For many years, the Alabama Crimson Tide were the face of college football.
There’s no better sign that that period is over than the recent report detailing how Alabama isn’t among the top dozen most expensive rosters in the sport.
As John Talty and Chris Hummer reported for CBS Sports, top tier programs are spending roughly $40 million on their rosters, with 12 teams either above or very close to that mark.
Alabama, though, wasn’t close.
Instead, Talty and Hummer put the Crimson Tide’s roster “in the low $30 millions range,” which is “still a level or two below the elite spenders.”
So what happened? Unsurprisingly, it’s connected to the retirement of legendary head coach Nick Saban.
“The ‘Nick Saban discount’ carried Alabama in the early years of NIL with the program able to succeed in spite of a smaller warchest than many of its rivals,” Talty and Hummer wrote. “Over Saban’s last three seasons in Tuscaloosa, Alabama spent less total ($19.7 million) than any SEC program will spend on a single season roster in 2026.”
If you need an example of how key Saban was, just look at Caleb Downs, who was perhaps the best player on Alabama’s defense as a true freshman but transferred when Saban retired after that season.
“I went there for Coach Saban. It was really when he retired that I was like, ‘I don’t necessarily know why I came here’ because at the end of the day I wanted to go there to learn from him,” Downs said on the “St. Brown Podcast.”
Ohio State, which is one of the 12 schools spending roughly $40 million on the roster, landed a super talented player as a result.
This past offseason, Alabama was outbid for another player, Talty and Hummer explained.
“Never was [the lesser spending] more evident than in the winter transfer portal when the Tide landed North Carolina State transfer running back Hollywood Smothers, filling a major need, only for Smothers to flip to a richer Texas Longhorns program,” they wrote.
All of this isn’t to say Alabama doesn’t have a talented roster — five-star QB Keelon Russell is expected to be the starter this year — but instead of chasing developed players in the portal, Alabama continues to focus on high school recruiting.
“While rivals are spending big on transfer quarterbacks and instant impact players, Alabama has real potential but few proven elite players coming into the season,” Talty and Hummer explained.
This upcoming season may reveal if that approach still works in college football or if Alabama needs to find some new income streams and increase its spending.