Colorado Projects $27M Deficit After Deion Sanders' Contract Pay Rise, NIL Payouts

The pursuit of success on the gridiron is coming at a steep cost for the University of Colorado.

Brent Schrotenboer of USA Today reported the school's athletic department is estimating a $27 million deficit for the fiscal year that ends next June.

"Those numbers are not final. The athletic department is hoping to bring that deficit down by the end of June with revenue from donations, sponsorships and concerts at Folsom Field," Schrotenboer said. "But it has never reported a deficit that big before, which could potentially leave the athletic department in need of more than $41 million in subsidies from the university, including the institutional support and student fees."

In March, Colorado signed football coach Deion Sanders to a contract extension that brings his annual payout to more than $10 million. Schrotenboer added that the school "is committed to providing players with up to $20.5 million in annual benefits and direct payments under terms of the NCAA-House legal settlement."

Not surprisingly, football-related costs ($60.4 million) account for the single biggest expense in the overall outlay ($163.7 million) from Colorado's athletic department, according to Schrotenboer.

This comes as Sanders is facing increasing scrutiny.

The Buffs went 3-9 in 2025, a big step backward after winning nine games and reaching the Alamo Bowl in 2024.

Two-way star Travis Hunter was pretty much irreplaceable, and the departure of Shedeur Sanders left a big void in the passing game. Still, the fanbase had reasonably high expectations when Sanders has made the transfer portal such a big part of his tenure.

Instead, Coach Prime and his staff largely whiffed.

"If you take a look at a lot of the guys that they brought in, there wasn't a ton of production," one Big 12 general manager told The Athletic's Antonio Morales and Sam Khan Jr. "They took a bunch of Power 4 big names, big (recruiting) star guys, and they put them in with the expectation that they were going to have big jumps. And they just didn't."

Firing Sanders would only exacerbate Colorado's budget situation since he'd be owed a buyout of $33.6 million.

Instead, the Buffs need the Coach Prime era to start paying off in more ways than one.