Success with Honor collective at Penn State aims to raise $2 million in December through fan match program

Sucess with Honor, which is one of three name, image, and likeness collectives at Penn State, announced its latest fundraising campaign on Thursday.

Anthony Misitano, who help start the collective and is also a Penn State alum and the founder, chairman, and CEO of PAM Health LLC, intends to match up to $1 million in fan donations via the collective’s subscription service over the next 30 days. If successful, it will net $2 million for the collective.

“There is no university in the world that has provided a greater student-athlete experience than
Penn State,” Misitano said in a press release.

“Success With Honor was established to help the next generation of student-athletes accomplish amazing things during their time in Happy Valley, on- and-off the field. We now need the support of Nittany Lion Nation to ensure that our university provides unrivaled NIL opportunities for each and every student-athlete. I’m giving $1 million dollars to Success With Honor, and I call on every fellow alumni to follow me in contributing.”

Added Penn State coach James Franklin in the same press release:

“I know a lot of Nittany Lion fans have been asking how they can help when it comes to NIL. We have a championship mindset with everything we do. To support our longstanding tradition of excellence, and to continue to win championships, we need to be the absolute leader in providing every-one of our student athletes with NIL opportunities. Consider joining Success With Honor to further elevate, educate, and
empower our student-athletes.”

Success with Honor aims to have Penn State fans help raise the bar

Jason Belzer, the founder of Student Athlete NIL, which is the third-party company that manages Success with Honor, told BWI that the collective’s fundraising is off to a good start but that more is needed to compete with schools, and their collectives, across the country.

“The reality is that, for a collective to be successful, long term, it needs to have the fan base behind it,” Belzer said. “We have always been extremely bullish on Penn State, in the sense that, it has the largest alumni base of any institution in the country. So in theory, if you have the largest alumni base in the country, you should be able to potentially put together the largest collective. And, we run a similar campaign at Oklahoma [with the Crimson and Cream collective], and have been very successful there, and OU doesn’t have anywhere near the size of the alumni base that Penn State does.

“And so now is the time. If Penn State wants to continue to have success on and off the field, they want to continue to go to, hopefully, New Year’s Day bowl games, the fan base needs to get involved. Because the reality is, that while we’ve done a great job this year at raising money, we are behind the SEC.

“There are many schools in the SEC that have publicly come out and said that they have more than $10 million. We’re behind schools in the Big Ten, including Ohio State. And so, if you’re going to expect the same old results year in year out, that’s fine. But, if you want to take that next step, and win the Big Ten championship, now is the time for the fan base to get together and say we’re going to go do this.”

More about Succes with Honor

Success with Honor debuted at Penn State in March of this year. Former Penn State Board of Trustees chairman Ira Lubert founded the collective along with Misitano and Penn State alumni Mark Toniatti, Bob Poole, and Rick Sokolov. Belzer says it has done deals with student-athletes on every Nittany Lions team to date. There are various subscription levels in addition to the ability to make a one-time donation. More information can be found here.

“We want people to subscribe to the collective,” Belzer said. “We’re not asking for donations. We are asking for subscribers. We’re asking people to buy a product. That product is the opportunity to engage with the student athletes. When you subscribe to the collective, and you pay $25 a month, you get access to events, you get access to autographs, [and] apparel.

“We turn around and take your money and go pay the student-athletes to give you those autographs, to come to an event and meet with you, to engage in the community. So, this is not giving handouts to student-athletes. This is about empowering them, giving them an opportunity to make money, and for you to get something in return for that. And, I think that’s very important.”