How Penn State’s Success With Honor is a New Model for Collectives

collective nameimagelikeness nil penn state student-athlete May 06, 2023

It is no secret that collectives have taken the spotlight when it comes to different institutions trying to guide student-athletes with NIL. Most Power 5 conference institutions have announced collectives, yet there is no strict guideline on how these collectives should run. However, Penn State has launched a collective that illustrates a business model that is likely to be followed by other universities.

As a refresher, collectives are independent of a university and most often pool funds from boosters and businesses to help facilitate NIL deals for athletes.

Success With Honor is a Penn State collective that has partnered with Student Athlete Empowerment to help guide more than 850 student-athletes at Penn State to navigate NIL opportunities. As of right now, Success With Honor has NIL agreements with more than 150 Penn State athletes across the 22 different teams.

What makes Success With Honor different? According to On3, this preferred Penn State collective is partnering with the Chamber of Business and Industry of Centre County, which represents nearly 700 members in the fields of business, education, non-profit, and government to strengthen the local economy.

According to the Success With Honor website, any business or organization that is interested in working with Penn State student-athletes can subscribe directly to Success With Honor, and each subscription level offers an array of benefits. These benefits can include marketing benefits, such as social media promotion, on-site appearances, and endorsements and advertising in print, radio, and television.

What makes this collective different than any other one? Penn State is most definitely not the first school we have seen to have a collective that works with local businesses to aid athletes with their NIL. However, Success With Honor has subscription levels. These subscription levels allow for businesses with different goals to have flexibility in their collaboration efforts. Depending on what a business wants from a collaboration, they can choose from subscriptions ranging from $100 to $1,500 monthly.

A variety of businesses have already subscribed, and it is projected that a dozen businesses will join the program in the next few weeks and months. In addition, Jason Belzer, the CEO of Student Athlete NIL, has stated that “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.”

It is likely that the model of Success With Honor will likely be adopted by collectives from this point on due to its clarity and accessibility. Time will only tell how this type of business strategy with collectives will impact NIL, and ultimately recruiting in collegiate athletics.

To learn more about Success with Honor, check out the CleanKonnect NIL Certification Course.