Colorado Buffs’ Fan Base at Potential Risk After Deion Sanders’ Goodbye, Despite Current Hype

Is the Colorado hype just a flash in the pan?

College football analyst Josh Pate delivers a hard pill to swallow and says why. The viewership and fan base of the Colorado program have surged since Deion Sanders took over as head coach. Interestingly, Colorado has featured in four of the Top 7 most-watched games of 2023 with its upset win against TCU delivering a high 7.26 million viewers in Fox’s Prime Time window.

But Pate has a question: How many of these are actual Buffalo fans and how many are just Deion Sanders fans?

The distinction may not matter, as Colorado earned $113.2 million in revenue in just six Fall 2023 games. However, Pate urges the fans to think long-term: about 5, 7, or 10 years, when Sanders would have left the program. With him, the fans would probably have gone too. This would result in a drastic shrinking of the fan base.

Sanders’ sway in Colorado would still remain intact. He not only brought the hype to Colorado but also elevated its reputation on gridiron. Colorado went 1-11 in 2022, a major heartbreak for the Buffs fans. In the pre-Deion Sanders era, Colorado was described as the worst athletic department in the Power Five rankings. In his first year in that program, Sanders took it to 4-8. And that is something people long associate with Sanders.

The analyst had earlier predicted that the forthcoming college football season would trigger conversation around Sanders’ future. This could happen if his son Shedeur Sanders’ stint at Colorado ends and he is part of the 2025 NFL Draft. “It’s going to be another one of those years where the conversation is not based in reality. There is no logic. You can take your logic and you wrap it up and throw it out your window. There is no logic in this,” he had said, adding, “And then towards the end of the year, there’ll be a whole another conversation of, well, if Shedeur gone, where’s Deion Sanders going? That one’s legit, but I’m not having it right now.”

“If they were to win six games this year, though, and hit that over, what would people say if they win six? I’m telling you, that’s a phenomenal year,” Pate had said.

Has Deion Sanders turned Colorado football around?

Pate is not the only one suggesting that Deion Sanders has raised the bar in Colorado — the former Colorado HC, Gary Barnett, also feels that the Buffs fans are “hoping” for Colorado to reach the National Championship.

“Colorado needed a jump start, and no one could have got it. No one could have put us in this position as a Deion Sanders,” Barnett confessed on the Zero 2 sixty podcast. Colorado selling out the tickets pre-season for the second consecutive time this season only proves how the stardom Deion Sanders has achieved.

The program has been wracked by the departures of more than 40 players since this year. Coach Prime is focused on delivering what he needs to by building a squad that shines on the gridiron. The latest controversy hobbling the team is the rumor that Sanders “threatened” his players into attending Shedeur Sanders’ appearance at Lil Wayne’s concert. Though the hype is real, it seems controversies will dog the team wherever they go.

Everything that now remains is for Sanders to make a winning record this season.