Colorado doesn't have the money their athletic dept has committed

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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.

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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.”

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“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.”

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