Colorado reportedly paid Deion Sanders 'New Year's Six' bonus for Alamo Bowl appearance in 2024

Colorado paid head football coach Deion Sanders a “New Year’s Six” (NY6) bonus for his team making the Alamo Bowl during the 2024 season, according to a Wednesday report from USA Today’s Brent Schrotenboer, who cited an internal audit the university conducted.

>The audit report, which was distributed to university leadership, is dated June 4, 2026, and doesn’t identify intentional misconduct, per USA Today. It does, however, reportedly state that “significant improvements” were required for Colorado to avoid similar budget oversight.

>Not only was Sanders overpaid $50,000, but his assistant coaches and support staff were also overpaid $71,333 for the Alamo Bowl, on which Colorado lost $1.2 million, according to USA Today.

>As for Sanders specifically, he was reportedly due to earn a $150,000 bonus for leading the Buffaloes to a non-NY6 bowl game. Instead, he was rewarded the NY6 bonus stipulated in his contract, good for $200,000, hence the $50,000 overpay, which was “paid to the Head Coach due to the misclassification of the Alamo Bowl as a NY6 bowl rather than the non-NY6 incentive provision specified in the Head Coach’s contract,” according to the audit, via USA Today.

>The NY6 classification belongs to the Rose, Orange, Peach, Sugar, Cotton and Fiesta bowls.

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>As previously reported by USA Today, Sanders was also given more than his contract demanded for his efforts during the 2023 season, his first at the helm of Colorado’s football program. The Hall of Fame defensive back was reportedly gifted a discretionary bonus of $250,000 for the national recognition he brought to the university. Although Colorado finished 4-8 that season, the Buffs began the 2023 campaign 3-0 and achieved their highest AP Top 25 ranking (18th) in seven years.

>In 2024, Colorado was ranked as high as 16th in the AP Poll clocked out with a 9-4 record. Led by quarterback Shedeur Sanders and Heisman Trophy-winning, two-way star Travis Hunter, the Buffs were in the mix to reach the Big 12 title game for a while. They wound up No. 23 in the final College Football Playoff rankings that season, but they lost the Alamo Bowl to BYU 36-14.

>Sanders’ assistant coaches and support staff were overpaid for that postseason appearance because of “discretionary adjustments,” according to USA Today, which reported that the audit noted those program members should have been rewarded with one week of base pay in the form of a bonus.

“Reviews such as these are valuable tools for CU Athletics to identify areas and processes that are working as well as opportunities for improvement,” Colorado’s athletic department said in a statement to USA Today. “The findings of this audit are indicative of the excitement of the Athletic Department and university for making a bowl game while providing essential feedback for how we can improve our preexisting processes and implement new policies that will help us reflect best practices in the future.

>“We are committed to implementing all of the suggestions outlined in the audit starting this August as we provided in our management response, in order to make our procedures for football postseason play more efficient and transparent, while also working with various campus offices to ensure compliance and proper oversight.”