Colorado’s athletic department expenses are rising significantly, but the university has not yet determined where the money will come from.
Despite the financial uncertainty, Colorado increased Sanders’ pay and expanded the football support staff.
While Sanders has generated massive media exposure and revenue for the university, the athletic department still relies on substantial financial support from the school.
BOULDER, CO – To help protect their massive investment in coach Deion Sanders, University of Colorado officials agreed to pay for his personal security by putting his bodyguard on the school payroll.
That bodyguard, Michael Rhodes, is a former police officer who is paid $48,880 and is part of a football enterprise at Colorado that has expanded from 48 to 57 coaches and support staff since last year, according to records obtained from Colorado by USA TODAY Sports.
That includes Rhodes in the role of “private security to the head coach.”
“Officer Rhodes is a trusted and invaluable member of Coach Prime’s security team and has been an important addition to CU Athletics’ overall security efforts since his arrival,” the university said.
The cowboy-hatted Rhodes screens Sanders’ mail and follows him around, protecting a prized employee who now is one of 10 college football coaches making at least $10 million annually, according to the newly released coaches’ pay database from USA TODAY Sports.
That’s up from only two coaches making at least $8 million in 2019 − Alabama’s Nick Saban and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney, both of whom had won multiple national championships by then. This year, seven of those $10-million coaches never have won a national championship, including Sanders, whose pay was increased by Colorado from $5.7 million in 2024.
Yet schools keep throwing that kind of money at these coaches anyway, even as another massive new cost has been added to their athletics budgets this year starting July 1 − up to $20.5 million in additional benefits for players, including payments for their names, images and likenesses (NIL).
All of which raises a fundamental question: Where is the money coming from to pay for all of this?
Colorado says revenue sources are ‘TBD’
Some schools can answer that question more easily than others. Texas, for example, generated $332 million in athletics revenue in fiscal 2024, the most in the nation among public schools. That level of resources helped Texas increase the pay of coach Steve Sarkisian from $5.45 million in 2021 to $10.8 million now.
At Virginia Tech, the governing board on Sept. 30 approved a plan that provides $229 million in additional support for athletics over the next four years.
At Michigan, the university has offered athletics a $15 million loan to help pay rising costs in athletics.
In Colorado’s case, it’s a mystery.
“TBD,” Colorado’s athletic department recently stated on an estimated budget revenue form for fiscal year 2026, which started July 1.
TBD stands for “to be determined.”
In fiscal 2024, Colorado athletics generated only about a third of the revenue that Texas did, $115 million.
Meanwhile, the academic side of campus is straining for resources. In 2024, CU projected a small but growing budget deficit starting in fiscal 2027. As a result, it told faculty and staff to move forward by “being comfortable with being uncomfortable.”
“As someone who is a teaching professor, I find it interesting that this budget crisis has occurred since Deion Sanders has come to CU,” said Sigman Byrd, an associate teaching professor at Colorado. “That the university will be perhaps giving even more money to athletics makes it worse. It frustrates me, angers me. Why is Sanders and the football team getting the money? That the university may not be transparent in the way it’s paying its bills concerns me, too.”
Colorado’s statement on where the money is coming from
USA TODAY Sports has submitted several requests to Colorado since May for records that show the athletic department’s revenue and expense estimates for the current fiscal year. In response, Colorado said it didn’t have documents responsive to these requests. The university then provided a document on Sept. 10 that shows estimated expenses for the current fiscal year at $164.9 million, about $24 million more than the estimated expenses for fiscal year 2025 and $27 million more than fiscal 2024.
Most of that increase can be attributed to football expenses and the new $20.5-million cost for players, under terms of the legal settlement for the House vs. NCAA lawsuit.
But Colorado said it doesn’t have anything to provide in writing that spells out where it’s getting the money to pay for that and Sanders’ new contract.
In previous years, the university has supported its athletic department with substantial funding to help to cover costs. In fiscal 2023, the university provided $31.89 million to athletics, according to documents obtained by USA TODAY Sports. In fiscal 2024, which included Sanders’ first season at CU, the university also provided $31.9 million to athletics, including $1.7 million from student fees. In fiscal year 2025, CU athletics estimated getting at least $26 million in support from the university.
But for fiscal 2026, the university said school support for athletics is “TBD,” like the rest.
“The FY26 budget is currently in development and is not finalized,” CU Athletics said in a statement to USA TODAY Sports in September. “Due to new opportunities presented by the House settlement, the budget for FY26 has required extensive conversations with our campus partners as well as our Board of Regents. CU Athletics is preparing for House implementation with a singular focus on revenue generation, which includes donations, multi-media rights, outside events and other sources, particularly the immense ancillary benefits the university receives thanks to head football coach Deion Sanders.”
The chair of the Board of Regents declined comment through a CU spokesperson.
CU media exposure from Sanders valued at $3.2B
In other words, Colorado is partly hoping its investment in Sanders pays off with increased revenues. It already has in many ways. Colorado sold out every home game in 2023 and had a record $31.2 million in football ticket sales in fiscal 2024.
His team is 2-4 this year without a Big 12 Conference win and was 9-4 last year after finishing 1-11 before Sanders was hired in 2022. Almost all of its games are now televised on national television, unlike before Sanders’ arrival, which has helped gain the university $3.2 billion in advertising equivalency value as measured by Cision, CU’s media monitoring company.
By those metrics, Sanders is arguably underpaid compared to what he brings in. Colorado football by itself reported $64.7 million in operating revenues in fiscal 2024, compared to $38.5 million in expenses.
But there are limits to his money-making magic. The value of its media exposure under Sanders isn’t cash revenue, though it has helped boost enrollment to a record last fall of more than 38,000, up by 3.4% from the year before. In 2019, it was about 35,500. Factors other than athletics obviously boost and cap enrollment.
Sanders’ health has also been a concern. He was scheduled to undergo another surgery to remove blood clots in his left leg on Oct. 7 but is expected to return to his job this week.
Meanwhile, Colorado’s athletic department still has needed the university’s financial support since his arrival. It has 16 other sports to pay for, most of which don’t generate much revenue, if any. Football helps pay for them. And now the expenses are going up in fiscal 2026 without a clear new revenue source to cover them.
“In the absence of new revenue and assuming the expenses are accurate, then the campus will be on the hook for something approaching $50 million in subsidy of the athletic department,” said Roger Pielke, an emeritus professor at Colorado who previously taught sports governance in the CU athletics department. “That probably explains the sensitivities.”
The subsidy gap in college football
Colorado serves as a high-profile example of a school investing heavily in football at a time when uncertainty looms over future funding and a growing revenue gap divides college football.
One way to measure that divide is by whether athletic departments generate enough revenue on their own to pay the bills or need financial support from their universities to cover costs, such as direct payments from the university and student fees.
Only 24 of 236 Division I athletic departments received less than $4 million in university allocations in fiscal year 2024, the most recent year available for all schools, according to public records collected by USA TODAY Sports in conjunction with the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database at Syracuse University. That list includes big-revenue football schools in the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference such as Ohio State, Penn State, Texas, LSU, Michigan, Georgia, Oregon and Alabama.
Those athletic departments can afford to give their coaches big paychecks without getting help from the other side of campus. Of the nine public school coaches making $10 million, six work for athletic departments getting less than $4 million in support from their universities, including Ohio State’s Ryan Day, whose pay jumped from $10 million last year to $12.5 million now.
High subsidies at other schools
On the other end of the spectrum, 33 athletic departments received at least $30 million in university support, including Colorado ($31.9 million), Houston ($38.4 million), Arizona State ($51.7 million) and South Florida ($63.7 million).
This was all before the new $20.5 million settlement cost kicked in, along with increases related to football pay, such as at Arizona State, where coach Kenny Dillingham is making $7.4 million, up from $3.95 million last year.
“It doesn’t seem that the new model that includes new institutional NIL compensation for college athletes is moderating the growth rate of college coaching salaries and the excessive buyouts in their contracts,” said Amy Perko, CEO of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.
To address this, Perko said Congress should reconsider how to curb excessive pay for coaches at tax-exempt universities. She also noted that nearly 80% of Division I university leaders expressed concern about their athletics departments’ future reliance on institutional funds and student fees to cover expenses, according to a national survey conducted by Elon University Poll and the Knight Commission.
Why Colorado committed to the new expenses
If Colorado didn’t commit to these new expenses, it would risk falling into the abyss of irrelevancy in sports. Every school in major college football feels this pressure.
In Colorado’s case, the years before Sanders’ hiring showed what happens when you don’t keep up in sports, especially football. A bad team led to apathy and despair among fans and donors.
The University of Colorado’s Board of Regents referenced the competition in March when it approved Sanders’s new contract. The board’s agenda said it was necessary “in light of the prevailing market conditions and competitive employment agreement practices nationwide for head coaches.”
But even with Sanders packing the stadium and drumming up national attention on television every week, paying the bills is still more challenging in the Big 12 than in the revenue-rich Big Ten or SEC. In the Big 12, most schools got about $39.5 million each in fiscal year 2024, compared to $63 million for members of the Big Ten.
How other schools are paying for it
Another Big 12 school, Houston, is getting a new revenue boost at the same time its player expenses are going up. The Cougars previously got almost a half share of Big 12 revenue distributions, starting in 2023 when they joined the league. This year, they get a full share of around $36 million, athletics director Eddie Nunez said. That increase of around $18 million is dedicated to paying the $20.5 million for players.
It helps that coach Willie Fritz is making $4.5 million, the same as last year.
“For us, it was a little bit easier,” Houston athletics director Eddie Nunez told USA TODAY Sports. “We have this revenue coming in that we have not been living off of.”
That’s not the case at Colorado, which already was living off of a full revenue share in the Pac-12 and Big 12 conferences.
Other schools are tackling the new expense in different ways with cost reductions, fundraising efforts and university support.
∎ At Virginia Tech, the Board of Visitors on Sept. 30 approved a new $229-million planned investment in athletics over the next four years, including $48.3 million in institutional support, $21.3 million in student-fee revenue, $120 million in planned donations and $39.6 million in bridge funding, which the school said would come from university cash assets.
∎ In June, the Board of Governors for the State University System of Florida granted permission for state universities to give a $22.5 million annual lifeline to their athletics programs through at least June 2028.
∎ At West Virginia, the schools’ board of governors is taking steps to significantly boost funding for athletics and put it in the “top funding tier” in the Big 12, with more details to come.
∎ Even in Michigan’s big-revenue athletics department, athletics director Warde Manuel said the Wolverines faced a projected deficit of $27 million for the 2025-26 academic year, including the $20.5 million for players. He cited a planned 10% reduction in staff while the university has also offered the department a loan of up to $15 million, spokesman Dave Ablauf said.
‘We’ve got to figure out how’
USA TODAY Sports requested interviews with Colorado athletics director Rick George and Chancellor Justin Schwartz but was told they weren’t available. The athletic department said Sanders declined to comment. He previously addressed his new contract by saying he loves Colorado and wanted to get more resources for his program first.
Otherwise, he said, “I don’t like talking about my stuff.”
In July, George appeared on the athletic department’s YouTube channel with host Mark Johnson, an employee of the university.
“Where’s this money coming from?” Johnson asked in reference to the big new cost of revenue-sharing with players.
“Well, look,” George said, “like a lot of times, we’ve got to figure out how we’re gonna get to that point.”
George then said his department has tried to minimize expenses and maximize revenues but didn’t offer a clear solution that would cover these huge new costs in fiscal 2026.
University regents approved a student athletics fee increase this year from $28.50 to $90 per semester, but it’s being phased in gradually and only netted athletics about $1.7 million annually before the increase.
George cited a rare seventh home football game this season instead of the usual six, which could add around $5 million more than normal. He also said the new artificial turf at Folsom Field might lead to more events, such as a concert in October. He even said he hoped his football team hosted a College Football Playoff game in December. Ohio State, for example, netted $5.1 million for its playoff home game in 2024. But that is not likely this season for the Buffaloes.
“We absolutely need more support from our donors if we can,” George said then.
Colorado’s estimated donations for fiscal 2026 are like the rest: TBD.
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com
