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The hype around Colorado’s football team is still buzzing early into Year 2 under head coach Deion Sanders, following a season-opening 31-26 win over North Dakota State that drew 4.8 million viewers on ESPN, the network’s best college football Thursday opener since 2017.
Off the field, Sanders continues to rake in millions of dollars for his sunglasses sponsor, Blenders Eyewear, which features a special-edition Coach Prime collection. “Just from last year, we’ve sold over 200,000 Deion Sanders pairs,” Chase Fisher, the company’s founder and CEO, tells Front Office Sports. “It’s been a remarkable partnership.”
Last fall, after Sanders’ spat with Colorado State coach Jay Norvell, Blenders received roughly 70,000 pre-orders of the Prime sunglasses before the collection went on sale. At $67 a pop, that was good for more than $4.5 million in revenue. “We saw a very large influx during the season last year,” Fisher says.
The price of Sanders sunglasses increased to $79 in December, and this year’s new line costs $89. With more than 200,000 pairs sold, Coach Prime is responsible for at least $13.4 million in revenue for Blenders in the past 12 months—and probably more.
Prime Boost
In December 2019, Blenders was valued at $90 million when Safilo Group agreed to acquire a majority stake in the company. The Sanders partnership has helped Blenders dive into the sports space. The company has a separate deal with Colorado Athletics. It rolled out a March Madness collaboration with San Diego State, Fisher’s alma mater, that resulted in $75,000 in name, image, and likeness money for the men’s basketball team. And this fall, it just launched a similar initiative with the Aztecs football team, with the goal of raising $100,000.
“He’s been a juggernaut the last year and a half, and we’re just getting started with him,” Fisher says of Sanders. “So, we’re excited to see where this can go. He’s definitely responsible for a good chunk from last year.”
More Madness
Fisher, who’s based in Southern California, was in Boulder last week for Colorado’s home opener, continuing his busy travel schedule around Coach Prime. “I was on a plane every weekend last year,” he says. “I was at every home game. I just wanted to immerse myself in the culture, really focus on the relationship and put myself in that situation, just to take it all in.”
A year ago, Blenders had to put an eventual collaboration with 99-year-old Colorado fan Peggy Coppom on hold to deal with the sudden Prime demand. “When Coach Norvell decided to take a shot at Deion’s mom, we literally said, ‘Get the factories going. We’re going to launch these sunglasses this week,’” Constance Schwartz-Morini, Sanders’ off-field agent, said at the FOS Huddle in the Hamptons event last month.
“We had to renegotiate with our factory to move other brands out of the way, so we can move Prime up,” Fisher says. “It was probably one of the most chaotic logistical complications that we’ve ever had to solve for.”
