sports.”
We’ll see what, if anything, comes of this. There’s a long road from “would look at crafting an executive order” to actually creating and implementing one, and the details are going to be important on something like this. As Tuberville noted, too, while various kinds of federal NIL-limiting legislation have been proposed to date, none have gained much traction. But it is notable to see this conversation coming up again, and particularly to see Saban (who hasn’t been particularly tied to Trump, and is indeed writing a foreword for former Democratic/independent senator Joe Manchin’s upcoming book) linked to efforts to persuade the president to take action.
