Three central components of capitalism are free markets, competitive markets, and capital accumulation.
College head football coaches, especially those at the top programs, greatly benefit from the capitalist system that has afforded them generational wealth. They have obtained tens of millions of dollars through their coaching contracts and endorsements.
The four head coaches who will lead Michigan, Washington, Texas, and Alabama into the College Football Playoff games on New Year’s Day have gained their fortunes by seizing on opportunities to scale their careers by moving from one coaching job to another.
Alabama’s 72-year-old Nick Saban, arguably the best college coach ever, whose net worth is reportedly close to $94 million, held assistant and head coaching positions for a combined nine college and NFL teams from 1973 to 1994. There was no requirement that Saban sit out a year between jobs or other restrictions precluding him from exercising his legal right to move from the University of Toledo after only one year as their head coach in 1990 to become the Cleveland Browns defensive coordinator under their then-new head coach, Bill Belichick, in 1991.
Yet many of Saban’s former and current coaching colleagues are opposed to student-athletes following the same paradigm via the NCAA transfer portal. It’s “Do as I say, not as I do.” They decry young men and women simply taking advantage of the rules that provide the latitude to attend and play for three and four institutions of higher learning, many earning graduate degrees in the process.
“The NIL (name, image, and likeness) and the transfer portal are both terrible for college athletics,” said 86-year-old Hall of Fame coach Lou Holtz in October as reported by the Palm Beach Post. The self-righteous, sanctimonious blowhard and ardent Donald Trump supporter is dripping with irony and hypocrisy: He made his career coaching teams largely composed of Black players, many whose lives were rooted in poverty.
Under the old policy, a transfer would have to sit out a full year from playing with their new college teammates, unless there were extenuating circumstances. But in 2021, the NCAA Division I Council voted to allow college athletes to transfer one time as an undergraduate without having to miss the following season. Student-athletes who have completed their undergraduate studies and still have eligibility can transfer again and play the next season.
The NCAA NIL policy was approved on July 1, 2021, as a result of federal and state lawsuits, and ended the oppressive, indentured servitude culture of major college athletics by granting athletes the right to monetize their name, image, and likeness. Young men and women are now inking endorsement deals valued at hundreds of thousands and millions, and immeasurably bettering the conditions of themselves and their families.
Given the money athletic programs produce for their colleges (Ohio State’s athletic department generated $251.6 million between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022) and, by extension, their coaches (Texas’s Steve Sarkisian earns $5.6 million per year) through lucrative multi-year contracts, student-athletes have at last arrived at a place in this nation’s capitalistic system they should have reached a long time ago.
Holtz paradoxically is anti-abortion (he once said President Joe Biden is “Catholic in name only”) but pro-suppression of a fetus when it has developed into young adulthood being able to create a pathway to educational and financial success via a moral instrument.
Parenthetically, the NIL and transfer portal system could be refined and, in some cases, does affect aspiring high school athletes—the portal system could reduce their opportunities to be offered scholarships as some coaches are leaning toward more mature, experienced college prospects.
Yet, they are a microcosm of America’s overarching economic and employment architectures.