Coach Prime's Forward Thinking NIL Approach Keeps Colorado Competitive

Colorado football excels in NIL deals by leveraging media, branding, and financial opportunities for athletes under Deion Sanders' leadership, setting a new standard for schools.

Nov 25, 2023; Salt Lake City, Utah, USA; Colorado Buffaloes head coach Deion 'Coach Prime' Sanders on the field against the Utah Utes at Rice-Eccles Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Creveling-Imagn Images / Christopher Creveling-Imagn Images

In the rapidly changing and largely unregulated landscape of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL), the Colorado Buffaloes have emerged as a standout model for navigating these new complexities while empowering athletes. By blending media partnerships, personal branding, and financial opportunities for athletes, Colorado’s handling of NIL is a blueprint for other schools seeking to adapt to an increasingly competitive environment.

The partnership between Colorado and SMAC Entertainment, the production company behind Coach Prime's documentary series, is vital to the school’s NIL success. Rather than relying solely on traditional methods of fundraising and booster collectives, Colorado has embraced a media-driven approach that maximizes the visibility and marketability of its athletes, while also compensating them directly.

As Reported by The Washington Post, SMAC, the media group that has managed Coach Prime for years, paid nearly $600,000 to Colorado football players for their participation in the series within the span of just six months. This direct connection between content creation and financial compensation has given athletes like Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter a platform to enhance their brands and generate significant NIL earnings.

Colorado’s strategy is particularly effective because it capitalizes on its unique assets.

Despite having a smaller pool of donors than traditional powerhouses like Alabama or Texas, Colorado has found ways to bridge the financial gap by using media as its weapon of choice.

The Coach Prime series and the plethora of other media offerings offer a behind-the-scenes look at the program, pinpointing attention on Colorado football while providing lucrative NIL deals for the athletes involved. This has positioned the school as a competitive force in recruiting, even in a landscape where schools with deeper pockets often dominate the NIL-driven era.

Colorado’s model is a lesson in adaptability, showing how schools can innovate to keep up with the demands of the NIL era. While other schools like UCLA, with Chase Griffin's 1919 Players Fund, and Tennessee, with Rock Media, have also embraced media and content creation as part of their NIL strategies, Colorado’s execution under Sanders stands out for its scale and success.

Colorado’s handling of these new opportunities exemplifies how schools can thrive outside traditional frameworks.

The program’s media, athlete branding, and financial support integration demonstrate that a school can still attract top talent and compete at the highest level, even without the largest donor base.

Colorado’s ability to turn content into compensation for athletes should be an example for other programs looking to navigate the evolving college sports landscape with creativity and purpose.