DESTIN, Fla. — Nick Saban’s got his next career waiting for him, should he ever retire as a college football genius.

Stand-up comedian.

After all, the Alabama coach with seven national championships stood before the media on Tuesday at the SEC spring meetings and said the following:

“I think the big mistake that people make is college athletics is not a business,” Saban said, straight-faced and all. “It’s not a business. It’s revenue-producing.”

He brought down the house.

In keeping with that theme, the business of college football continues to get more and more complicated with a host of new challenges, one of which is gambling by athletes and coaches. Already this year the Alabama baseball coach was fired for his relationship with a buddy who made a huge bet on a Crimson Tide game. 

But gambling’s tentacles are far-reaching to the point that it will surprise no one if the next big college scandal involves gambling. Some of these college programs who tout themselves as nothing more than educational institutions find themselves in hypocritical and financial relationships of their own with the gaming industry.

The New York Times reported this spring that at least eight universities have entered arrangements with sports gambling companies, and a dozen or more have partnered with casinos. That number includes LSU, which inked an agreement with Caesars Sportsbook in 2021. So schools’ hands aren’t exactly clean.

A growing (and troubling) problem

Sports betting is growing by the minute ever since 2018 when the Supreme Court struck down federal legislation that prohibited it. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey noted Tuesday that 38 states, including New Jersey and Nevada but not Texas, have since legalized sports betting. Seven more states have pending legislation that could adopt the same.

And the more insidious nature of gambling can seriously alter the lives of college athletes who suddenly find themselves equipped with greater sums of money through name, image and likeness and transfer portal incentives and easier access to gambling sites. Coaches, administrators and educators rightfully worry about the consequences of such widespread and legal gambling from the standpoint of the risk of addiction and financial debt.

One company called Custom Market Insights has projected that online gambling will be valued at more than $145 billion by 2030.

“A lot of states, including ours, they’re great bait, and it’s more about revenue for the state,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said Tuesday. “For us, it’s more about protection for your schools, but these kids can do this regardless of what state they’re in. 

“It’s easy. I mean, when I turn on the TV in a sporting event, I see it everywhere. So we try our best to educate players. They have stuff like Chinese baseball games that people are gambling on. Or horse racing in another country.”

Even worse: it’s already everywhere

There’s literally no escaping the ubiquitous nature of gambling.

An estimated 6% of college students in this country bet so much, they have a serious problem, according to the nonprofit International Center for Responsible Gambling. Win a bet or two, and you’re tempted to place more. Lose a bet or two, and you gamble more to recoup your money.

“We want to treat them like kids, but we want them to grow life-changing money,” Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz said. “We want to make them more money in NIL than my brother-in-law, who is a pediatrician and saves lives. And we kind of do a cavalier thing and we think that there’s not going to be any side effects or there’s not going to be issues.”

The loquacious Drinkwitz also mentioned the “bad actors” who are trying to either get inside information for gamblers or work better NIL deals and transfers for players.

The media has pressed for more transparency from college coaches and advocated weekly injury reports that some reporters think would alleviate some of the back-door channeling between agents and runners and athletes. While it would foster more openness — and without question more truth-hedging about injuries — it wouldn’t stop those from trying to seek more inside information.

“Heck, they’ll have stuff before we know it,” Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher barked. “People have a vast amount of information. And college kids are a lot more vulnerable. People will come up to them and ask how’s so and so’s hamstring. And how bad is it?”

Florida coach Billy Napier said he’d be fine with mandatory injury reports, but added, “You’ll see everybody strategizing over them.” But he admits legalized sports gambling has made college football even more popular.

Drinkwitz is the lone SEC coach who officially puts out injury reports on a weekly basis. He does it every Thursday, but again he’s at Missouri. So does he favor the league mandating such openness?

“I do,” he said. “The NFL is the best sports league in my opinion, and like one of the five best sports leagues in the world for a reason. So the more that we can streamline to some of those things (the NFL does), I think the better we are, especially now that we’ve kind of moved away from our (amateur) model into more of a business model.”

It will take a group effort to address gambling

Universities have to be careful of their own associations with gaming industry interests unless they want to be accused of working at cross purposes and be known for fostering online betting by their students.

Among young people from ages 18 to 34 who participated in a 2021 survey by NCPG, 27% said they had at least one “problematic gambling behavior indicator,” and the numbers for males were even higher.

At a minimum, schools must educate their students to the dangers and potential risks of gambling. And there are plenty. Most universities have in place policies dealing with alcohol use among students, but only 22% of them have similar plans for gambling. The Sports Betting on College Campuses cite that 67% of all college students bet on sports, including almost 30% of male athletes.

While Saban may not consider college athletics to be big business, all the numbers would suggest otherwise. And he understands that scandals like those involving baseball coach Brad Bohannon for gambling and even implicating Brandon Miller in his as-yet-to-be determined role in a murder can severely tarnish the Alabama brand.

“I just went to Italy. I got Roll Tided in Venice, Florence, a Ferrari plant, Rome, the Amalfi Coast, in an elevator, walking down the street, it didn’t matter where,” Saban said. “And we all have a responsibility and obligation to that brand.”

Saban understands that gambling scandals do damage to that brand and says more education is needed on that front at campuses.

“People are gambling and don’t even know they’re gambling on some of the social media things that I don’t even know how to operate or run,” he said. “My dad used to always say, ‘It’s a lot easier to close the barn door before the horse gets out.’ And I’ve always tried to live with that message.”

That said, the horse left the barn a long time ago and ain’t coming back. You can bet on that.

Bohls in Destin

American-Statesman columnist Kirk Bohls is in Destin, Fla., this week covering the annual Southeastern Conference spring meetings, where league officials will decide a number of important issues affecting Texas as the Longhorns join in 2024. That includes decisions on permanent rivals for scheduling and the number of SEC games that will be played each season. Follow Bohls’ coverage on hookem.com.