The Overpaid Saban Meme: Officially Dead

Last week, the New York Times ran an article -- surely the first of it's kind -- exploring the novel question: "Is Nick Saban overpaid?"

If you were a rabid fan of one of the Tide's rivals back when Saban was hired, you likely made some snide comment about how Saban was overrated and that Alabama's days of being nationally relevant were over and 'Bama fans should just get used to it. Those who had already started chugging the Crimson Kool-Aid (now on backorder) told you that you were just scared.

In retrospect, those die-hards are looking awfully sage. The Times covers, quite thoroughly, all the ways in which Alabama's investment in Saban has paid huge dividends.

There are those, though, who spent a lot of time crowing about how paying coaches so much was a harbinger of the end of society. Never mind the fact that Alabama's athletic department is more than self-sufficient. Even ignoring the 7-0 start, the Tide's highest ranking in more than a decade, and top-notch recruiting classes, Saban has had a huge net effect on Alabama's bottom line:

It may be impossible to quantify at this point the value Alabama got with its hiring of Saban in January 2007. However, a snapshot of the athletic department's balance sheets pre-Saban and post-Saban do show a marked rise in revenue.

The football program generated a little more than $43 million for 2006 (about the same as the previous year), including $14 million in outside contributions, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press under an open-records request.

Last year, the program had revenue of more than $53 million, a jump of some 19 percent. The contributions rose even more drastically, up 28 percent to $19.5 million. And that was before the Tide really started winning.

In just one year, that's more than a doubling of Alabama's money. The story that the New York Times doesn't really get into is how Alabama is not a particularly unique place, at least in this regard. There are plenty of college football coaches making boatloads of money who are proving to be wise investments for their employers (Kirk Ferentz notwithstanding).

So if, at any point in time, you thought that $4 million was too much to pay for a football coach, I really hate to be the bearer of bad news here, but it looks like you were sorely mistaken.

Hat tip: Memphis Tider.