{"id":496532,"date":"2026-03-01T00:19:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T00:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/496532\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T00:19:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T00:19:17","slug":"deion-sanders-5-year-54-million-contract-extension-from-cu-buffs-hasnt-aged-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/496532\/","title":{"rendered":"Deion Sanders 5-year, $54-million contract extension from CU Buffs hasn’t aged well"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unless you can spare a dime, Prime\u2019s got time.<\/a><\/p>\n

A few days back, FOX Sports asked its staffers which college football coach was under the \u201cmost pressure\u201d in 2026.<\/a> One picked Wisconsin\u2019s Luke Fickell, whom I\u2019m amazed still has his job. Another took Lincoln Riley at USC. A third chose Deion Sanders at CU.<\/p>\n

Pressure?<\/p>\n

No question. That 3-9 doesn\u2019t go away.<\/p>\n

Hot seat?<\/p>\n

Not the way Sanders\u2019 contract is structured.<\/a><\/p>\n

If terminated without cause, Coach Prime is owed 75% of all of his remaining base supplemental salary through 2029. Which means the Buffs would be on the hook for $33 million this year; $25.5 million in 2027; $17.25 million in 2028; and $9 million in 2029.<\/p>\n

Boulder\u2019s not a drinking town with a football problem. It\u2019s a drinking town with an accounting problem.<\/p>\n

CU has confirmed multiple reports that project its athletics department was, as of December, on a pace to finish the \u201925-26 fiscal year with a $27 million deficit.<\/p>\n

Sanders landed a $5-million raise a year ago<\/a>. He\u2019s slated to make about $10 million this season. That five-year, $54-million extension celebrates its first birthday in a few weeks.<\/p>\n

Which begs the question: Was it worth it?<\/p>\n

According to USA Today\u2019s database<\/a>, only 13 FBS coaches at public schools were paid more than Sanders last year. Of that club, Brian Kelly was 5-3 when he was fired by LSU midway through the year. Mark Stoops went 5-7 and was fired by Kentucky after the season.<\/p>\n

Among the coaches who collected the sport\u2019s top 15 salaries last fall, only Sanders (3-9), Stoops (5-7) and Bill Belichick (4-8) had losing seasons. The latter was in charge of a college program for the first time. It showed.<\/p>\n

But outgoing Buffs athletic director Rick George has been at this a long time. He should know better.<\/p>\n

Why, 11 months after the fact, does it feel as if George was pretty much bidding against himself last winter<\/a> when it came to Coach Prime\u2019s services?<\/p>\n

The Cowboys? Come on<\/a>. Yeah, Jerry Jones is wacky enough to try anything once. But Sanders grasps the politics of an NFL locker room and the mindset of NFL veterans better than anybody. His approach wouldn\u2019t land the same with grizzled adults.<\/p>\n

ESPN? Maybe. That off-ramp is always there, though. Sanders is ratings gold, a TV master, and he knows it. Disney gave Pat McAfee a five-year, AAV deal of $17 million in 2023. The Mouse will pony up for personalities that bring eyeballs.<\/p>\n

Another college, though? Not likely. It\u2019s hard to picture many major collegiate athletic directors giving Coach Prime the power\/perks\/protection\/political capital he covets. CU had an empty throne and a lonely, waiting crown.<\/p>\n

Was it worth it?<\/p>\n

George and CU didn\u2019t really have a choice, did they? Not when it came to an extension. A hot coach always commands some gesture of good faith, even if it\u2019s symbolic.<\/p>\n

After last fall went so badly off the rails, the wiser play for the Buffs surely would\u2019ve been to wait until this year to re-negotiate \u2014 to see what a post-Shedeur\/post-Hunter roster looked like.<\/p>\n

Or perhaps the school could\u2019ve offered a 50% raise for 2025 after 2024\u2019s 9-4 record, instead of basically doubling Sanders\u2019 pay ($5.7 million two seasons ago) right from the get-go. Stagger those incentives.<\/p>\n

Hindsight, alas, is for suckers and columnists. The Buffs, who open spring ball Monday, are full-speed ahead at pretending 2025 didn\u2019t happen \u2014 so much so, in fact, that nearly half the roster, both coordinators and a chunk of the coaching staff are brand new.<\/p>\n

For months, CU faithful wanted changes. Wise-cracking scribes wanted changes.<\/a> Sanders listened. Or someone told him to listen.<\/p>\n

Coach Prime replaced offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur with Brennan Marion \u2014 a move widely considered an upgrade, if simply for the fact that Marion isn\u2019t Pencil Pat.<\/a><\/p>\n

The more surprising turns came a few days ago. This past Tuesday, The Post\u2019s Luca Evans<\/a>, among others, reported that CU\u2019s wonderboy defensive coordinator, Robert Livingston, was leaving the Buffs to join the Broncos as defensive passing game coordinator \u2014 largely the same position he\u2019d held with the Bengals before coming to Boulder.<\/p>\n

The plot thickened later in the week when CU confirmed reports that longtime Sanders friend and confidante Warren Sapp, who was elevated to defensive pass rush coordinator in \u201925, had resigned from the program.<\/p>\n

Sanders is on his third defensive coordinator and third offensive play-caller since March 2023. Ordinarily, $10 million is the kind of money a university typically pays for Saban-like stability \u2014 not volatility.<\/p>\n

CU just doesn\u2019t have the money to buy out big mistakes. Or even little ones, frankly.<\/p>\n

Was it worth it?<\/p>\n

The Buffs remain a mandatory selection for TV executives, almost entirely because of Sanders. Although from mid-November 2024 to mid-November 2025, reported broadcast ratings for Buffs games had dipped 44%. Irrelevant football is irrelevant football, no matter who\u2019s coaching it.<\/p>\n

Enrollment of black students at CU-Boulder in fall 2025 was up 13.8% over fall 2024. Undergraduate enrollment and out-of-state undergraduate enrollment jumped in \u201923-24. These are all good things. Football is a school\u2019s best marketing front porch.<\/p>\n

The Buffs reported $31.216 million in 2023 football ticket revenue to the NCAA; CU\u2019s 2024-25 report, released last month, said football ticket sales brought in $24.026 million during the 2024 campaign.<\/p>\n

The website Oddspedia.com recently pegged CU with the most expensive average FBS college ticket in the country for 2025, at $114<\/a>. Assuming that\u2019s reasonably in the ballpark, it would mean CU athletics lost $1.6 million off ticket sales during its final two home games of last season when compared to its last two home contests in 2024.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Buffs listed a departmental profit of $8.24 million in \u201923-24. They reported a net of $160,189 in \u201924-25.<\/a> And all of that was before the House vs. NCAA ruling went into effect \u2014 which will account for an additional $20.5 million in expenses for student-athlete revenue sharing in \u201925-26.<\/p>\n

Was it worth it?<\/p>\n

Ask us at Halloween. What limited history we have to go on says the Buffs, and Sanders, will be better this fall. For sanity\u2019s sake, they\u2019d better be.<\/p>\n

Want more sports news? Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver\u2019s teams.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unless you can spare a dime, Prime\u2019s got time. A few days back, FOX Sports asked its staffers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[7025,18881,1836,1976,1607,2662,1602,75613,75614,1601,3716,352,399,6265,22523,25930,569,2558,59167,398,396,397,349,38392,227005,8223,99,362,7813,226393,1745],"class_list":{"0":"post-496532","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-bill-belichick","9":"tag-boulder","10":"tag-broncos","11":"tag-college","12":"tag-college-football","13":"tag-college-sports","14":"tag-colorado-buffaloes","15":"tag-cu-buffs","16":"tag-cu-buffs-football","17":"tag-deion-sanders","18":"tag-disney","19":"tag-espn","20":"tag-football","21":"tag-fox","22":"tag-halloween","23":"tag-jerry-jones","24":"tag-kentucky","25":"tag-latest-headlines","26":"tag-lincoln-riley","27":"tag-ncaa","28":"tag-ncaa-football","29":"tag-ncaafootball","30":"tag-nfl","31":"tag-pat-shurmur","32":"tag-rick-george","33":"tag-sean-keeler","34":"tag-sports","35":"tag-sports-columnists","36":"tag-usc","37":"tag-warren-sapp","38":"tag-wisconsin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}