The “Prime Effect” is real.
With his confidence and his aphorisms, to say nothing of his coaching skills, Deion Sanders has led the University of Colorado football program to a 3-0 record and a top 20 ranking.
Just weeks into his first season at the helm in Boulder, Sanders, known as “Prime Time” when he played in the NFL — and MLB — and now called “Coach Prime,” has already made his Buffaloes the most talked-about team in college football.
Colorado was 1-11 last season, good for last place in its conference.
Then, in December, Sanders was lured away from Jackson State, where he’d been head coach since 2020 and his teams had gone 27-6.
Last weekend’s game in Boulder, against in-state rival Colorado State, drew 9.3 million viewers, making it the most-watched late-night college football game ever on ESPN
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It also attracted star power to Boulder, with rappers Lil Wayne and Offset, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and NBA players Kyle Lowry and Kawhi Leonard on hand.
The success and the publicity are making many people in Sanders’s orbit wealthy.
Colorado’s top three NIL — or name, image and likeness — earners this season are coach Sanders’s sons Shedeur and Shilo, and Travis Hunter. All three players transferred to Colorado from Jackson State last season, an HBCU.
His top players have cashed in on newfound fame with NIL deals to the tune of millions of dollars.
Perhaps most notable among them is his son, junior quarterback Shedeur Sanders. The 21-year old made headlines after throwing for 510 yards and four touchdowns in Colorado’s season-opening shocker against No. 17–ranked Texas Christian. Since then, he’s thrown six more touchdown passes in two further victories.
The quarterback has more than 2 million followers on social media and has already inked several deals with big brands, including with yogurt producer Oikos
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Gatorade
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and Mercedes-Benz
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DAII,
-0.60%
— he has shown fans new Mercedes cars on social media more than once.
Through his stellar play, Shedeur attracted the attention of another noted quarterback, Tom Brady, who inked the dynamic collegian to an endorsement deal with his clothing company, Brandy Brand, last October.
“I think he needs to get his a— in the film room and spend as much time in there as possible,” Brady joked with the young quarterback during a recent recording of his podcast, “Let’s Go.”
Overall, Shedeur Sanders has an NIL value of approximately $5.1 million, according to On3’s proprietary NIL algorithm, up from $1.5 million at the beginning of the year — that’s the highest value in all of college football. On3’s algorithm considers NIL-deal data, performance, influence and exposure.
Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt said on Wednesday that he believes Shedeur Sanders might be able to make $10 million in NIL deals, more than three times the average NFL player’s salary.
While Shedeur Sanders is the headliner at Colorado, he’s not alone in mining the NIL vein. Travis Hunter, a five-star sophomore prospect, has an On3 NIL valuation of $2.2 million, the fourth highest among all college football players. Hunter’s NIL value was $1.7 million at the beginning of the year.
Hunter plays wide receiver on offense and cornerback on defense, a rarity in a high-level college program. He has 1.8 million followers on social media, a successful YouTube
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channel, and endorsements with Celsius Energy Drink and 7-Eleven.
Hunter entered this season as the most highly touted NFL prospect at Colorado, and Deion Sanders contends rival schools have attempted to poach him via lucrative NIL deals.
“People offered Travis Hunter a bag — about $1.5 million to try to lure him and buy him out of the transfer portal,” coach Sanders told 247Sports over the summer. “But Travis is not the kind of guy that can be bought. He isn’t built like that. Travis is a relational young man that is built on relationships and stability. And that’s what he wanted and desired. That is why he decided to ride and stay with us.”
Hunter suffered a lacerated liver on a late hit by a Colorado State defensive back last weekend.
Don’t miss: Colorado coach Deion Sanders condemns fans’ death threats against Colorado State defensive back over late hit
Sanders’s other son on the team, Shilo, is also a top NIL earner. A senior defensive back who took an interception 80 yards and into the end zone during the Buffaloes’ win over Colorado State, Shilo’s NIL value, per On3, sits at $719,000. He has NIL deals with Porsche
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+0.10%
P911,
+0.26%,
Oikos and KFC
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+0.37%.
Shilo Sanders’s NIL value stood at $575,000 at the end of last year.
The NCAA started allowing college athletes to profit from their names, images and likenesses in 2021, ending a years-long crusade by student athletes. Football has been the college sport attracting the most NIL deals, followed by men’s basketball, women’s volleyball and women’s basketball, according to NIL platform Opendorse.
“NIL money, that’s a real part of college football now,” former University of Colorado and NFL football player Tyler Polumbus told CBS shortly after Sanders took the coaching job at Colorado. “I never thought that Colorado would be able to live in that world and compete in that world, but with Deion Sanders it becomes a whole new land of opportunity.”
From the archives (April 2022): Women are set to make more money than men on NIL deals in college basketball
Sanders, the coach, is getting paid, too, of course.
In addition to the $33.5 million he made while playing in the NFL (to say nothing of the nine big-league baseball seasons in which he was an active player), coach Sanders is on a five-year contract with the University of Colorado worth $29.5 million, as reported by the Mississippi Clarion Ledger, with various escalators tied to performance.
If Sanders continues to have success at Colorado, he’s likely to field even richer offers from bigger-time football schools. At Jackson State, his salary reportedly was just $300,000.
The wealth coming to Sanders and his top players, including his own offspring, is also accruing to the school and brands attached to “Coach Prime.”
The university has sold out all home games on the current schedule — a first in program history — and he’s selling tens of thousands of $67 “Prime 21” sunglasses, which won’t ship until December. He’s also helping sell merchandise at Colorado’s bookstore — it’s up 819% this fall vs. 2022 — and several varieties of Colorado-themed Prime gear are sold out at Nike’s
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online store.
Also on Sanders’s radar: trademarks. The six-time NFL All-Pro, two-time Super Bowl champion and Hall of Famer has filed for trademarks on “Coach Prime,” “Prime Effect,” “Daddy Buck” and “It’s Personal,” according to attorney Josh Gerben of Gerben Intellectual Property.
Colorado plays at the University of Oregon on Saturday afternoon. The Ducks are ranked No. 10, while Sanders’s Buffaloes, unranked in the preseason, have climbed to No. 19.
Oregon is a 21-point favorite, according to DraftKings oddsmakers, but 81% of all bets have been placed on Colorado.
