The Top Five NIL Earning Athletes in Colorado

Since 2021, college athletes have been able to enter brand deals to make money off their name, image and likeness, commonly referred to as NIL.

High-profile college athletes making money are no longer viewed as scandalous; they're now the norm. Although most student-athletes aren’t raking in huge dollar amounts from NIL deals reached with local businesses, some athletes have made eye-popping deals.

Sponsored social media posts are a common form of NIL deals, but for Deion Sanders and his children, the current royal family of Colorado athletics, television ad campaigns are also part of the picture.

Sanders himself has a plethora of brand deals and he’s brought his children in on the fun, including University of Colorado football players Shedeur and Shilo Sanders, who appear in KFC commercials with their father. The brothers were also part of an ad for Google last year.

The wealth from the Sanders name has spread, with Visit Boulder estimating home football games for CU brought in $113.2 million last year. It’s no surprise, then, that the top five NIL earners in Colorado are all members of the football team.

None of these top earners are from Colorado; in fact, no one who lived in the state before college even cracks the top 100 in the nation, according to On3 Sports.

Here are the athletes slated to take in the most NIL money in Colorado this year:

Shedeur Sanders

Sanders is the highest NIL earner in the country, according to On3, at $5.6 million. The quarterback is expected to bring in over $1.5 million more this year than the second-place NIL earner, Louisiana State University gymnast Livvy Dunne. With over 2.7 million followers between his Instagram, TikTok and X accounts, Sanders is attractive to brands. He's famously flashed a Rolex watch and mimes it in big moments. He became the first college player to sign a NIL deal with Nike, who splashed the quarterback’s face and signature “You know what time it is” move across Times Square. Sanders is expected to be a top draft pick in 2025.

Shedeur Sanders Nike Billboard in NYC at Times Square 🔥 #SkoBuffs pic.twitter.com/YEo5IZtSFy

— We Coming 🦬 (@SkoBuffsGoBuffs) August 29, 2024

Travis Hunter

The only athlete from Colorado who can rival Sanders’s popularity is Travis Hunter, who shines at both cornerback and wide receiver and is currently a Heisman Trophy contender. One of the best athletes in college football, Hunter has the third-highest NIL valuation in the country with 3.2 million followers on social media and deals with United Airlines, Celsius energy drinks and EA Sports, for which Hunter was a cover star for the College Football 25 video game. According to On3, that's all worth about $3.3 million to Hunter.

Shilo Sanders

Though Shilo isn’t a high NFL draft prospect like Shedeur, his last name is still Sanders and the safety’s personality has made him a good candidate for brand deals. Sanders has partnerships with Oikos yogurt and Tint My Ride. On3 values Sanders’s NIL earnings at around $1 million, but in a bankruptcy proceeding filed in December 2023, Sanders disclosed just $300,000 in overall assets. Court documents revealed Sanders has two LLCs he uses for NIL deals called Big 21 and SS21, but they did not show the value of those LLCs.

Jordan Seaton

First-year offensive tackle Seaton joined Colorado as a five-star prospect and is already making the most of his time in college. Seaton also has reported deals with EA Sports and 5430 Alliance, which was formed in March when two CU NIL collectives combined. NIL collectives are designed to collect funds and potential partnerships from donors or businesses then dole out opportunities among student-athletes at specific schools. In all, Seaton has racked up around $837,000, On3 research shows.

Jimmy Horn Jr.

Horn’s main source of NIL earnings has been NIL collectives for CU, but the wide receiver also has a partnership with Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers, which has approximately 35 locations in Colorado and around 500 across the country. Horn has a great connection with Shedeur, scoring seven touchdowns since transferring to CU in 2023. He's slated to earn about $232,000.