BOULDER – It was one year ago that Deion Sanders signed a five-year deal to be the next head coach at the University of Colorado following a tragic 1-11 season. To say that he has rebuilt CU Football would be a hefty understatement.
Right off the bat, Coach Prime began making big changes to the team by bringing in 68 new scholarship players, leaving only three starting spots to starters from last season. He began to establish a winning culture in addition to leaving a lifelong impact on the men of the football team. In a team meeting that went viral, he explained to the players how to respect women, specifically those a part of the team, and elaborated that if they don’t respect the women of the team or the women in their lives then there would be grave consequences. He also made players earn everything on the football field, even their numbers. In fact, none of the players had any numbers on their backs during spring practice.
“Back in the day, when we came up, the single digits was that guy,” Coach Prime told the team. “It was him. It was who he was. How can you ask for number one if you ain’t the one?”
Then came the 2023 CU spring scrimmage. There was plenty of excitement from Colorado fans due to the changing culture and expectations. Here, we can see plenty of examples of what the Colorado fanatics were feeling. Due to expected high demand, tickets were selling for $10 each after previously being free. The spring scrimmage sold out, with more people in attendance than the previous nine spring scrimmages combined. The scrimmage was also broadcast on ESPN and generated approximately $200,000 in revenue for CU, a foreboding of what would come in the fall.
Before the season even started, Colorado fans made $28 million in donations to help pay Coach Prime’s contract as well as to contribute to the athletic department. This is because Colorado had signed Sanders for $30 million over five years without having the money. To go along with that, Colorado sold out of season tickets for the first time in 27 years and for the first time before August in the team’s history.
Fast forward to the start of the season and Colorado was facing No. 17-ranked Texas Christian University who were 21-point favorites. But CU proved all the sportsbooks wrong. In a high-scoring, back-and-forth affair, Coach Sanders and the Buffaloes prevailed 45-42.
They returned home for games against Nebraska and Colorado State, winning both. Unfortunately, Travis Hunter was injured in the game against CSU and would go on to miss some time. Another example of Coach Prime’s leadership was his words for Hunter during his injury. In an exchange of texts, he wrote, “No, you ain’t ready and I care about you more than I care about this game.” This was in response to Hunter saying he wanted to play in the next game while he wasn’t completely healed. It’s important for a coach to realize that the futures and lives of these athletes are more important than the game itself and Sanders did a great job of that.
After their astounding 3-0 start, it was all downhill for Colorado football. They proceeded to lose eight of the last nine games, including six in a row. They were unable to clinch a bowl game.
It’s possible that if Hunter never gets hurt they win a couple more games due to them losing two games by one possession in his absence but injuries are part of the game and something you can’t prevent. Although the 4-8 record isn’t what the Colorado players, coaches, and fans were hoping for after a 3-0 start, the losses were a lot closer than last year showing improvement with the average loss margin dropping from 32 to 14 with six of the losses being by one possession.
But the Prime Effect doesn’t stop there, not even in the slightest. Due to Colorado’s early success along with the status and fame of Coach Prime, College Gameday as well as First Take made their way to Boulder prior to Week 3. It was the first time College Gameday had come to Boulder since 1996.
On top of that, plenty of celebrities attended the games at Boulder. For the Week 3 matchup of CU vs. CSU, a few of the many celebrities included Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Lil Wayne, Rob Gronkowski, and Offset. For the Week 5 matchup of CU vs. USC, plenty of current and former professional athletes were in attendance including CC Sabathia, LeSean McCoy, Kevin Garnett, Jaylen Brown, and several Nuggets players.
In addition, the Colorado football Instagram account went from 62,000 followers before Sanders signed with Colorado to now having over one million followers – a 1500% increase in the span of a year (No, that’s not a typo). Coach Prime attributes a lot of social media success to his son Deion Sanders Jr., the reason why Deion Jr. was ranked first in his father’s most recent rankings of his children.
Another important aspect of the Prime Effect is his merch and people impersonating him. We all know his classic look of his sunglasses, hoodie, and either a CU hat or cowboy hat. Everyone wants one, if not several symbols of his signature look.
It all began last December. Only two weeks after the signing of Coach Sanders was announced, a record-breaking $565,000 was sold in school merch during the first half of December. For months, Coach Prime hoodies were constantly sold out both online and in the stores. But in just as high, if not more demand, are the Prime sunglasses from Blenders. The presale for his sunglasses began back in September just before the Week 3 matchup against CSU. In just one day, they had already made $1.2 million dollars in revenue and by three days they had made almost $5 million dollars in revenue.
Part of it is due to CSU head coach Jay Norvell and his comments about his classic sunglasses and hat appearance. Not only does Coach Prime have hundreds of thousands of people buying his sunglasses, but he also has people dressing up as him for Halloween. Many fans in Boulder and all over Colorado took the one day a year to dress up as whatever they wanted, to dress up as Coach Prime. Most notable was Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson rocking the signature Prime look.
We also saw MLB stars Bryce Harper and Nick Castellanos repping Coach Prime merch ahead of their NLDS Game 3 matchup in October. Bryce Harper went on to say, “I’m a big fan of Prime and what he’s doing at Colorado.”
CU football also saw a major spike in viewership thanks to Coach Sanders. In Week 1, the CU vs. TCU matchup was the second most-watched game of the week, drawing 7.26 million viewers. It only got better for the next three weeks, with the games pulling in 8.73 million, 9.3 million, and 10.03 million (the second most-watched game all season). In each of these three weeks, Colorado’s game was the most-watched game in all of college football. After that, there was one more game in the top 15 most-viewed games of the college football season when CU played the University of Southern California Trojans. Colorado’s five appearances in the top 15 for viewership was the most by any team. None of the teams Colorado faced made another appearance in the top 15, proving everyone was tuning in to watch Sanders and the Buffaloes.
On top of viewership being up, stadium attendance was also up despite the price of tickets increasing exponentially. At one point, the average ticket for a Colorado game was more expensive than an Ohio State game. Every home game sold out with most selling out weeks or months in advance. All road games were also sellouts except for the University of California, Los Angeles, and Washington State. Even then, Colorado vs. UCLA had the most attendance of any UCLA home game, and Colorado vs. Washington State was the third most attended home game for Washington State. Once again, this goes to show that people show up to watch Coach Prime and Colorado.
To top it all off, Sanders was named the Sports Illustrated Sportsperson of the Year on Nov. 30.
This was just a glimpse of the entire impact Coach Prime has had in a year at Colorado. And as long as he remains in Colorado for years to come, we’re only scratching the surface of the effect he’ll have not only for CU but for all of college football.
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