University of Colorado football coach and NFL legend Deion Sanders has deep ties to Nike — and his girlfriend, Karrueche Tran, seems to be enjoying the spoils.
“How do you feel when somebody abuses the privilege of Nike?” Sanders, 58, asked Tran, 37, and his daughter, Deiondra, in a video shared via X on Monday, April 27. “How do you feel when somebody just abuses it?”
Deion then asked Deiondra, 34, to guess who he feels “abuses” the privilege the most. She cycled through her siblings, starting with her brother Shilo, not seeming to realize that her dad was specifically looking for her to mention Tran, who was standing beside the father-daughter duo.
Deion shares Deiondra and her brother, Deion Sanders Jr., 32, with ex-wife Carolyn Chambers, to whom he was married from 1989 to 1998. He also shares Shilo, 26, Shedeur, 24, and Shelomi Sanders, 22, with Pilar Biggers-Sanders, who he married in 1999 before they split in 2015. He has been dating Tran since late last year.
“Another person, they just take advantage,” Deion continued, conspicuously looking at his girlfriend. “Like the other day, I just happened to find two boxes in my office… I don’t know where it came from.”
Tran did her best to defend herself, claiming she just places orders “here and there,” and those orders are often gifts for other people.
“He likes when I wear cute outfits so I gotta keep up,” she said. “I always get stuff for everybody, for Lauren, your mom, your sister.”
“Her game is second to none,” Deion said in a mock compliment.
Deion’s history with Nike dates back to 1992, when he signed his first contract with the brand as a player for both the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta Braves. His first signature shoe was released a year later.
Deion kept rocking the iconic Swoosh for the rest of his football and baseball careers, even though his signature line ended in the mid 1990s and he was technically no longer a Nike athlete. The dual-sport legend later told Complex in a 2017 interview he would “never” return to the brand.
“We created these together, but they don’t want to see me,” he said. “They don’t want to direct the deposit.”
Deion and Nike were forced into a reunion when he took the job as head coach at Colorado, a Nike sponsored school, in 2023. A standard part of all NCAA head coach contracts is a certain allotment of gear from the school’s apparel sponsor. Depending on how high-profile the job is, that allotment could be enough for a coach’s girlfriend to abuse.
