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Today’s Case

One Pack NIL launches as the official collective of NC State student-athletes

Coming off a series of successful fundraising campaigns and engagements with student-athletes, Pack of Wolves and Savage Wolves are uniting to create One Pack NIL collective.

The rebranded collective will work to provide NIL opportunities benefiting all 550+ Wolfpack student-athletes, and the uniting of these two successful organizations will create a clear direction for all Wolfpack stakeholders to directly support the NIL efforts of NC State student-athletes.

Underneath the umbrella of One Pack NIL, Savage Wolves will continue as a club within the collective – dedicated to securing NIL opportunities and engagements specifically for the NC State football team. The collective will be staffed by a dedicated full-time team to manage daily operations, fundraising campaigns, corporate sponsorships and more.

One Pack NIL General Manager Chris Vurnakes: "It makes it a lot easier for supporters of NC State to understand. The main question I've gotten is, 'Why are there two collectives supporting NC State?' It will all be under the umbrella of One Pack. All of our coaches will be supporting 1Pack. It makes our donors more likely to support our collective efforts."

The Verdict

• Collective unification will be the norm going forward

  • One of my NIL predictions last year was that there would be less collectives due to the merging of said organizations; this seems to fit that trend.

    • North Carolina is also exploring options to merge collectives to boost NIL support.

  • This allows multiple groups to pool their resources (funding, brand relationships, leadership, etc.) into one company and go forth with a united mission: assisting student-athletes with NIL opportunities.

  • Also, look for more athletic departments to begin selecting an official collective partner. Unifying collectives helps make that decision easier for schools.

• Less confusion for fans

  • This is also a big win for supporters of these collectives. It allows fans to donate their hard-earned dollars to one organization, knowing that the student-athletes of those schools have the full support of a unified collective.

  • As Vurnakes noted above, there will be no more questions from fans on why there are multiple collectives supporting NC State and instead fans can now support one unified group.

• Club within the collective is a unique approach

  • With Savage Wolves solely supporting football efforts, look for future collective mergers to follow a similar path of one group within a collective to support one specific sport.

    • This allows said club to focus on their strengths while leveraging the overall benefits of the newfound singular collective.

More student-athletes should use LinkedIn

This platform is not only just for job searching. Watch this video for more!

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