Paul Finebaum has long been accused of being an Alabama Crimson Tide homer, but even he can't defend what the Yellowhammer State's namesake school and its inability to compete in College Football's NIL/rev-share era.
As Finebaum pointed out during a recent appearance on The Matt Barrie Show, the Auburn Tigers are in a better position to compete because they have two billionaire supporters, whereas the Crimson Tide has zero.
“We’re talking billionaires now and outside of Texas and Texas A&M, the list of billionaires starts to get really thin. I could tell you in the state of Alabama, there are two billionaires, only two in the entire state. They’re both Auburn supporters. Alabama doesn’t have a billionaire. And why is a billionaire important Matt? Because they can throw around money. You could throw around money if you’re worth $800 million too but it’s a little bit easier if you’re a billionaire to give your school, not only to put your father’s name on the business building, but to give your NIL fund whatever it needs," Finebaum said.
“And you just can’t call the commissioner of the SEC and say here you have to solve this problem. You can’t print money unless you got your keys to the printing press and it’s a problem.”
Greg Byrne sent a somewhat desperate plea to Alabama supporters in late 2024 essentially begging small-time donors, aka regular fans, to get in on the NIL efforts.
“Over the past few years, there have been drastic changes in college athletics,” Byrne tweeted in December 2024. "We have been careful during this transitional period to protect our position at the top of college athletics while being mindful to listen, engage and learn from our generous supporters, proud alumni and unrivaled fans to make sure that we protect our great traditions here at Alabama. But there’s a time for talk and a time for action. Now is a time for action…
“At Alabama, we’ve not measured ourselves against our competition. We are the standard, and that measurement is against the mirror and against a rich and proud history, but it’s impossible to ignore what is taking place in college athletics. Hungry fan bases are acting decisively to give their respective programs competitive advantages. We must respond. We are Alabama.”
Desperate times call for desperate measures. From the looks of it, one school in the state will end up more desperate in the long run because they lack spending power to be what they once were.
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Who are the two billionaires in the state of Alabama?
Finebaum may have been referencing an old Business Alabama Magazine article from July 2023 that highlighted two billionaires on the Forbes billionaire list. At the time, Jimmy Buffett, who passed away in September that year, was one of the names included. Buffett attended AU briefly, but was a proud Southern Mississippi Golden Eagle, and probably wasn't going to spend big on the Tigers to make them winners.
As AL.com pointed out in July 2024, Jimmy Rane, the CEO of Great Southern Wood and the infamous "Yellafella", is the state's lone billionaire. Unless things have changed and it hasn't been reported, Finebaum got mixed up here.
Rane is Auburn's hope. There isn't a second billionaire walking through that door.
There's no billionaires walking through the door in Tuscaloosa, though.