Nick Saban Net Worth: Salary, Contract Extension Put Alabama HC Among Highest-Paid Coaches

Nick Saban is college football’s most successful head coach, and he is certainly paid like it. Alabama has inked Saban to a new contract extension, guaranteeing the sport’s highest-paid coach several more years of a lucrative salary.

The extension runs through the 2028 season, adding three more seasons to Saban’s existing deal. In the summer of 2018, Saban signed an eight-year deal worth at least $74.4 million.

Saban has a base salary and talent fee of $8.425 million that increases each year. The Crimson Tide coach has a contract completion bonus worth $800,000 payable at the end of each season from 2022-2025.

Between his $9.1 million salary and $950,000 in bonuses, Saban became the first college football coach to make over $10 million in a season last year, according to sports business reporter Darren Rovell.

Saban, 69, first became one of college football’s highest-paid coaches more than two decades ago. In 1999, he left Michigan State to become the head coach of LSU for a five-year contract worth about $1.2 million per year. In early 2004, LSU gave Saban a new contract that guaranteed him at least $2.3 million per season with annual raises of about $100,000 annually.

Less than a year later, Saban headed to the NFL, where the Miami Dolphins gave him a five-year, $22.5 million contract. The experiment was over in two years, and Saban left Miami for Alabama and an eight-year, $32 million deal.

While there is often incredulity about a public figure's wealth, Celebrity Net Worth estimates Saban’s net worth to be about $60 million, though The Richest puts it at $30 million.

After leading Alabama to a perfect season in 2020, Saban has won seven national championships as a head coach. Under Saban, the Crimson Tide have won six national titles in the last 12 seasons.