Legendary coach Nick Saban earned his employee some reprimanding during his first season in media.
ESPN hired Saban as a College GameDay analyst shortly after he announced his retirement from coaching in January 2024. Throughout the season, Saban was insightful and engaging on the air, looking as natural as he did for decades on the sideline. However, the seven-time national champion occasionally forgot he couldn’t use the same language that he did as a coach.
During the network’s pregame coverage of the SEC Championship Game on Dec. 7, Saban dropped some salty language, which earned him an FCC complaint from a viewer in Missouri.
“Nick Saban said the word s–t twice, bitch once and something else I can’t remember,” the complaint read, via AL.com. “I tune (in) to gain knowledge and insight on college football, not to have profanity stuffed in my face by a former coach trying to be funny. It will continue until you (fine) them a million dollars or more. Chinchy fines accomplish nothing.”
According to the AL.com report, the FCC received three different complaints about Saban’s profanity during the season.
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The reaction to this news from many college football fans, especially those who followed Saban when he was at Alabama, is basically much ado about nothing.
“Careful. ESPN may fire him, forcing his official return to UA as a sideline coach/analyst. And we’re perfectly ok with that,” one Alabama fan said.
“It’s a cable channel. Cry more!” a second person said.
“Get coach Saban a podcast @barstoolsports,” another Tide fan added.
“Most likely a fan who stayed hurt saban kept beating his favorite team,” a fourth person said.
“People are so soft man,” another ‘Bama fan wrote.
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We’re going to guess that ESPN can live with these complaints considering how well Saban performed during his first year on TV.
However, before he’s on the air next, the network may be reminding him to keep it PG-13.
Related: The FCC Got Complaints About Nick Saban On College GameDay
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