CU Athletics announces ‘first-of-its-kind’ fan engagement program

The Colorado Buffaloes have had an unprecedented number of fans flock to Boulder to cheer on Coach Prime and CU football at Folsom Field over the past two seasons, and the university has seen a positive influx in traffic and revenue on one of the nation’s most beautiful campuses. This week, the school’s athletic department announced that there will be a new way for fans to be even more involved in supporting the black and gold this upcoming season.

Buffs Premier, a $39.99 monthly subscription, is the name of the program that the university is using to generate more revenue in this new era of NIL and money in collegiate athletics. Fans can become founding members of the program, and choose from either a black, silver or gold tier to get themselves different rewards. The price tag for the higher tiers was not revealed.

“Buffs Premier brings the CU Buffaloes to our fans, students, and alumni like never before with perks and access to all of our programs, including our nationally recognized football team,” said CU Athletic Director Rick George. “I’m excited that CU Athletics is partnering with Two Circles on this initiative, which is the first of its kind in collegiate athletics and represents a new bar in fan engagement and student-athlete support.”

Benefits of the program include: custom gear, access to exclusive content, personalized messages from CU Athletics leadership, players and coaches, signed memorabilia and limited-edition merchandise drops, VIP experiences, behind-the-scenes tours and virtual roundtables and an enhanced ticket access to select home football games.

The university also emphasized that whatever money fans pay up to be a part of the program would be reinvested to student-athlete programs all throughout the department, not just the football program, and “will enable Colorado to continue to compete at the highest levels of college athletics,” per the release.

This is a huge step for CU in competing with the big name programs. While program is designed to spread the wealth around the athletic department, it’s no secret that Coach Prime and the football program need as much money as possible to bring in the best recruits and compete for a berth to the College Football Playoff. The recent House Settlement allows schools to directly pay athletes with a ‘salary cap’ around $20.5 million, but everyone knows that there is more money that’s handed back-and-forth under the table, and that’s why some of the nation’s richest schools have been so dominant for so long.

This is an entirely new era of college football where money is king. The only problem is, money isn’t the easiest thing to come by, so the university has to do everything in its power to source more cash in order to help lead the football program back to its glory days in the 1990s.

Related

Deion Sanders says injured top WR Danny Scudero will play in season openerDeion Sanders visits Shedeur Sanders at Browns campJuJu Lewis says what we already knew about CU’s coaching staffDeion Sanders explains why he’s not in College Football 27Coach Prime is healthy and confident in his Buffs at Big XII Media DayFormer Buffs assistant coach Bob Simmons, who helped CU to 1990 national title, dies