It's hard to deny the significant impact Deion "Prime Time" Sanders has brought to the University of Colorado, but now the head football coach has inspired a new course for student-athletes looking to get ahead financially.
Starting next semester, Colorado will offer a Prime Time: Public Performance and Leadership course — and it's already filling up. The class is designed to help students better understand things like name, image and likeness — better known as NIL — and how it's being used by collegiate athletes to monetize their personal brands.
New NIL Benefits Turn College Athletes Into Millionaires
Name, image and likeness deals have taken hold at college campuses across the country, turning some student-athletes into millionaires.
Since the 2021 decision by the NCAA to lift restrictions preventing college athletes from profiting off of their celebrity status, hundreds of thousands of student-athletes across the country have secured deals — often lucrative ones — with brands, companies and organizations, turning some into millionaires overnight. Just head to any college campus with a major athletic department and you might come across many more luxury cars and clothes than you remember seeing around colleges in the past.
Sanders made a successful transition into college football coaching after a stellar multi-sport professional career, and if there's one thing he can do — and do well — it's capitalize on an opportunity. Since taking over the head coaching job at CU, Sanders has graced the cover of GQ magazine, been featured on CBS News' "60 Minutes," and was even named Sports Illustrated's Sportsperson of the Year. And Coach Prime will surely be a major topic of discussion in Colorado's new course.
Deion 'Coach Prime' Sanders has authored a playbook for life
The University of Colorado football head coach and former NFL player authored “Elevate and Dominate: 21 Ways to Win On and Off the Field."
"This course will be co-taught by a variety of media experts on the CU Boulder campus," the university said in a statement. "The course will focus on helping college athletes explore how to manage their time in college, prepare for career, manage their celebrity, identify when to best speak into their profit center, advocate for worthy causes, coordinate with sports agents and how to interact with Journalists and the media."
The class will be available next semester through Colorado's College of Media, Communication, and Information and will meet Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5 p.m. to 6:15 p.m.
As of Thursday, the class only had 32 seats remaining, so students hoping to learn how they too can build their own NIL empire better hurry and enroll before it fills up.
