Pack of Wolves collective being built for sustainable success

Haze Lancaster has been a successful entrepreneur and business owner for over 25 years. He is also an avid NC State athletics fan. Lancaster’s business-sense kicked in when he saw the emergence of name, image and likeness (NIL) collectives across the country. Hence, it was natural that Pack of Wolves would end up involving Lancaster.

Like many NC State fans, Lancaster’s first reaction to NIL was simple: “I hope NC State has a plan.”

Lancaster was not necessarily looking to spearhead the NC State collective, but the past few months of his life has been dominated by it.

“It’s been a labor of love,” Lancaster said. “It’s be exhilarating. It’s been tiresome, been frustrating at times.”

Lancaster, a 1994 graduate of NC State, is the Executive Board Founding Member of Pack of Wolves, a NIL collective formed to support NC State student-athletes. Some could probably see that development unfolding from a mile away.

Lancaster joked that his friends sometimes make fun of him for his Wolfpack fandom.

“I go to everything,” Lancaster admitted, “but I love it. I go to tennis, women’s basketball. I enjoy watching our teams win. I love what Wes [Moore] is doing with women’s basketball. Mos of all of our programs, we have such a high level of success almost across all levels.”

Perhaps knowing Lancaster’s devotion to NC State athletics, Lancaster was among a group of about a dozen that met with Wolfpack director of athletics Boo Corrigan and Wolfpack Club executive director Ben Broussard to learn the lay of the land when it came to NIL and collectives.

Lancaster emerged from that meeting on the same page with the other attendees.

“We kind of left that room with a feeling we need to do something,” Lancaster remembered. “Somebody needs to set something up at NC State if we are going to be in a Power Five, be competitive as an athletics department and a program moving forward.

“We have to have a NIL platform. We have to have a collective at some point.”

A week after meeting with Corrigan and Broussard, Lancaster held his own meeting in his office, and the Pack of Wolves was launched.

The process was laborious, but in hindsight Lancaster was glad that the group was not first to launch. That allowed Pack of Wolves to survey the landscape and find a model that best fits NC State.

The end result is a collective that Lancaster considers somewhat unique. In addition to capital raised from shareholders, Pack of Wolves is asking regular fans to contribute with monthly memberships.

Lancaster noted there is not a billionaire backing up their efforts, which means sustainability is critical to their efforts.

“We have to run it like a really well-run, small-market pro team,” Lancaster said. “Our model here is going to be most effective by taking care of our athletes that are here, first.”

Pack of Wolves already has a group of 10 student-athletes signed.

“The deals we are going to be doing with most of our players are going to be non-exclusive,” Lancaster noted. “We are not trying to pull one over on anyone. We are really signing them to a very specific task of helping the collective and helping us promote sponsors that work with our collectives.”

“Most of the deals that are wins for both parties are these players staying at the school where they are currently are,” Lancaster added. “It convinces them to stay another year. I think the quality of college basketball is going to go way up. It’s obviously going to benefit some other local colleges, but I think it’s going to benefit us as well.”

Lancaster also noted that Pack of Wolves will operate “well within the guardrails” of whatever NCAA rules are enforced. The collective also aims to work towards the same goals the guides NC State athletics and the Wolfpack Club.

“Athletes, booster and collective, three separate groups all trying to swim together in the same direction,” Lancaster said. “All trying to support each other. We realize that we still have to fund scholarships. We still have to fund facilities.”

Lancaster also said that the backroom, big-dollar deals that has become popular social media and talk show chatter represent a small percentage of NIL.

“I think people have to let it play out, trust the process and see what we’re building,” Lancaster concluded.

That goal is to make the Pack of Wolves the type of collective that would make NC State fans like Lancaster himself feel good about what is happening.

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