NFL legend Deion Sanders’ next plan of action at Colorado is getting into the playoff and winning a national championship. To realize this dream, Coach Prime is looking to rebuild the roster after his weapons, Sheduer Sanders and Travis Hunter, leave for the NFL Draft in 2025.
While discussing the new incoming recruits and managing the budget, the Colorado coach claimed that financial literacy is essential among players. Just like the sport, athletes must be well acquainted with managing money.
Deion Sanders Calls for a Big Change in College Football
On Dec. 29, the Colorado Buffaloes will play in the historic Alamo Bowl game against BYU. The Buffs were able to end their three-year postseason drought with some of the top players across the country that Coach Prime managed to get through the transfer portal. But for 2025, the expectations are sky-high, and already some top recruits and transfers are making their way to Boulder, Colo.
While speaking to reporters, Coach Prime mentioned it is essential to manage the budget, and for that purpose, players need to be financially literate, and the entire system should revolve around an NFL-like structure where there is a pay scale. This will help the management accommodate players uniformly and reduce inflated Name, Image, and Likeness, or NIL, payouts.
Coach Prime on what he would change about College Football:
“Financial literacy classes should be mandatory” pic.twitter.com/zL51elGgYW
— DNVR Buffs (@DNVR_Buffs) December 27, 2024
“I think financial literacy classes should be mandatory so these kids understand how to manage their money when they get their money,” Sanders explained to the reporters.
“And I think it should be a pay scale. It should be structured. It can’t be just Tom Dick and Harry gets this because he had a great year somewhere else. Then that throws off the chemistry and the structure of your whole team. It’s just like you guys coming out here, and some guys from outside come in here, they make more money than you, and they haven’t been doing the work that you’ve done.
“This kind of it’s not fair, and I think the NFL has handled it right, and we need to mimic the NFL when it comes to that, because right now, we’re not pros, but we’re semi-pro, and that’s the way it gets going. And if we don’t get a hold of it, it is going to keep going left in the teams that don’t have the budgets like us.
“It’s going to be hard to sit up in front of you and then make it to a playoff game because now it turns into pay-per-view, and we don’t want that at this age and stage. It’s supposed to be amateur, as a man is not. But you want them to get compensated correctly for their talents. But it has to be structure,” he added.
Back in Dec. 2024, Coach Prime’s eldest son Deion Sanders Jr., aka Bucky, made a huge revelation about Hunter’s NIL profile. According to Doric Sam of Bleacher Report, Bucky mentioned that Hunter takes no money from the program’s NIL collectives and, in fact, takes care of the other 10-12 players on the roster financially.
That is the precedent Colorado players have set, and hopefully Coach Prime will be able to benchmark this to the incoming transfers and recruits.
