‘Saban’ Has Nothing To Say About Its Subject Or The World He Helped Create

At times it really does feel like time is moving faster than ever, and even things that happened a year ago might as well have happened 10 years ago. But it is important to maintain perspective, and understand that time and history have to play their parts before we can properly recognize moments for what they meant at the time they happened. With that said, it can feel a little strange to begin reevaluating the legacy of Nick Saban, football coach, and the Saban era of Alabama football a mere three years after his surprise retirement from the team and college football in general. The man is just started getting comfortable as on-air ESPN talent, finding time to evaluate games and banter with human Red Bull can Pat McAfee, in between his actual work as minister of propaganda for archaic college sports bills.

The truth is we aren’t removed enough from the Saban era to understand what his time there meant for the sport, that particular team, or the city of Tuscaloosa at large. But the content machine needs to eat constantly in order to maintain value for an increasingly shrinking number of investors, and so it must be fed. So Nick Saban, come on down for your glossy, incredibly long, fussy, overproduced, myth-making, hagiographic sports documentary project.

The new six-part ESPN documentary, Saban, is the officially authorized story of Nick Saban as championship coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide, alongside some other stops at Toledo, Michigan State, and a national championship at LSU. If you’ve watched enough modern sports documentaries, and Lord knows we have, then you already know what to expect: a lot of inspiration-core, thinly veiled sponcon in which the product is the star of the documentary themselves.