‘Everybody listens’: Nick Saban caps a significant rookie season on ESPN

The Worldwide Leader in Employing Former Coaches and Players has made many prominent hires over the years, but Nick Saban slots into a class of his own.

Multiple eras of ESPN management never hid their desire to bring Saban into their orbit, and I remember reporting an item in August 2014 on Saban’s wowing ESPN staffers during a long conversation at The Langham Hotel in Pasadena, Calif., the day before the national championship game. The NFL is ESPN’s most important property, but in many ways, college sports make ESPN go.

Saban, represented forever by CAA, the talent agency that essentially has an office in ESPN’s headquarters in Bristol, Conn., clearly was intrigued by broadcasting, and ESPN finally landed its man last February. Think of Tommy Lee Jones chasing Harrison Ford in “The Fugitive,” except this story ends with Ford getting a multimillion-dollar deal to talk college football.

Saban was in the middle of the “College GameDay” set Monday night in Atlanta as part of a two-hour pregame show. He also pulled halftime duties. The iconic show now centers around Pat McAfee, who brings energy and unpredictability, and Saban, who has been charged with bringing gravitas.

Saban has delivered that in his opening year. Monday night in Atlanta, he offered a nice piece of copy early in the pregame:

“The most important thing in games like this is who can keep the main thing the main thing,” Saban said. “There’s a lot more disruptions when you are playing in a national championship game. You travel at a different time. You practice in a different place. You have more media obligations. Everybody has won three big games. Both teams won a big game last week.

“How do they handle the whole idea of, ‘Am I relieved that we got to this point or am I going to go get the gold?’ People remember the ‘Miracle On Ice.’ We beat Russia, and that was like what everybody remembers. We had to go beat Finland the next week (Editor’s note: It was actually two days later) to win the gold medal. Somebody has to step up tonight and win the gold medal.”

What GameDay lacked for a couple of years was someone right off the field, whether a player or coach, and that’s where Saban has been significant. Broadcasters do not impact viewership outside of a rare few (maybe Howard Cosell and Charles Barkley), and I’m not sure Saban falls in this category, but the data is the data: “College GameDay” averaged 2.2 million viewers during the regular season, its most-watched season ever and a 6 percent increase from 2023.

Jim Gaiero, who has been the lead producer of “College GameDay” for the past nine years, said he was intimidated by Saban when the former Alabama coach first joined the show.

“Just because he’s Nick Saban,” Gaiero said. “I didn’t really know him that well. I thought he would be that same coach who’s yelling at Lane Kiffin and demanding perfection in everything we do. I was definitely intimidated. Now he busts my chops more than any human being. I am his punching bag, and it’s fun. He’s very funny and a ball-buster.

“He was always good on TV, and when the camera’s on, he’s on. So it was about learning things like how do you introduce a point that leads to an XO tape, or where you direct yourself during a conversation.

“I remember early in the season I was talking to him, and I said, ‘If you are going to go to Dez (Desmond Howard) next, make sure you’re looking at Dez.’ He’s like, ‘Well, why didn’t you tell me this before?!’ I was like, ‘Well, I didn’t want to give you everything at once.’ We’ve added stuff each week, and he’s grown so much since the beginning of the season.

“The thing is, whenever he makes a comment, everybody listens. He doesn’t have throwaway comments. There are some analysts who tend to repeat what their co-analysts just said. It’s almost like an echo. But when he speaks, it’s a unique perspective that nobody else has ever had.”

It is very intentional to place Saban in the middle of the set, as opposed to an end, because Gaiero said it is easier for the other panelists to interact with him. (You don’t want newcomers on the edge of a set because it makes it tougher for them to get acclimated to the conversation.) Gaiero said GameDay benefited from Saban’s already knowing all its on-air members before becoming one.

“The best moments for our chemistry are the Friday meetings because Nick will tell a few stories, and everyone is on the edge of their seats listening,” Gaiero said. “It can be as silly as a recruiting story or the time he played at this stadium. He tells the story, and we’re all laughing, and he’s laughing and smiling. He’s like, ‘I don’t know if you guys want that on the show,’ and we’re all like, ‘My God, that’s definitely in the show!’”

Gaiero said Saban’s best moments this year were his “nothing” speech from October and when he discussed changing his coaching style from transactional to transformative. (They submitted the latter for the Sports Emmy nomination process.)

The next evolution for Saban, according to Gaiero, is to refine his preparation process. The producer wants him to talk to as many coaches as he can during the offseason and, of course, watch tape.

The program would be wise in Year 2 to dial back on the genuflecting of Saban. His resume speaks for itself — no need for the on-air cast to go overboard in deifying him. Saban also has been at his best when fewer people are on set. That was the case in the 7-7:30 p.m. ET hour Monday, when he was prominently featured alongside McAfee, Howard and host Rece Davis.

“He now knows what he needs to do on television,” Gaiero said. “Early on in the season, we might mention 30 games on a production call, and he’d want to know which games I wanted him to focus on. I told him early on to think of everything like a funnel. We’re going to start off with a lot of games and teams, and then as the weeks go by, certain teams are going to fall by the wayside because they’re not going to matter anymore. His preparation can be simplified going into next year.

“I think he definitely sees himself as a broadcaster now, and he’s seeking the feedback to be a better broadcaster. This isn’t just a one-year or two-year thing for him.”

(Photo: Butch Dill / Getty Images)