Deion Sanders: NIL is 'tremendously important,' but it shouldn't just be 'about a bag'

When it comes to recruiting, Deion Sanders made one thing clear earlier this month. If a player is just looking for NIL money, they shouldn’t look at Colorado because the program is “not an ATM.“

That doesn’t mean Sanders is minimizing the importance of NIL in recruiting, though. In fact, it’s just the opposite.

Coach Prime’s initial comments went viral, just before the transfer portal was beginning to open. He said the Buffaloes don’t want to “buy” players, per se. He’s looking for players that love the game and want to play at the next level.

Of course, the ability to benefit from NIL is also a part of the process. But Sanders doesn’t think that should be the only reason players want to choose a program.

“There’s kids nowadays that want to play for money and there’s kids, they want to get paid, but their heart is to one day be out here,” Sanders said on Amazon Prime’s Thursday Night Football pregame show. “You know that ‘Why?’ You understand that, ‘Why?’ All of us sitting up here right now, we had a ‘Why?’ And I want the ‘Why?’ not to just be about a bag. Let’s be about getting to the NFL, not the NIL.

“But the NIL is tremendously important. The collectives are tremendously important. If you do a search on the top-five schools right now in their budget, a recruiting budget or just a budget for football, it’s unbelievable and it topples ours. We’ve got to have finances to compete, as well.”

NIL is dominating the conversation as the transfer portal opens

Monday, the transfer portal will open for 30 days. That means players will start looking for new homes — if they haven’t already. Graduate students and players on teams which underwent coaching changes can already enter the portal, and nearly 450 players have done so as of Thursday night, according to the On3 Transfer Portal Wire.

When it comes to their destination, NIL immediately comes up. And earlier this week, Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule addressed the elephant in the room.

How much does a transfer quarterback cost?

“Make no mistake: a good quarterback in the portal costs $1 million to $1.5 million to $2 million right now,” Rhule told reporters Wednesday in Lincoln. “So just so we’re on the same page, right? Let’s make sure we all understand what’s happening. There are some teams that have $6-7 million players playing for them.”

Deion Sanders: ‘We really do need help with’ NIL collectives

Deion Sanders clarified his initial comments on his radio show a few days later. He walked through his recruiting pitch and when he thinks NIL should come up in the conversation.

That’s when he pointed out NIL collectives, and he said that’s part of the “reality” of the college sports landscape at the moment.

“The thing about it, we do need help with the collectives,” Sanders said. “We do need that because we have some kids that are really good at playing this game, and they’re going to need assistance in that aspect. So we do need help with the collectives. Don’t mistake that tone, pretty much, that we don’t need it. Yes. … It’s the reality of what we’re doing, but we don’t desire the kids that only want to come for that. We want the kids that want to come to play this game first.

“Now, I want you to understand, I want to play this game, I love this university, I love what you guys present. Now, we’ve got that all the way, if there’s a business part that we want to farther go down, cool — if we get that front part out of the way. But don’t come in here talking about the front part and we haven’t even discussed how you fit into the scheme. That’s the problem that we have. Don’t put the money up front, don’t put the bag up front. Put the game up front.”

Pete Nakos contributed to this report.