The man who helped reset coaching compensation is retiring. 

Alabama football coach Nick Saban is stepping down after 17 years at Alabama, six of which ended in national championships (He earned a seventh title with his split 2003 win at LSU). As impactful as his on-field success was—and at Alabama, he matched the national title legacy of illustrious predecessor Bear Bryant—Saban was arguably even more influential off the field. 

Saban earned an estimated $120 million over his entire Alabama tenure, including $11.4 million last year, standing as the highest-paid coach in college football for much of that time. In 2022, Saban received a new, eight-year contract worth nearly $94 million, vaulting past Georgia coach Kirby Smart to return to the top of the coaches’ compensation list. Saban and Smart share the same agent, CAA’s Jimmy Sexton.

The Saban deal arrived just a matter of weeks after Smart’s contract and had been set to carry through 2029. But Saban will now walk away from the final six years of the pact. 

Numerous other coaches used Saban as a benchmark to help set their own contracts, including Clemson’s Dabo Swinney and Ohio State’s Ryan Day, and Saban’s compensation also influenced the reported $125 million extension Michigan has offered national champion coach Jim Harbaugh. 

Saban was also the highest-paid public-sector employee in the state of Alabama, a situation mirrored by football coaches in several other states—but also the subject of some debate over the years. Saban himself struggled publicly at times with the largess, and in 2017, he said he was “probably not” worth what he was paid. But there is no denying his impact, both on and off the field. 

The NFL has struggled for decades with public intra-family feuds among its ownership ranks, and another potentially thorny situation is developing in Houston.

Robert Cary McNair Jr., son of Texans owner Janice McNair and the late Bob McNair, has submitted an application of permanent guardianship for his 87-year-old mother and her estate, asking the Harris County Probate Court to declare her incapacitated. The application is being opposed by both Janice McNair and Cal McNair, another of her sons who also serves as Texans chair and CEO. 

In a request for court records to be sealed, Janice McNair called the matter a “family dispute.”

“It will create a needless and baseless media stir regarding the ownership and direction of the Texans,” she wrote, “thereby negatively affecting our employees, business partners, and the team.” 

History of Strife

The Texans’ situation is far from the first issue among NFL team ownership families that has spilled into the public realm.

• Miami Dolphins: After the 1990 death of former owner Joe Robbie, family infighting helped lead to a discounted sale of the team to pay a reported $47 million in estate taxes.
• Washington Commanders: After the 1997 death of former owner Jack Kent Cooke, the team was left to his foundation with instruction to sell it, forcing his son to mount an ultimately unsuccessful bid to buy the team on the open market.
• New Orleans Saints: Owner Gayle Benson spent nearly a decade in dispute with the children of her late husband, Tom Benson, whom she married later his life. But she ultimately gained control of the team and NBA’s New Orleans Pelicans, and a deadline to challenge the validity of his will lapsed last year.
• Denver Broncos: The team was sold in 2022 after the children of the late Pat Bowlen were unable to agree on an in-family succession plan.

The McNair dispute arrives as the Texans prepare to host the Cleveland Browns on Saturday in the wild card playoff round. 

The NBA is playing regular-season basketball in Paris on Thursday for the third time since 2020. Accor Arena, which can fit roughly 15,000 fans for basketball games, is hosting the Cleveland Cavaliers and Brooklyn Nets.

Paused in 2021 and 2022 due to the pandemic, the Paris series is back for the second year in a row and once more a staple of the NBA’s international growth plans. Next season, the league could be putting on its most-hyped matchup in Paris yet, as French sensation Victor Wembanyama and his San Antonio Spurs are reportedly being targeted as one team to make the trip abroad. The Spurs have agreed in principle to participate in a Paris game and are already making plans to do so, according to The Athletic.

Wembanyama, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft, currently has not only the best-selling NBA jersey in France, but in all of Europe. (In the U.S. and Canada, the 20-year-old sits only behind long-tenured superstars Steph Curry and LeBron James.) 

Despite the Spurs owning the NBA’s second-worst record almost halfway through Wembanyama’s rookie season, his presence in the league is drawing more French fans. NBA game viewership in France is up 23% year-over-year, while NBA League Pass subscriptions in the country have gone up 26%.

On Thursday, French fans will get their annual dose of live NBA action in Paris. But next year, should Wemby come to town, there could be pandemonium.

It’s now been nearly two months since the Las Vegas Grand Prix. But local unrest is still palpable as the fallout from the much-debated Formula 1 event continues.

After months of traffic headaches, construction hassles, and a crashing ticket market, the race itself defied expectations and was ultimately a solid success on TV. But a group of local small businesses wants to recoup millions of dollars alleged to have been lost because of the race. 

A group of nine businesses asked the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority for the establishment of a recovery fund to reimburse for lost revenues from the November race. Those businesses claim to have lost an estimated $23 million in revenue.

“Imagine not changing anything about your product, how you market, your customer service, guest quality, nothing, and yet you watch your business drop 50% or more in a matter of months,” said Lisa Mayo-DeRiso, a business development specialist who represents the nine affected businesses. Those entities claim to have seen car and pedestrian traffic plummet over a six-month period due to various race-related road closures and block entrances. 

The LVCVA has not yet responded to the request. But the issue shows a darker side to what has been months of praise for Las Vegas’s rise as a sports industry boom town. That conflict could resurface next month with the city’s hosting of Super Bowl LVIII.

“How can our Las Vegas leadership allow local businesses to struggle and suffer for a three- or four-day event? Who profited? A few hotels? It doesn’t make sense,” wrote restaurant owner Gino Ferraro, who says he lost more than $2 million in revenue because of the F1 race, in a Las Vegas Review-Journal op-ed.

With construction for the 2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix set to begin in earnest this spring, the traffic and business issues are expected to quickly swell once again. In addition to the local business concerns, a prior class-action lawsuit in Clark County, Nev., concerning fan access to the Las Vegas Grand Prix practice sessions was recently transferred to federal court.