The Colorado athletic department reported record revenues of $161.7 million in fiscal year 2025, but that included a decrease in football ticket revenue from the year before under coach Deion Sanders and a school-record $43.5 million in combined “revenue” from university support and student fees.
Colorado recently released its annual NCAA financial report for fiscal year 2025, which ended on June 30, 2025. It covers Sanders’ second season in Boulder in 2024, when his team finished with a 9-4 record.
The report obtained by USA TODAY Sports shows the limits of the “Prime Effect” under Sanders. It also shows the university is helping pay increasingly big bills in athletics at a turbulent time in college sports.
Colorado reported a bottom-line budget surplus of $160,189 in fiscal 2025 but couldn’t have avoided a deficit without $24.5 million in direct university support, a record $17.3 million in “indirect” university support and $1.7 million in student fees ($43.5 million combined).
Only six public schools had more than $43.5 million in combined university support in the prior fiscal year (2024), including Arizona State, Air Force and South Florida, according to public records collected by USA TODAY Sports in conjunction with the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database at Syracuse University.
Colorado faces bigger financial headwinds in the current fiscal year, fiscal 2026, which ends on June 30, 2026. Colorado’s athletic department is projecting a $27 million deficit for fiscal 2026 even though it still expects to get $11.9 million in institutional support revenue from the university and $2.2 million in student fees. The final numbers for fiscal 2026 won’t be publicly reported until January 2027.
Sanders has helped provide more than $3 billion in publicity value for the university since his hiring in December 2022 while reviving a program that was 1-11 before he arrived. Colorado sold out every home game in his first season in 2023 (fiscal 2024), leading to a record $31.2 million in football ticket sales that year. This was known as the “Prime Effect” under Coach Prime.
But football ticket revenue went down to $24 million in fiscal 2025, according to the report, which includes the 2024 season and 2025 spring game. Four games sold out in 2024 instead of six in 2023 even though the Buffaloes had their best season under Sanders in 2024.
The athletic department said the reason for this decrease stems in part from an accounting issue.
