As Hall of Famer Deion Sanders prepares for his fourth season as the head coach at Colorado, the Buffaloes are stumbling and bumbling as a TV attraction.
Via Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports, the ratings for Colorado games on ESPN fell 67 percent from 2023 to 2025.
It’s no surprise. In 2023, Deion was the next big thing in college football — even as a 3-0 start melted to a 4-8 finish. In 2024, the Buffaloes turned it around, going 9-3 in the regular season. (The Buffaloes lost to BYU, 36-14, in their bowl game.)
Last year, without Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter, the backslide began. The Buffaloes went 3-9, capping the season with a five-game losing streak.
It’s no surprise. Colorado hasn’t parlayed the Coach Prime effect into the kind of recruits that can win more games than they lose. This year, the program is fighting a narrative that the players look too small.
The games start soon. Sanders’s contract, a five-year, $54 million deal signed after the 2024 season, runs through 2029.
Which each passing year, the buyout shrinks. Absent a turnaround, the powers-that-be in Boulder will eventually bite the buyout bullet and move on.
