Donald Trump has made it clear that he wants to change NIL deals in college, and Nick Saban has also pushed for an alteration, and they met for a round of golf on Sunday
Joseph McBride US Sports Reporter
16:58 ET, 15 Feb 2026
Nick Saban joined Donald Trump for a round of golf at his West Palm Beach club(Image: 2025 Getty Images)
Legendary college football head coach Nick Saban reportedly joined President Donald Trump for a round of golf on Sunday following meetings over name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals for college athletes.
That’s according to Politico, which reported that Trump and Saban would also join Ron DeSantis and Urban Meyer at the president’s golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Saban and Trump have been friends for some time and agree on the current state of NIL in college sports.
Trump has slammed the NIL scheme and warned that colleges could go out of business if they continue to pay out NFL-style deals to athletes. Saban is also opposed to the new NCAA culture and, after retiring, confessed that he no longer identified with the values of college football.
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Saban is one of the all-time greats, winning seven national championships during a 50-year coaching career. However, the model changed in 2021, allowing athletes to profit from NIL, forever changing the landscape.
Two years later, Saban retired from coaching and stepped down from his role at Alabama. Trump has since leaned on Saban for assistance and has made several threats against colleges while slamming the NCAA’s restructuring.
Trump has spoken out on several occasions and how NIL deals aren’t sustainable. Late last year, in a phone interview on The Pat McAfee Show, Trump said: “Well, it is a very serious problem because even football, when they give quarterbacks $12M, $13M, $14M, I read a couple of them, and all of a sudden you’re going to see it’s going to be out of control.
Trump and Saban have been friends for a long time(Image: 2025 Getty Images)
“And even rich colleges are going to go bust. Because you’re not going to be able to do this. The old way, they gave scholarships and they did lots of good things, there could be some form of payment. But when they start bidding up the cost.
“Look, the NFL, and all teams, they have caps. You don’t really have that in college sports, and when the guard comes along that weighs 350lbs and he’s phenomenal, and that’s going to make the difference between having a great team and a lousy team, and they give them $10 million, that’s going to start happening pretty soon.
“All of a sudden, you’re going to have NFL-type payrolls. And I don’t care how rich, colleges don’t make that much money, even the most successful. So they’re not going to be able to do this. Bad things are going to happen unless they figure this out.”
Trump warned that colleges could go out of business with large NIL deals(Image: Getty)
As a serial businessman, Trump has always focused on the finances, but Saban’s stance is more emotional. Saban expressed his concerns about the future of college football during an NIL roundtable discussion in Washington, D.C., back in 2024.
“It’s whoever wants to pay the most money, raise the most money, buy the most players is going to have the best opportunity to win,” Saban said. “I don’t think that’s the spirit of college athletics.
“I don’t think it’s ever been the spirit of what we want college athletics to be. That’s my major concern: the combination of pay-for-play, free agency, and how that impacts development.
“All the things that I believed in for all these years, 50 years of coaching, no longer exist in college athletics. It was always about developing players. It was always about helping people be more successful in life.”