Stanford coach David Shaw, on Tuesday, said of Alabama quarterback Bryce Young’s reported seven-figure name, image and likeness deals that it wasn’t fair market value.
A player like Young who hasn’t started a game making that much money, he said, “is not what this whole thing is supposed to be about.”
“I don’t believe that is true market value,” Shaw said at Pac-12 media days. “I think that’s Alabama value.”
Young, a former five-star prospect from California, was Alabama’s second-string quarterback as a freshman last year, playing sparingly in mostly mop-up duty. He’s expected to be the starter this season.
Last week, Alabama coach Nick Saban told a gathering of Texas high school coaches that Young was approaching $1 million in endorsement deals.
The reason why, Saban told the coaches, was “because of our brand.”
Shaw, a four-time Pac-12 Coach of the Year, insinuated that Saban’s message to the coaches was no accident.
“Nick Saban is smarter than any 10 of us in this room combined,” he said. “So there’s no way that wasn’t just a throw-in. Obviously that’s a plant to make sure people knew and it’s a great way to recruit.”
At SEC media days last week, Saban said he was unsure what the future held with players now able to profit off their name, image and likeness.
Saban hinted that someone like Young potentially earning so much more than his teammates could cause tensions in the locker room.
“It’s not going to be equal, and everything that we’ve done in college athletics in the past has always been equal,” he said. “Everybody’s had equal scholarship, equal opportunity. Now, that’s probably not going to be the case. Some positions, some players will have more opportunities than others. And how that’s going to impact your team, our team, the players on the team, I really can’t answer because we don’t have any precedent for it.”