This morning on ESPN's First Take, Nick Saban argued player and coach pay are "totally different markets." "That's like asking me 'Does a student's scholarship equal the professor's pay?' I mean, how much value does a coach create for a university?" 📺 💰️
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Replying to @awfulannouncing
Coaching salaries have 3x’d over the last 15 years. Player pay is on track to 4x in 3 years. One is reasonable growth with the growth of the sport. The other is out of control spending being led by 6 college booster programs. It’s hilarious that people can’t see the difference in the 2.

Sep 29, 2026 · 8:45 PM UTC

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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
"Let the free market win!" - You
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
The analysis looks right, but it discounts the glaring fact that player pay was suppressed for a century. So, eventually, the market finds its level, as has every free market in the history of man kind.
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
Well, that's a clear indicator that the player is more valuable than the coach. Players sell jerseys, shirts, and tickets. Coaches just motivate. It's hilarious that you didn't see that difference before your tweet.
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
One has been getting paid for decades, and the other just started being able to get paid…there was no market baseline so your growth figures mean nothing right now
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
Players pay went from zero to what it is now. Coaches salaries went from $1 million to $5 million to $10 million to $14 million. Why do these coaches need to make that much money and then lose? Only 4 active coaches have won national titles.
Coach Moore MS, CSCS
@Coach_Moore_BU
Sep 29
Why do these coaches make $13,000,000 a year and then have $70,000,000 buyouts when they get fired for losing? Student fees and taxpayers pay a portion of these buyouts. If im hired as a head coach I refuse to have a buyout and if we don’t win a title I will give my salary back.
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
Supply and Demand. Let the free market system work. The player market is newer so perhaps the value started too low and the market demand is making the appropriate adjustment.
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
Oh come on.. the players got fucked out of pay for a hundred years.
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
Both are out of control spending when the universities receive any tax money at all. If they can pay extra curricular athletic salaries they don’t need any tax money at all period.
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
And why do (predominantly black) player earnings bother you, Nick Saban and white Senators so much? 🤔🤔 Let the free market decide
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
Players were starting form essentially nothing relative to coaches whose wages have been growing for a century+. They're near their ceiling. Players on the other hand are just getting off their floor. 3x is easy to do when you're going from $1 - $3, you've 3x'd. Sooooooo.
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
The multipliers are not fair comparisons. Players were vastly under compensated so naturally their growth is on a steeper trajectory.
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
Yeah because players are more valuable.
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
Why is there no monetary value put on the scholarship as part of NIL ....or should we just say pay for play. Other students have high student loans they are paying back for years and an athlete leaves not owing a dime.
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
People come to see the players not the coaches are people buying nick Saban jerseys
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
Player pay was a little cash in a bag for the best players, and a shut up and take this “at no cost to us scholarship” for 100 years. Sorry they finally work up to the fact fans are there to watch them. Hate it for the old rich guys. It was a good run. 🤷‍♂️
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
Trevor: Coaches have been paid since football started. Players just recently started getting paid. If you start at virtually zero, of course the multiple is going to be higher. Please don't be an idiot.
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
Supply and demand. Some say college sports have never been more competitive because paying the players is keeping more talent in the NCAA and not going pro.
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
You will also notice star players earn more than coaches in any other professional league as well.
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
Which is which? Coaches are signing damn near $100M contracts.
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
4x starting from 0 is a very week argument on your part concerning players salaries. 15 years ago coaches were already making at least 3 million a year a big Universities. At the same time NIL was still 10 years away.
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
I think inflation is the main factor that’s not discussed. It’s not growth in pay, it’s inflation. The dollar is weaker and we need more of them to participate in buying goods and services
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
Why are you anti-capitalist?
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
Lol literally argued why players are more valuable
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
A cap system is what college sports needs to balance its self out. The cap will allow smaller schools to compete.
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
who creates more value?
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
Coaching staffs are being paid 2x what rosters get.
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Top rosters are over $50 million per year. Please point me to the HC making $100 million per year.
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
This ignores that coaches have been able to negotiate their salaries on the open market for 100 years. Players have been able to do so for... 5 years?
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
This is a fallacy argument
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
It doesn't matter. If a "sugar daddy" wants to blow his money on an athlete that's his decision!
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
Its hilarious you don’t understand why that’s the case
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
The coach attracts the players
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
Communist
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Replying to @TRalph30 @awfulannouncing
Supply and demand
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