A distinguished, legendary career -- the likes of which is matched only by those coaches with single-name icon-status, such as Rockne, Neyland, Dodd, Royal, Osborne and more -- affords Nick Saban the unequalled right in modern college football to voice his opinion.
On, well, anything.
So as Saban greeted media Tuesday at the onset of the Southeastern Conference's annual spring meetings in the Florida Panhandle, Saban didn't hold back.
In fact, in some regards, Saban said something of the quiet part out loud: college athletics, football or otherwise, isn't a business in its current model.
Can't be, what with Title IX 50 years since its inception still being used to balance budgets and scholarship numbers among college athletics' ventures that never break even, much less net a surplus.
Yes, Saban is college football's top-paid coach at a nickel shy of $11 million, and yes, Saban's Alabama Crimson Tide football machine is the Chick-fil-A of its sports: a veritable money-printing machine.
What does Saban make of the still-nebulous, ongoing Name, Image and Likeness landscape in college athletics?
"I have no problem with it," Saban told gathered reporters Tuesday. "Unionize it, make it like the NFL.
"If it's going to be the same for everyone, I think that's better than what we have now because what we have now is some states and some schools are investing a lot more money in managing their rosters than others, and I think this is going to create a real competitive disadvantage for some in the future.
"And it's also going to create an imbalance in the competitive nature of the sport, which is not good."
To Saban's point, multiple sources within the past month told FootballScoop that a current SEC East program has "a projected NIL payroll of $10.5 million" for the coming season; an SEC West program, per a source with intimate knowledge, was said to be operating with between $10-12m in "NIL salary."
Though his Alabama program has nine times represented the SEC West in the league's annual championship game since Saban was hired at Alabama in 2007, he pointed to parity in the sport as de facto mandate for regulation of NIL.
"Everything in the NFL is to create what, parity? Parity," Saban said. "Parity. And if they could have every team going to the 17th week 8-8, that would be a dream for the NFL."
Saban also wondered aloud, if student-athletes gain employee status and then the Internal Revenue Service is ushered into the formula, would they need to be taxed on the value of receiving tutoring services? Could their complimentary apparel also be subjected to taxation, Saban wondered?
NIL, the league's pending schedule arrangement for the future -- Texas and Oklahoma further expand the nation's super-conference to 16 teams in 2024 -- and other rules, revenue matters and broadcasting items are on these week's SEC meetings agenda.