Deion Sanders Named Sports Illustrated Spokesperson Of The Year

One of the greatest multisport athletes of all time just earned Sports Illustrated Spokesperson of the Year.

According to Sports Illustrated, the announcement was made for Deion Sanders by Sports Illustrated last Thursday in the middle of the season of the Colorado Buffaloes where he currently coaches at. And it's fitting that Sanders won the award.

While the program isn’t where it wants to be in terms of record -- the Buffs currently have a 4-8 record after getting off to a 3-0 start -- Sanders has taken the program to new heights when it comes to notoriety. Hired in 2023 after thriving years at HBCU Jackson State, Sanders is the main reason for the program’s overhaul in just a short period, and as a result, the "Prime Effect“ swept across the country with Boulder being the epicenter of the sports world.

Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde reported the news, dropping some numbers about what’s happening in Colorado.

“There are numbers that define the Prime Effect upon the University of Colorado in Boulder, a place that hasn’t always had a chummy relationship with football. First-year applications are up 26.4% year over year; Black or African American applications are up 80.6%, nonresident applications are up 29.8% and international applications are up 38.4% from 97 countries, including 16 that didn’t have any applications last year.

“While those numbers cannot be definitively linked to Sanders, others can be. September sales at the school’s online team store were up 2,544% over the same month in 2022. Every home game in 50,183-seat Folsom Field was sold out for the first time in school history. There are numbers that define the Prime Effect on Boulder, a quirky, affluent and extremely white city of 108,000 that is picturesquely situated northwest of Denver at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Visit Boulder, the convention and visitors bureau, calculates that the total economic impact of the first four home games where attendance was up by nearly a third over last year was an estimated $77.8 million, a massive jump from 2022.”

And there’s no surprise there. The entire country hopped on the Colorado bandwagon after it started 3-0, but this fast start was thanks to players choosing the transfer portal, and electing to play at Colorado.

But Sanders, a former Super Bowl champion for the 49ers, Cowboys and Ravens, isn’t done, according to the Bleacher Report.