BURBANK, CA — Nick Saban, the legendary seven-time national champion coach, has been appointed the head of a newly created, high-level sports policy and innovation body known as the ESPN/Disney Collegiate Futures Think Tank (CFTT). The role, announced by The Walt Disney Company on Monday, moves Saban far beyond his analyst duties and places him at the nexus of corporate media power and college football’s rapidly changing regulatory landscape.
The appointment gives the 73-year-old an unprecedented platform to directly influence college football rules, particularly those governing Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) and the Transfer Portal, issues he has consistently and publicly criticized for eroding competitive balance and player development.
The CFTT, which reports directly to top Disney and ESPN leadership, is described as a non-partisan research and advocacy group dedicated to studying the long-term sustainability of college athletics. Crucially, given ESPN’s massive investments in college football rights—including the College Football Playoff—the group’s findings and recommendations are expected to hold significant sway with the NCAA, conference commissioners, and federal lawmakers.
“This is not just an advisory role; this is a direct pipeline to the most influential decision-makers in the sport and in Washington,” said an ESPN executive familiar with the initiative. “When Coach Saban speaks, the entire ecosystem listens. Now, his words are backed by the research and brand power of the world’s leading media company.”
Saban’s mandate includes developing white papers and legislative proposals aimed at introducing national standards for NIL valuation and creating structured ‘contractual responsibility’ models for players using the Transfer Portal—a clear push for the kind of regulated parity he advocated for before his retirement.
“I have spent my life developing young men, and the current system incentivizes transactional relationships over commitment and growth,” Saban said in a pre-recorded statement released by Disney. “The goal of the CFTT is not to eliminate athlete compensation or mobility, but to bring balance, accountability, and competitive sustainability back to the game. We intend to propose a framework that protects student-athletes while preserving the core of what college football is supposed to be.”
While Saban has served as an analyst on College GameDay, this new position grants him institutional power. As head of the CFTT, he will lead regular summits with athletic directors and university presidents and is expected to testify before Congress on behalf of the group’s policy proposals. His new role essentially formalizes his position as the elder statesman and reformist voice of the sport, using a globally recognized media entity to propagate his views.
The timing is critical. As the NCAA faces ongoing legal challenges that threaten to upend the amateur model entirely, Saban’s influence, paired with Disney’s lobbying power, represents a formidable force for the movement advocating for federal or national regulation. His public narrative—that NIL and the Transfer Portal, in their current state, are creating a “caste system” where “the rich get richer”—now has a formal, institutional home.
For the College Football Playoff and the conferences, stability is paramount to protecting multi-billion-dollar media rights deals. By placing the most respected figure in the sport at the head of a de facto internal think tank, ESPN and Disney are taking a definitive step to shape the narrative and the rules in a way that safeguards their long-term investment.
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