Penn State collective launches ‘groundbreaking’ NIL model for businesses

Success With Honor continues to further entrench itself as one of the most forward-thinking NIL collectives in college sports. Success With Honor – the preferred NIL collective of Penn State athletics – revealed to On3 on Wednesday it’s partnering with the Chamber of Business and Industry of Centre County.

The deal creates a subscription platform that will “harness the power of Penn State’s student-athlete influencers and connect them with businesses and organizations looking to boost their brand, promote their products or fire up their next event.”

The collaboration essentially folds Happy Valley Talent – another Penn State NIL collective that was run by the CBICC – into Success With Honor. Success With Honor has NIL agreements with more than 150 Nittany Lion student-athletes across the 22 different teams. It’s also available to all 850 Penn State student-athletes.

“The CBICC believes it is vital to support and elevate NIL-outreach efforts on behalf of Penn State’s student-athletes,” said CBICC President and CEO Greg Scott. “The university is Centre County’s top employer and driver of the local economy – when Penn State succeeds, we all succeed.”

Tiered NIL subscriptions for businesses

The new platform – which is unique to the NIL space and likely will be replicated elsewhere – is a tiered-NIL subscription model. The format allows businesses and organizations to reach audiences through social medial promotion, in-person appearances, commercial endorsements and more with Penn State student-athletes.

The subscriptions range from $100 to $1,500 a month. They provide access to Nittany Lion student-athletes affiliated with Success With Honor. Furthermore, it allows easy and flexible collaboration on a wide variety of marketing opportunities.

“We’re allowing businesses to subscribe directly to the collective,” said Jason Belzer, CEO of Student Athlete NIL, which manages the day-to-day operations of Success With Honor. “It’s a first-of-its-kind program that allows brands and organizations to receive immediate, turnkey, benefits for advertising, marketing and promotional services with student-athletes at major universities.

“The word collective is being used out there. But our work is really as an agency of record. Functionally what we do is represent all student-athletes at the university. So, what we want to do is create a frictionless vehicle for any business or fan to be able to work with student-athletes in any capacity.”

Local businesses already signing up

The program launches with multiple Centre County and Pennsylvania businesses already on board, including Geisinger Health and Snap Custom Pizza. The companies also have the designation of Official Health Care Network and Official Pizza Chain of Success With Honor.

“Strong Penn State athletic programs support stronger Pennsylvania economies and communities,” Don Stanziano, Geisinger’s chief marketing officer, said. “Geisinger is happy to support our communities, Penn State and its student-athletes in this innovative program.”

Geisinger and Snap Custom Pizza are part of the program’s highest tier. They both will have the opportunity to offer fans exclusive opportunities to engage with their organizations.

Belzer said that more than a dozen businesses will join the program in the next few weeks and months. He also said Penn State will have more local and regional companies directly partnered with their student-athletes than any other school in the country by the end of the 2022-2023 academic year.

“Penn State is looking to NIL to help the university compete at the level it has always competed on,” Belzer said. “But the university also wants to make sure its student-athletes are engaging in NIL activities the Penn State way – with quality, integrity and honesty. Success With Honor strives to set the national standard of NIL excellence.

Success With Honor model could go nationwide

Student Athlete NIL operates collectives across the country, including others like Rutgers-focused Knights of The Raritan. Belzer said Student Athlete NIL’s plan is to roll out the same type of business subscription model elsewhere.

“This is something that we will roll out for all of our collectives over the next couple of weeks and months,” Belzer said. “It’s different. People are going to at least try to copy it. It’s a lot harder below the surface than it may seem. But we believe it’s something that’s groundbreaking in the space. We’re excited to get it off the starting at a place like Penn State.”