Not where it matters and not for NIL. If school athletic finances were pertinent in this discussion, Iowa would itself have a strong NIL collective but it's not, it's independent of that, and we don't have a strong one either as a result. Saban had previously alluded to this numerous times this year and last. It's likely one of the main reasons he's leaving. He's very unhappy with NIL, probably because he sees the writing on the wall. Bama having a poor showing (by their recent standards) isn't exactly a fluke. He essentially stated Bama couldn't keep up if college football was going to go this direction. It's a poorly rated school in an extremely poor state, with very few notable alumni or businesses of any girth financially. Value of their product doesn't equate to being able to pay players. Bama won't be able to keep up like big name teams with actually rich alumni. You're looking at this the wrong way.
To top it off, once college football starts dispensing money directly from media deals with conference affiliation, Bama will make far, far less than any B1G school as it stands right now and will continue to based on projections. Bama is not immune to the inevitable capitalistic toll of college football. Hell, take what FSU is trying to do right now! They see the writing on the wall. They have to act now for survival.
So no, Bama doesn't actually have any real money that'll keep them competitive at the level they've come to expect. Right now, is the initial stage of NIL and their valuations are based on players they already had and were there because they won so much but ones coming in the future are gonna want some $$$. And I mean Texas A&M type of money. Bama will never be able to afford that without a systematic change of NIL to become more equally distributed, like was wanted initially. Saban was struggling with paying players already and voiced his concerns over this. Over the next decade, don't be surprised if you start seeing Bama take a few steps back. It's actually a very, very real possibility.
