College football has changed forever.
It looks like the big winner of this change is the Hall of Fame player turned college coach known as Prime Time.
And Deion Sanders is stunning the college football world with one simple statistic no one’s all coming.
College football will never be the same
Over the past couple of decades, college football has fundamentally changed from the product fans knew and loved.
With TV networks locked in bidding wars over live sports programming – it’s the only reason most cable subscribers haven’t cut the cord yet – the landscape has completely changed, as college football programs frantically chasing bigger TV payouts has caused a massive realignment of conferences that has effectively turned the SEC, Big 10, Big 12, and ACC into national super conferences filled with the top-68 programs in America.
That’s the sort of thing that happens when ESPN and other networks sign TV deals with conferences that include clauses about increasing teams’ – and let’s be real, conference executives – yearly payout should the conference add new members.
Now, every decision in college football is dictated by money, and money alone.
But while many traditionalists will have a hard time adapting, it’s the type of environment where new school coaches, like the University of Colorado’s head football coach, and former Pro Football Hall of Famer, Deion Sanders, thrive.
No one is better at self-promotion, generating publicity, and staying relevant in sports than Sanders.
This is Prime Time
Sanders was hired by Colorado prior to this season, and he proceeded to immediately clean house, encouraging many of the Buffaloes’ players to find any other place to play other than there, and bringing in over 50 transfers and dozens of other freshmen recruits to replace them.
And he was able to have success bringing better talent into Colorado by promising the players that they will end up making more money from the NCAA’s new Name Image and Likeness rules allowing players to profit from their own names and images, and obtaining more fame playing for his program than any other.
That was made crystal clear after the latest statistics about the University of Colorado football program shocked nearly every observer of the sport nationwide.
In the second week of college football, the eyes of the college football world were on the matchup between University of Texas Longhorns and the University of Alabama as both are historic programs that were ranked highly coming into the season.
It was easily one of the most anticipated early season non-conference matchups of the year, and the game didn’t disappoint, as Texas pulled off the upset, handing Alabama head coach Nick Saban his first loss by more than 10 points in Tuscaloosa in over a decade.
And as expected, the game drew a massive number of viewers for ESPN with 8.8 million people turning in, marking ESPN’s biggest Saturday night college football broadcast since 2015.
But thanks to Sanders’ popularity and all of the media attention that’s been thrown his team’s way, not far behind in the viewership tally was the matchup between Colorado and Nebraska, the second game of Sanders’ tenure as the Buffaloes’ head coach, which reportedly drew 8.7 million viewers.
Colorado-Nebraska was the most watched CFB game Saturday (8.7 million viewers)
Texas- Alabama was second (7.9 million) pic.twitter.com/fsxMT43Obu
— Barstool Colorado (@CUBarstool) September 12, 2023
That Colorado victory was the most watched Pac-12 game Fox Sports has ever broadcast.
The media and plenty of college fans clearly can’t get enough of Prime Time.
Of course, only time will tell whether or not Sanders’ team is actually a good, top-level college football team, as they’ve played just two games, and those were against a completely rebuilding Texas Christian, and Nebraska, which may be the worst major college football program in America.
Regardless, the decision to bring in Deion Sanders was always about money – the school’s Athletic Director admitted as much when he revealed the school’s athletic program would have gone bankrupt had the hire not generated the ticket and merchandise sales it has.
And at least from that point of view, it’s certainly working out for them.
US Political Daily will keep you updated on any developments to this ongoing story.
