The University of Colorado, Deion Sanders and Nike have spent the last half year negotiating formal authorization to sell co-branded apparel, one that a school spokesperson says will replace the “handshake agreement” under which the parties are currently operating for apparel that includes the IP of both CU and its football coach.
Colorado and Nike, the Buffaloes’ apparel provider, are “getting close” to signing a special licensing agreement that has been in the works since last fall, CU spokesperson Steve Hurlbert told Sportico. The school is also in talks on a related agreement with Sanders, which will determine how sales revenue will be divided between them.
The three sides are looking to capitalize further on the vortex of attention—and commercial opportunity—that has defined Sanders’ first year in Boulder, Colo. The former MLB and NFL star became a national sensation in his first Power Five coaching gig, driving TV viewership, ticket sales and media coverage previously unseen at Colorado. There is already some co-branded Nike apparel currently for sale, which Hurlbert says is being produced under an informal arrangement between the parties.
It’s unclear what specifically is holding up the execution of the agreements. Representatives for Nike and Sanders didn’t respond to requests for comment, while Hurlbert suggested that there was no particular urgency among the parties to formalize the terms.
A draft of the revenue-sharing agreement from January, which was obtained through a public records request, makes direct reference to the ongoing talks between the school and Nike. It says the university is negotiating a “special license type agreement” that will carry an 18 percent royalty for Nike “Prime 21” merchandise that includes university marks. The document includes blank spaces to clarify how those proceeds will be split between Sanders’ company, Prime Time Enterprises, and Colorado’s athletic department.
According to the draft agreement, Sanders would seek approval from the university—and specifically CU’s athletic director—for anything that appeared on co-branded merchandise, prior to it being submitted to Nike. The agreement would be in place as long as Sanders is employed as Colorado’s head football coach. In the event he no longer is, the draft agreement stated, the university would have six months to liquidate any remaining merchandise and distribute the revenue in accordance to the revenue share terms.
Shortly after Sanders was hired, the university established licensing deals with wholesale clothing suppliers ‘47 and Blue 84, which produced the first round of co-branded merchandise that was sold from Dec. 2022 through the spring of 2023. Of those sales, 12% of the revenue went to Sanders and 12% went to CU, according to Hurlbert.
That fall, after reaching a tacit agreement, Nike began producing its line of co-branded items—including t-shirts bearing “Coach Prime” and Sanders’ “We Ain’t Hard 2 Find” catchphrase—which are currently for sale through CUBuffs.com and Fanatics. As for the formal agreement, Hurlbert said, “There hasn’t been a huge rush because we are in the market, and everything has gone well.”
It’s rare, but not unheard of, for schools to sell apparel that includes both their own IP and that of a coach. Those opportunities often come about as a result of some milestone, such as a retirement or a wins record. When longtime Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski retired in 2022, for example, the school sold apparel celebrating his 40-plus year run. When football coach P.J. Fleck left Western Michigan for Minnesota, he reached a $50,000 agreement with his former employer for rights to his “Row the Boat” catchphrase. The Minnesota bookstore now sells “Row the Boat” t-shirts and hoodies.
Sanders’ employment agreement, which runs through December 2027, anticipated the possibility that the coach and university would partner on co-branded merchandise. Specifically, the agreement states that Sanders “may not use the marks or intellectual property of the University, including without limitation its logos, slogans, trademarks, service marks, copyrights, trade dress, color scheme or other indicia without a specific, written licensing agreement between Coach and the University.”
Sanders’s Prime Time Enterprises currently has 38 pending trademark applications, according to the running tally being kept by intellectual property lawyer Josh Gerben.
In his first season at Colorado, in which the Buffaloes finished with a 4-8 record despite a hot start, Sanders proved far more accomplished as a brand marketer than coach. After Colorado State coach Jay Norvell publicly criticized Sanders for his incessant wearing of shades, sales of Blenders Eyewear’s “Prime 21” sunglasses skyrocketed. The company’s CEO Chase Fisher told On3 that between 65,000 and 75,000 pairs had been pre-ordered prior to their scheduled release date on Sep. 20, which had been expedited to meet the demand.
In addition to the co-branding clause, Sanders’s contract contains an unusual provision, as Sportico previously reported, which allows him to avoid creating a paper trail of his athletically-related outside income, by instead providing a “verbal accounting” of those earnings to CU’s athletic director and chancellor.