The Colorado football program is distancing itself from efforts to push the boundaries of NIL (name, image and likeness) funding in what would have been an extraordinary partnership. According to a report by Sports Illustrated.
Former assistant coach Trevor Reilly told SI he traveled to the Middle East during the past holiday season to try to secure funding from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) for the Buffaloes’ NIL program.
Reilly resigned as the team’s special teams coordinator on Aug. 1. In his resignation letter to Colorado athletic director Rick George and head football coach Deion Sanders, Reilly claimed he had been tasked with coordinating NIL activities with his special teams duties and expressed frustration with trying to raise funds. Those efforts ultimately failed due to a lack of support from the athletic department.
“You paid me $90,000 a year and let me run special teams,” Reilly wrote in the letter reviewed by SI. “I did all this work on your behalf and was told to do it. I spent all my contacts in my Mormon community, which is worth about $3 trillion. Now, I can’t get these people to respond to my calls because I just found out today that none of my efforts will come to fruition.
“I even went to Saudi Arabia and met with the Saudis, who were interested in doing business. I have email receipts to prove it, and you guys let the whole thing completely fail.”
Reilly went on to explain that he acted on his own, “did nothing illegal” and was not asked to seek out these sources of income for NIL. This was confirmed by the Colorado athletics department. to AJ Pérez from Front Office Sports.
“According to Trevor Reilly himself, he acted on his own initiative and is no longer employed by the university,” a department spokesperson said in an email to Perez.
Blueprint Sports, which operates Colorado’s NIL collective, 5430 Alliance, as well as 26 other schools He told Front Office Sports who also had no knowledge of Reilly’s efforts and had nothing to do with the search for a sovereign wealth fund.
“We wish to clarify that Trevor Reilly has never been authorised or directed to speak or advocate for 5430 Alliance in Saudi Arabia,” a statement from Blueprint Sports reads. “Since our launch in March 2024, all funding and initiatives have been managed solely within domestic channels and have no relation to Mr. Reilly’s work. Any claim suggesting otherwise is unfounded and patently false.”
While the football staff, athletics department and NIL collective may not have been aware of Reilly’s specific efforts with Saudi Arabia and his Mormon contacts, there has been an initiative to find different sources of funding for the NIL because Colorado cannot rely solely on sponsors, donors, alumni and fans to match the revenue generated by the nation’s top college football programs. Seeking funding from outside the country was certainly an unusual — and in this case, controversial — path to take.
The Saudi Public Investment Fund, backed by the Saudi government, is best known for funding LIV Golf, but is also a shareholder in Chelsea and Newcastle United, as well as being the outright owner of several international professional football clubs. The PIF has also made efforts to buy the PGA Tour, as well as stakes in professional tennis and Formula One racing.
These efforts have been criticised as “sports whitewashing” – an attempt to hide the Saudi government’s human rights abuses with “blood money”, given its origins. Similar accusations have previously been levelled against China and Russia for hosting the Olympics, and against Qatar for hosting the World Cup.
With a potential partnership with Saudi Arabia in pursuit of NIL funding, how it is received by fans, media, alumni, boosters and university officials will likely determine whether or not future overtures are made, whether by Colorado again or another sports program looking to close the gap with the elite powers in college football.