Nick Saban appears to be well on his way to his fifth national championship with the Alabama Crimson Tide, and his sixth overall (he won the 2003 title with LSU) in what’s been an outstanding career as a college coach. But while he annually maintains the best program in college football, Saban has also built quite a portfolio as a businessman and investor.
As reported by The Wall Street Journal‘s Rebecca Davis O’Brien, Saban has compiled an impressive collection of investments and business relationships during his coaching career. Perhaps the most public example of Saban’s off-the-field projects is something that Alabama and Saban fans can own for themselves: a $200,000 customized van outfitted with six-foot ceilings, three television sets, leather massage seats called the Nick Saban Signature Series Mercedes-Benz Sprinter.
Take a look at one of these Saban Sprinters, courtesy of this AL.com video:
The vehicles don’t just bear Saban’s signature on the headrests and the exterior. The Birmingham, Alabama Mercedes-Benz dealership where these customized vans are sold is also co-owned by Saban himself. According to the WSJ, it’s one of 23 business entities in which Saban and/or his wife Terry either hold five percent or more of ownership or serve as corporate officers.
Saban’s investments are also something of a chronicle for his coaching career. The portfolio includes a strip mall near East Lansing, Michigan; apartment buildings in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Houston, Texas; an upscale residential development in Tuscaloosa, Alabama; and Mercedes-Benz dealerships. Not only do the various businesses reflect Saban’s 40 years in coaching, but they’re a result of the millions of dollars he’s made as a successful leader of top-notch college football programs. He isn’t an absentee owner either.
As you might expect for someone as controlling and detail-obsessed as Saban, he takes a role in how those businesses operate, meeting with investors and city officials. But Terry Saban, a licensed real estate professional, has been much more active in those investments, telling the WSJ that she prefers tangible investments that she can directly oversee and control over the volatile stock market.
Saban is now 65 years old, and there’s no indication how much longer he intends to stay in coaching. There’s certainly no indication that he intends to walk away any time soon, especially while he continues to rule college football. While his coaching salaries alone would keep him and his family comfortable for generations after he retires, his business investments represent some smart vision and also figure to be beneficial for years to come.