Colorado coach Deion Sanders was accidentally overpaid $50,000 in a bowl game bonus due to a misclassification of the 2024 Alamo Bowl against BYU.<\/p>\n
According to a report by the University of Colorado Department of Internal Audit released on June 4, Colorado identified the Alamo Bowl as a \u201cNew Year\u2019s Six\u201d bowl game, which, according to language in Sanders\u2019 contract, would result in a $200,000 bonus. Any other bowl appearance triggered a $150,000 bowl game bonus.<\/p>\n
The Alamo Bowl is not considered to be among the upper-tier \u201cNew Year\u2019s Six\u201d bowl games, a group that includes the Sugar, Fiesta, Rose, Orange, Cotton and Peach bowls.<\/p>\n
The audit, first obtained by USA Today, was also obtained by The Athletic on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Sanders\u2019 receiving an extra $50,000 was, according to the audit, \u201cdue to the misclassification of the Alamo Bowl as a NY6 bowl rather than the non-NY6 incentive provision specified in the Head Coach\u2019s contract.\u201d The audit also said that Colorado overpaid Sanders\u2019 coaching staff by $71,333 for the Alamo Bowl, which Colorado lost 36-14 to the Cougars on Dec. 28, 2024.<\/p>\n
A Colorado spokesperson said it was \u201cunclear at the moment\u201d whether the school would look to recoup the money it overpaid Sanders and his staff, adding, \u201cWe are currently reviewing university policy with respect to employee overpayment.\u201d<\/p>\n
In total, the university overspent $1.2 million on the bowl game.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we did not identify intentional misconduct, we concluded that the governance and control improvements for postseason athletic events are strongly recommended,\u201d the audit stated.<\/p>\n
In addition to the misapplication of bowl-game status and overpaying Sanders and his staffers, the audit found that the university did not have a formalized spending budget for the trip, the university failed to have a proper framework for executive ticket allocation and reimbursement, and that donor-funded private air travel for Colorado Chancellor Justin Schwartz did not meet normal requirements.<\/p>\n
\u201cReviews such as these are valuable tools for CU Athletics to identify areas and processes that are working, as well as opportunities for improvement. The findings of this audit are indicative of the excitement of the Athletic Department and university for making a bowl game while providing essential feedback for how we can improve our preexisting processes and implement new policies that will help us reflect best practices in the future,\u201d said the Colorado athletics department in a statement to The Athletic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are committed to implementing all of the suggestions outlined in the audit starting this August as we provided in our management response, in order to make our procedures for football postseason play more efficient and transparent, while also working with various campus offices to ensure compliance and proper oversight.\u201d<\/p>\n
After leading the Buffaloes to a 9-4 record and that trip to the Alamo Bowl in 2024, Sanders was rewarded with a five-year, $54 million contract extension in March 2025, making him one of the highest-paid coaches in college football.<\/p>\n
Before the 2025 season, in which the Buffaloes eventually went 3-9, Sanders announced he had been diagnosed with bladder cancer. In an interview on \u201cGood Morning America\u201d this week, Sanders announced he is cancer-free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colorado coach Deion Sanders was accidentally overpaid $50,000 in a bowl game bonus due to a misclassification of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[1607,1602,399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-697036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-college-football","tag-colorado-buffaloes","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697036","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=697036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}