Amid a push to reform the NCAA's name, image, and likeness (NIL) rules, U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) is predicting a major shift in college athletics in the "near future."
Jeff Poor, host of Mobile radio FM Talk 106.5's "The Jeff Poor Show," asked Tuberville on Tuesday if the new Congress under a new White House could create some consistency in college athletics.
According to the former college football head coach, the NCAA "doesn't want any part of" NIL. He also suggested adding three-year contracts to those paid for playing to keep players from transferring every season just for more money.
"Yeah, we're working on some stuff," Tuberville replied. "They're meeting out at Las Vegas right now. Groups are working on NIL wording with the NCAA. The NCAA really doesn't want any part of it, to be honest with you. But we're going to try to do something federally. We don't want to get really involved in terms of the money. We want them to make money. The cat's out of the bag, but we want to save education. We want to save women's sports and Olympic sports, which is so, so important. But we want players to make money."
"The one thing that we can do is contracts," he continued. "If you're going to make money and you're going to pay money ... get into like three-year contracts like they do in the NFL. And you've got to uphold that contract. Now, if you don't make any money, you don't have to sign a contract. You can transfer if you're just taking a scholarship. But I tell you, these guys that are making four, five, six, seven, eight hundred thousand dollars to a million or even more, and then the next year they move somewhere else for, you know, a hundred thousand more dollars, I think we've got to put some sense of reality to that now, whether we can do it or not, I don't know, because I still got to deal with the Democrats up there ... and people that really don't know what tricks going on in college sports, to be honest with you.
"It's like, you're right, like, what's to stop them, though, from forcing, I don't know, some kind of regulatory environment to keep from getting too crazy? I mean, the NCAA kind of, this is what they were here for. And now they're kind of rolling."
Alabama's senior U.S. Senator suggested the NCAA getting out of college football could lead to two separate conferences, one with 60 of the major schools like in-state Alabama or Auburn and another with 60-100, including the likes of UAB, South Alabama, Troy, Alabama A&M, Alabama State, Samford and Jacksonville State.
"[A]t the end of the day, you've got to save the sport, and you've got to save the athletes that are in the sport. And I think they would love to get out of the football purview and just have basketball and all the other sports. And I think maybe that's what you're going to see in the near future, possibly a 60-team group of the big boys, and then 60 to 100 of the next group like we used to have, remember the 1-A and 1-AA? ... I think that's what you're going to end up seeing, something like that because most of these schools can't afford these big salaries," Tuberville concluded.
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