Nick Saban’s business empire looks a whole lot different now than it did when he first landed at Alabama, and Paul Finebaum says the road to that wealth was shaped by a rough financial stretch that followed his LSU years.
Speaking on the “Dynastic” podcast with Chuck Todd and J.A. Adande, the ESPN analyst said Saban was still dealing with losses from failed energy investments when Alabama hired him in 2007.
“Saban got in trouble in Louisiana,” Finebaum said. “You don't see this reported very often.
He got involved in some oil and gas deals that went bust. He didn't have money.”
Saban’s run at LSU covered five seasons from 2000 to 2004, and it ended with a national title. He went 48-16 in Baton Rouge and beat Oklahoma 21-14 in the Superdome to win the 2003 BCS national championship. After that, he left college football for the Miami Dolphins on Dec. 25, 2004, with a five-year contract reported at about $5 million per year.
When he came back to the college game, the money looked different. Alabama’s eight-year, $32 million deal in January 2007 was actually a pay cut, and Saban made about $3.5 million in his first season with the Crimson Tide.
Finebaum said the real financial climb started once Saban began winning at Alabama.
“When you're the Alabama coach and you start winning quickly, you start finding deals,” Finebaum said. “Today he owns a couple of Mercedes dealerships, which aren't easy to get.”
That dealership business began with a cold call. Saban reached out to Joe Agresti, the operator of a Mercedes-Benz store in Baton Rouge that had a reputation as one of the best-run in the country. After one long meeting, the two agreed to partner.
From there, Dream Motor Group grew fast. It took over a Mercedes-Benz dealership in Birmingham in 2014, expanded into Nashville in 2017 and added a second Birmingham-area store in 2018. The group later bought two Mercedes-Benz dealerships in South Florida in a deal valued at roughly $700 million.
Finebaum also said Saban’s money was never the issue when Texas came after him.
“He told me afterward that he probably would have taken the job, but he did not want to have to answer to 15 different oil tycoon billionaires,” Finebaum said.
The Texas angle has been part of the Saban story for years. His agent, Jimmy Sexton, told Texas regent Tom Hicks in a January 2013 phone call that Saban would consider leaving Tuscaloosa for the Longhorns.
Hicks later wrote in an email that Sexton said Texas was the only job Saban might possibly consider and that his success at Alabama had created extra pressure on him. Hicks said the call lasted 45 minutes and included Regent Wallace Hall Jr., and that he had lunch with Mack Brown two days later.
Brown stepped down that December after an 8-5 season, and Texas hired Charlie Strong. Saban, though, has repeatedly pushed back on the idea that he was ever truly interested. In November 2013, he said nobody had told him anything like that, and in 2022 he told his radio audience he never spoke with anyone at Texas and wasn’t interested in the job.
Finebaum closed by suggesting LSU never fully disappeared from Saban’s mind.
“He kept getting offers, but I think he realized, I'm in Alabama,” Finebaum said. “I think his heart was still a little bit at LSU.”
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