Most college basketball coaches are not fans of working at football factories like Alabama, but they are not all Crimson Tide head basketball coach Nate Oats.
Oats said on former Alabama head coach Mark Gottfried’s podcast that working at Alabama, where football is king, is more of a blessing rather than a curse.
“I’ve sold to these guys that we have the resources here to win at the highest level,” Oats explained. “If you understand college athletics, it’s actually a positive to be a football school because some of these schools that aren’t football schools are going to struggle financially moving forward with what’s going on.”
According to reports, Alabama football made nearly $130 million last year for their athletic department.
That’s a massive part of why Oats didn’t flee for the Kentucky Wildcats job when John Calipari left to become head coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks.
As long as Alabama continues to pay him well and they have a healthy NIL, Oats will not go anywhere soon.
“Maybe our gym isn’t packed every day like some of those blue bloods, but it is now that we are winning. You had to sell a vision back then. Now, you see it. We’re better off being at Alabama than you are at some traditional basketball powerhouse that doesn’t necessarily have the financial backing that we have here at Alabama because football is such a big deal,” he said.
“For a lot of different reasons, it’s great to be at a school that has a great football tradition,” Oats concluded.
Oats has used that advantage to attract some of the top recruits in the country, and some think the Crimson Tide will come into next season as the number one team in the country and that they could lead them to their first national championship in men’s basketball.
The Crimson Tide just came off a season where they participated in their first Final Four.