News: NIL collective backed by Ira Lubert, LaVar Arrington, David Taylor, and others launches for Penn State athletes

[GregPickel]

NIL collective backed by Ira Lubert, LaVar Arrington, David Taylor, and others launches for Penn State athletes

Penn State athletes now have access to a new NIL collective. 'Success with Honor' is backed by some of the school's most prominent alumni.

www.on3.com

 

[WVilleLion]

Still think it is going to be tough to compete and keep up given fan bases that will dump in cash like Texas and A&M.

 

[ChiTownLionPSU]

We can either compete, or go the way of University of Chicago.

 

[PSUFTG]

NIL collective backed by Ira Lubert, LaVar Arrington, David Taylor, and others launches for Penn State athletes

Penn State athletes now have access to a new NIL collective. 'Success with Honor' is backed by some of the school's most prominent alumni.

www.on3.com

A quick edit:

Regarding your story, Ira Lubert is not the Board of Trustees Chair. In fact, he is no longer on the Board at all (he just hasn't been replaced since he left 1 1/2 years ago)

 

[GregPickel]

A quick edit:

Regarding your story, Ira Lubert is not the Board of Trustees Chair. In fact, he is no longer on the Board at all (he just hasn't been replaced since he left 1 1/2 years ago)

Good catch there thank you. I meant to write he chairs the Success with Honor board and flipped those around. Fixed.

 

[TheBigUglies]

Some of the names being dropped that are on the board of this new org cause me hesitation from being excited about this.

 

[DavidM]

Let me be completely honest. I HATE and DESPISE the new "wild west" situation involving NIL, and the obvious abuses that SEC schools and some others are already committed to. I'm about as old school as you can get, short of having a Joepa shrine in my house. Having said that, I think folks deciding that getting involved with this NIL enterprise is beneath them, and that they can't afford to get involved given their other contributions to "worthier" causes (note that $10 a month/$120 a year is the least expensive involvement) are seeing things very differently than I. Am I willing to kick in a little money to help Penn State stay competitive? Yup.

 

[ChiTownLionPSU]

 

[PSUJam]

Is the headquarters going to be in the casino at Nittany Mall? Serious question.

 

[BobPSU92]

I like the name.

 

[psuro]

Good catch there thank you. I meant to write he chairs the Success with Honor board and flipped those around. Fixed.

This error will be duly noted in your annual performance review.

 

[Midnighter]

NIL collective backed by Ira Lubert, LaVar Arrington, David Taylor, and others launches for Penn State athletes

Penn State athletes now have access to a new NIL collective. 'Success with Honor' is backed by some of the school's most prominent alumni.

www.on3.com

I like the effort.

 

[Bkmtnittany1]

How much coin is Surma going to pony up??? Louie has about 10 million of our money he can contribute!

 

[GregPickel]

This error will be duly noted in your annual performance review.

I would expect no less!

 

[Woodpecker]

 

[pennstater97]

Let me be completely honest. I HATE and DESPISE the new "wild west" situation involving NIL, and the obvious abuses that SEC schools and some others are already committed to. I'm about as old school as you can get, short of having a Joepa shrine in my house. Having said that, I think folks deciding that getting involved with this NIL enterprise is beneath them, and that they can't afford to get involved given their other contributions to "worthier" causes (note that $10 a month/$120 a year is the least expensive involvement) are seeing things very differently than I. Am I willing to kick in a little money to help Penn State stay competitive? Yup.

Well said and pretty much sums up my sentiment as well. Bravo!

 

[SurgeOne]

Let me be completely honest. I HATE and DESPISE the new "wild west" situation involving NIL, and the obvious abuses that SEC schools and some others are already committed to. I'm about as old school as you can get, short of having a Joepa shrine in my house. Having said that, I think folks deciding that getting involved with this NIL enterprise is beneath them, and that they can't afford to get involved given their other contributions to "worthier" causes (note that $10 a month/$120 a year is the least expensive involvement) are seeing things very differently than I. Am I willing to kick in a little money to help Penn State stay competitive? Yup.

Like you, I feel the same. Also, I think I’d like to hit Ira L with a sledgehammer. That said, I love some people attaching to the group. I will be giving money. I want Penn St to be an important player in the NIL realm as it provides clout to getting the best recruits.

 

[TheWizardofCamelot]

This is an amazing effort - if you want to compete in the day of NIL, this is absolutely necessary. And given Penn State's enormous fan and alumni base, it's a great way for the average fan to get involved.

One name on the advisory board, outside of the obvious others, is Kelsey Amy - I believe she was on the field hockey team when I was on campus. She works for Nike as a shoe designer and works across all major sports + individual shoe deals.

 

[PSUJam]

This is an amazing effort - if you want to compete in the day of NIL, this is absolutely necessary. And given Penn State's enormous fan and alumni base, it's a great way for the average fan to get involved.

One name on the advisory board, outside of the obvious others, is Kelsey Amy - I believe she was on the field hockey team when I was on campus. She works for Nike as a shoe designer and works across all major sports + individual shoe deals.

Does this mean that Nike is involved? If so, that can be a real game changer.

 

[WVilleLion]

It will be interesting to see how this goes. There is a significant amount of the NLC members that do not give a single dollar more than they need in order to keep their seats.

Will people pony up extra? Will some folks that give to NLC stop giving to NLC and give to this instead? Lots of questions that will play out in terms of $ collected.

 

[LionJim]

It will be interesting to see how this goes. There is a significant amount of the NLC members that do not give a single dollar more than they need in order to keep their seats.

Will people pony up extra? Will some folks that give to NLC stop giving to NLC and give to this instead? Lots of questions that will play out in terms of $ collected.

One would imagine that the players who make it into the NFL will end up providing a good percentage of the money.

 

[Mile High Lion]

We can either compete, or go the way of University of Chicago.

Call me crazy but going the way of the University of Chicago doesn't sound all that bad. They are a successful school in a lot of ways.

 

[Phlebitis]

Call me crazy but going the way of the University of Chicago doesn't sound all that bad. They are a successful school in a lot of ways.

Funny, I thought the same thing. I just moved on, as he made his point, but using U of Chi to make it caught my attention.

 

[WVilleLion]

One would imagine that the players who make it into the NFL will end up providing a good percentage of the money.

Maybe, maybe not. We shall see.

 

[Midnighter]

So, is all this money individually divided amongst all PSU athletes or do individuals ‘sign deals’?

 

[Evan Ceg]

Call me crazy but going the way of the University of Chicago doesn't sound all that bad. They are a successful school in a lot of ways.

I concur. I'd love for a Penn State diploma to have the esteem that University of Chicago enjoys. I'm so disgusted with the direction of college sports given NIL and the transfer portal that I find myself increasingly advocating for punting all college sports back to the Div-III level. We don't run higher education in this country to provide alumni and other fans with water cooler braggadocio. But, to be realistic, going Div-III is not going to happen and we want to compete, so I grudgingly approve of the "Success with Honor' initiative.

 

[ChiTownLionPSU]

 

[TheWizardofCamelot]

So, is all this money individually divided amongst all PSU athletes or do individuals ‘sign deals’?

I don't think it will be divided "evenly" so to speak. Each athlete in the entire athletic dept. will have different values i.e. Clifford would cost more to work with than so and so on the golf team. I would look at this collective as a brokerage firm or an in-house talent agency.

 

[TheWizardofCamelot]

Does this mean that Nike is involved? If so, that can be a real game changer.

I believe the athletic dept. as a whole is sponsored by Nike, no? There might be a tie between the two but I'm not too sure.

But the most interesting aspect of Kelsey Amy being involved seems to be in the "gear" dept. - kids love gear i.e. apparel, hats, shoes, etc. My initial thoughts centered around individual "shoe deals" and what not - Nick Singleton getting his own cleats for the season, sponsored by XYZ in Harrisburg. Shoes designed by Amy.

From a football/basketball perspective, seems like a huge recruiting play there.

 

[Nohow]

Does this mean that Nike is involved? If so, that can be a real game changer.

Make em pay lots more for the swoosh on the jerseys.

 

[PSUJam]

Make em pay lots more for the swoosh on the jerseys.

It's not only that. I believe the players are bound to wear only the school affiliated brand even when off the field. So players can't wear an Adidas shirt even when off campus. Are they compensated for that? Arguments can be made both ways.

 

[marshall23]

How much coin is Surma going to pony up??? Louie has about 10 million of our money he can contribute!

Don't forget the NCAA fine money distributed to various agencies in Pa. Would love to see how those monies were spent.....and of course the Big Ten Bowl Money! Surma could donate 100 million and I still wouldn't...........on him if he was on fire. If he ever utters "Success with Honor," he will be struck by lightning.

 

[Bkmtnittany1]

Don't forget the NCAA fine money distributed to various agencies in Pa. Would love to see how those monies were spent.....and of course the Big Ten Bowl Money! Surma could donate 100 million and I still wouldn't...........on him if he was on fire. If he ever utters "Success with Honor," he will be struck by lightning.

I would say the same thing about Corbett! True POS!

 

[pennstater97]

In a case of two may not be better than one, a second such NIL group is being created by a booster. Wouldn't one be able to better leverage the large alumni and fan base and bring NLI to PSU athletes than many? I guess choice is never a bad thing. Maybe reduces the chance of fraud (which this seems ripe for... lots of money hitting a private entity acting as a middleman).

 

[91Joe95]

Ira Lubert. Success with honor. Get the **** out.

 

[WVilleLion]

In a case of two may not be better than one, a second such NIL group is being created by a booster. Wouldn't one be able to better leverage the large alumni and fan base and bring NLI to PSU athletes than many? I guess choice is never a bad thing. Maybe reduces the chance of fraud (which this seems ripe for... lots of money hitting a private entity acting as a middleman).

I feel there should only be one NIL lead organization per university.

 

[GregPickel]

I feel there should only be one NIL lead organization per university.

There are more than a few schools that have multiple collectives up and running.

List of them is here: https://www.on3.com/news/on3-guide-to-nil-collectives-around-the-nation/

As you can see at that link, they usually focus on different sports/NIL opportunities. But, I do agree that at some point there has to be a limit to the number of them at any given school. We'll see. I imagine it's a bit of a feeling out process at the start and whichever one(s) become the most trusted ones by athletes/their parents will win out in the end.

 

[OuiRPSU]

As an alum, this really saddens me.

 

[Bkmtnittany1]

Don't forget the NCAA fine money distributed to various agencies in Pa. Would love to see how those monies were spent.....and of course the Big Ten Bowl Money! Surma could donate 100 million and I still wouldn't...........on him if he was on fire. If he ever utters "Success with Honor," he will be struck by lightning.

I would also say the same thing about 20+ morons from the test board!

 

[NewEra 2014]

Just a few thoughts on NIL, FWIW:

1) It's too bad what has happened to college football. Part of the charm of the sport was seeing kids develop over time, after they had made a commitment to the university of their choice. Even in pro sports, at least players are theoretically committed to an organization through the term of their contract. Now, in college, there is no real commitment by the player or by the university.

2) On the positive side, Bama or TAMU cannot keep every good player. On an 85-man roster, half of those kids are going to be disappointed with their role on the team and transfer elsewhere within a year or two. So perhaps talent will end up spreading out to a wider variety of programs.

3) Penn State's main advantage in the NIL game is not that it has a small group of high rollers, or even a main high roller like Phil Knight at Oregon. Penn State's advantage is our huge alumni base, and this NIL effort is an attempt to capitalize on this advantage. Well played.

4) What happens in a situation where a kid gets a huge NIL deal and then bails out of the program after a year because there is a better deal somewhere else? Do the NIL donors get a refund?

5) The worst part of this will be when lesser programs with fewer dollars are used as a farm system for the richer programs. I can easily envision that a kid has success at a Mountain West program, the fanbase gets excited about the kid, but the kid jumps for a better deal at USC. This is very similar to MLB, where small-market teams struggle mightily to complete. That's not good for the sport in the long run.

I expect Penn State will come out just fine in the brave new world of NIL. But I'm not sure I care that much anymore.