Nick Saban wins Sports Emmy after first year with ESPN following Alabama retirement

Nick Saban is already winning awards in retirement.

The former Alabama head coach won a Sports Emmy for “Outstanding Personality/Emerging On-Air Talent” on Tuesday night. It marked Saban’s first Sports Emmy award.

Saban beat out several other notable names in the category for the award, including Amazon Prime Video’s Ryan Fitzpatrick and Richard Sherman, ESPN’s Jason Kelce and CBS Sports’ Jay Wright.

Saban joined ESPN last year after he opted to retire from Alabama — where he won six national championships and dominated the sport for nearly two decades — and he quickly joined the network as an analyst on its “College GameDay” show. Saban fit right in with ESPN’s iconic college football pregame show each week, though he did receive three official complaints with the FCC about his swearing.

"It was a new experience," Saban said of his time at "College GameDay" before the announcement, <a data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1" href="https://www.tuscaloosanews.com/story/sports/college/football/2025/05/20/nick-saban-wins-sports-emmys-award-for-college-gameday-work/83757609007/"><ins>via the Tuscaloosa News</ins></a>. "A lot of people helped contribute to learning how to do it. I certainly appreciate them and thank them for that. We had a really good team of people who has lots of experience, I think, helped me fit in the program and hopefully we created value of some sort."

Saban will be back on the "College GameDay" desk this fall. He's also been very outspoken about his displeasure with how the sport operates now in the new era of name, image and likeness payments. He's been floated by plenty as a choice for a college football commissioner, though that's a position that doesn't exist. He met with President Donald Trump about the issues recently, too, and is reportedly set to be involved in a new commission on college sports that Trump created — even though Saban isn't sure that is necessary.

Regardless of what his future in the sport looks like, Saban has clearly found a great new home at ESPN with his coaching career behind him. And now, he’s got some hardware to prove that.