A former member of the Colorado football staff took a trip without the team’s knowledge to Saudi Arabia in December in hopes of striking a $10 million deal between the country’s tourism arm and the collective that raises name, image and likeness funds for the university’s athletes.
Documents obtained through open records requests from The Athletic, as well as interviews with the staffer, Trevor Reilly, and statements from the school and its collective, showed that Reilly financed a trip to the Middle East in December by himself before eventually resigning in frustration Aug. 1 from his role as a special teams analyst for coach Deion Sanders.
Reilly, a former NFL linebacker, characterized his meetings with officials in Saudi Arabia as serious even as officials with Colorado and those working on behalf of the collective said Reilly worked on his own without their blessing.
Officials for Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and its tourism ministry did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. Still, the kingdom has shown itself to be a serious player in numerous sports through its sovereign wealth fund, raising inevitable speculation about whether college athletics might be ripe for its investment.
A Saudi official, in a Dec. 28 email to Reilly obtained by The Athletic, confirmed their meeting and described himself as an “international partnership associate” employed by the Saudi government.
“My idea is to look for basically an exclusive branding agreement, where they sponsor our collective for a considerable amount of money and we promote visiting Saudi Arabia and promote tourism there,” Reilly wrote in a Dec. 27 email in which he sought help from a lawyer.
“With our social media following in our national reach, I believe that there is a serious deal to be made here,” he wrote, noting examples of serious sums being paid to athletes, including the golfer Phil Mickelson.
Reilly sent a presentation to his contact in Saudi Arabia that laid out his vision and Sanders’ financial impact on Boulder and Colorado in his first season, pitching the star coach as a “religious, family man, almost never political.” He said Sanders improved diversity in the community, exponentially grew Colorado’s reach on social media and spiked applications to the school, while drawing celebrities like Dwayne Johnson to Boulder for Buffaloes games.
“We will leverage this exposure in conjunction with our ideal image (family oriented, religious, not politically radical) to drive tourism to Saudi Arabia,” Reilly wrote in his presentation. “With just the football program’s audience we get over 10 million unique eyes on Saudi Arabia.”
Blueprint Sports, an organization employed by Colorado to work with its top NIL collective, the 5430 Alliance, said in a statement that it was not involved in Reilly’s pursuit of foreign investments.
“Trevor Reilly has never been authorized or directed to speak or advocate on behalf of 5430 Alliance, especially in Saudi Arabia,” said a spokesperson for Blueprint, which is employed by several prominent Division I programs. “Since our launch in March 2024, all funding and initiatives have been managed solely within domestic channels and are entirely unrelated to Mr. Reilly or his work.”
Reilly moved to Hawaii after quitting with a fiery letter that complained about the leadership of Blueprint and the 5430 Alliance.
Reilly had worked under Sanders to secure NIL funds at Jackson State and came to Colorado in hopes of finding a similar role. He had additional duties to help with special teams and earned a $90,000 salary.
Reilly, 36, said he took it upon himself to comb the world for more funding because he believed Blueprint and the 5430 Alliance weren’t making enough money to fund a roster that could contend for conference championships.
“I did all this work in your name and was told to pursue it. I burned through all my contacts in the 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,” Reilly wrote in his resignation letter, which was addressed to athletic director Rick George and Sanders. “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.”
It is not fully clear how realistic a deal was. Reilly’s trip also included a visit to Amman, Jordan, where he pursued additional NIL funds while trying to secure a meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
“According to Trevor Reilly himself, he acted on his own accord and is no longer an employee of the university,” a Colorado athletic department spokesperson said last month after Reilly quit. Reilly confirmed that characterization to The Athletic.
In Hawaii, Reilly, who played college football at Utah and was drafted by the New York Jets in the seventh round of the 2014 draft, is a volunteer football coach at a local high school while washing dishes at a restaurant.
Reilly pursuing Saudi Arabian funds is not the leap it once would have been.
The Athletic spoke to multiple athletic directors and industry sources in 2023 about the possibility of Saudi money flowing into college sports. Several saw it as a real possibility in the near future — even if it comes with some trepidation.
In 2021, the CIA released a report that found Mohammed bin Salman, the prime minister of Saudi Arabia, approved the 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who had been critical of bin Salman. In 2022, the nation executed 81 men amid criticisms that many of them had not received a fair trial or due process. The nation also imposes severe restrictions on women’s rights, speech and homosexuality.
Saudi Arabia has had serious fiscal involvement in sports worldwide over the past five years as it seeks to reshape its image on the world stage. Around the same time the PIF began bankrolling LIV with a reported $2 billion of an estimated $620 billion of its fund, the country’s tourism authority entered into a lucrative agreement with soccer megastar Lionel Messi to promote tourism.
Formula 1 and Saudi Arabia’s flagship oil company, Aramco, entered into a 10-year partnership for an estimated $45 million a year. The country is also in the midst of a bidding process for the 2034 FIFA men’s World Cup. The PIF has a significant investment in Newcastle United, and Saudi Arabia’s pro soccer league lured Cristiano Ronaldo in 2023.
“I’d say close to 50 percent of schools and athletic department leaders would navigate their way to yes,” a top NIL executive said last year when describing the possibility of Saudi investment in college sports.
(Top photo: Nick Tre. Smith / Icon Sportswire via Getty)
