The TV ratings for University of Colorado football have been steadily declining during Deion Sanders’ tenure, despite his initial promise in 2023.
When Deion Sanders took the reins in 2023, the former NFL great instantly became a sensational draw for College Football fans, with high ratings throughout the 2023 and 2024 football seasons. As noted by Front Office Sports, that initial rush of attention has been steadily declining.
When Sanders took over for the 2023 season, Colorado quickly became a TV phenomenon. With Coach Prime prowling the sidelines and Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter starring on the field, the national networks fought for the school’s game telecasts. In September 2023, ABC drew an eye-popping 10.03 million viewers for Colorado’s blowout loss to Oregon, even topping the 9.98 million for a Notre Dame—Ohio State telecast on NBC Sports that same day.
But the “Prime Effect” on Colorado game viewership is wearing off. Take the program’s recent history on ESPN. During the 2023 season, the five Colorado games televised by ESPN averaged 6.1 million viewers, say sources. The next year, ESPN averaged 3.4 million over four games. During last season’s disaster, it fell to 2 million viewers over seven games. That’s a 67% drop over a three-season span.
On Fox’s broadcast channel, ratings for Colorado games have averaged 4.7 million viewers over three seasons.
Going into the 2026 season, Colorado is ranked 15th out of 16 teams in a preseason Big 12 media poll and did not make the Associated Press preseason national Top 25 poll.
