Colorado Reportedly Lobbied the Saudi Public Investment Fund for NIL Money

Sports Illustrated — Deion Sanders and his Buffaloes staff have been at the forefront of innovative business ideas during his tenure with Colorado. As it turns out, NIL funding is no different. 

After resigning as CU’s special teams coordinator on August 1st, Trevor Reilly went on the record about trying to pull in funding for the school’s 5430 NIL collective. He expressed to Sports Illustrated that there were no bad feelings between anyone with the program, but rather he was at odds with a few people in Colorado’s administration.

Reilly said he spent time in the Middle East this past holiday season lobbying Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) for Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) funding on behalf of CU Football. A copy of what Reilly says was in his resignation letter to CU athletic director Rick George and Sanders was reviewed by Sports Illustrated.

"You paid me $90,000 a year and let me handle special teams. I did all this work in your name and was told to pursue it. I burned through all my contacts in my Mormon community, which is worth about $3 trillion. Now, I can't get these people to answer my calls because I just found out today that none of my endeavors will happen.

"I even went to Saudi Arabia and got a meeting with the Saudis, who were interested in pursuing business. I have email receipts to prove it, and you guys let it fall flat on its face."

We did it, folks. We have reached peak college football. It does not get any better than having an assistant coach whose real job was to lobby the Saudis and Mormons for NIL money. This is why there will never be a sport in existence better than this one.

I don't know if Colorado would have been my very first guess as to which school would have been first to reach out to the Saudi Public Investment Fund — Google "LSU football children's hospital" — but it absolutely would have been in the top five. It was only a matter of time before someone at least tried it. If you're a school in need of some extra cash in the NIL era, I guess it's at least worth a shot to see if Mohammed bin Salman & Co. are interested in expanding into college football.

This is seriously in the running for my favorite story of all-time, though. We obviously don't know who knew about this and who didn't, but I have a hard time believing a special teams coordinator found himself taking meetings in Saudi Arabia without that being run up the flag pole beforehand. Also, is the Mormon church doling out cash like that? I know they have a nice portfolio over there, but I was not aware you could hit them up for NIL donations — and I assume they'd help out BYU before another Big XII rival.

I just really can't tell you how much I love college football. Getting this story two days before Week 0 kicks off has me tingling. I want to thank God for creating this beautiful game and Deion Sanders for running a program that is an absolute electric factory for content.