​Credit: First Take on ESPNNick Saban’s efforts to help pass the Protect College Sports Act expanded beyond College GameDay this week, as the legendary former Alabama football coach appeared on ESPN’s morning shows to make the case for the bill, which passed the U.S. Senate on Monday evening.Saban was reportedly integral in shaping the bill’s language and has appeared in political advertisements advocating for its passage. The coach expressed a concern he said he shares with leaders in the sport: college sports would “go broke” without a salary cap. He also argued that player compensation and coach compensation are “totally different markets.” When asked why college athletes do not have a seat at the table in crafting the PCSA, Saban said: “I really can’t answer that.”The appearances — technically to promote his new docuseries at ESPN — were the latest sign of how much influence Saban has within the Worldwide Leader, giving him access to a pulpit where he can push for the new rules largely unchallenged.Yet, as with U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s interview on College GameDay earlier this month, Saban’s comments hardly paint a full picture of the controversial and wide-ranging bill.“There’s not any business in the world that can function without a budget and some guidelines,” Saban said on Get Up. “If you ask an NFL owner, what would you do if all your players were free agents every year? ‘Oh, we couldn’t operate.’ What would you do if you didn’t have a salary cap? ‘Oh, we couldn’t operate. We’d go broke.’“Well, what’s going to happen in college sports is you’re going to either take money from the academic side to support athletics because we’re in a runaway, you know, financial situation, or you’re going to drop other Olympic sports and non-revenue sports that are very important to creating opportunities for young people.”Nick Saban weighs in on the Protect College Sports Act and how it would “enhance players’ opportunities to be more successful.” pic.twitter.com/8K6EdPGiCJ— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) September 29, 2026While Saban faced more pushback on First Take, where host Stephen A. Smith (an opponent of the PCSA) forced him to address the bill’s detractors, the coach’s answers further laid bare how the bill, in its current form, appears to benefit coaches and athletic directors more than players.“I really can’t answer that, to be honest with you,” Saban said of why college athletes are not helping to shape the PCSA.“I can only tell you that we use student-athlete involvement to come up with some of the ideas that they were happy with in terms of how we move this forward so that we weren’t taking anything away from student-athletes.”The Athletic reported that between 2005-23, revenue growth for college athletic departments outpaced expense growth. And that expense growth was attributed far more to facility overhauls, coach and AD salaries, and staff like nutritionists and