Where Colorado ranks in latest college football program valuations

When Deion Sanders announced he was coming to Colorado, the college football landscape received a huge boost. We'll probably never see a phenomenon like that in the future.

The Buffaloes were a hit with the primetime TV audiences, with record numbers for games ending at 2 a.m. in the East. Sanders and the "Prime Effect" will be a moment in history for the attention it brought to Boulder. Where does the program sit four years later?

Colorado has moved up in The Athletic's latest valuations ahead of the 2026 season. But they're still not in the top 40 nationally. Before Sanders burst onto the scene, the prospect of investing in or buying a college football team seemed farfetched. Well, those days seem like a lifetime ago. The NIL era has taught us, it's that everybody has a price.

For Colorado, the evaluation was No. 44 at $368 million. This puts the program seventh in the Big 12 or, as Shedeur Sanders would say, "mid" against the others. Everything Coach Prime has done for the program hasn't gone unnoticed. But they're nowhere close to shooting up towards the top.

Utah was No. 1 among Big 12 schools and came in at No. 26 overall. The $638 million price tag is right below Clemson and above Ole Miss. The conference has no teams in the top 25, which is an easy way to explain how they stack up. Utah is nearly twice as valuable compared to Colorado.

There are a total of 17 teams valued at over a billion dollars, which is a record compared to last year, when there were only 13 total.

The Buffaloes are sandwiched between Arizona State ahead of them and UCLA one spot below. Not bad company, but not elite by any means. Here's the hard truth for the Big 12. Texas, who is No. 1 at $2.46 billion, could theoretically be split six ways to equal Colorado. If Sanders is a primary figure for the conference, shouldn't there be more of a push to boost the program's value? Out of the 17 billion dollar programs, nine of them are in the SEC.

Colorado football still has work to do on a national scale. Even coming off a terrible year, there is no doubt the program is more valuable with Sanders at the helm.

The Buffs will try to boost their profile with a Thursday night opener in Atlanta against Georgia Tech (8 p.m. ET, ESPN).

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