By Brian Murphy, WRAL

14Tennessee Volunteers	0
24NC State Wolfpack	0
ABC | 1st – 04:37

When No. 24 NC State takes the field against Tennessee in Charlotte on Saturday night, the influence of the Wolfpack’s NIL collective will be evident – in the number of transfers in key roles and the retention of stars from last year.

“We’ve outkicked our coverage,” said Chris Vurnakes, executive director of One Pack NIL. “Look down the line. The schools that have the biggest athletic budges have the biggest NIL budgets.”

NC State spent $118 million on athletics in fiscal year 2023, according to its annual financial report to the NCAA. That’s less than half of the athletic department budgets at Ohio State and Texas, the nation’s top spenders.

But the Wolfpack’s recruiting class ranked in No. 8, according to On3, and included a host of skill position players, such as quarterback Grayson McCall, running back Jordan Waters, tight end Justin Joly, and wide receivers Noah Rogers and Wesley Grimes. It was the collective that announced star receiver Kevin “KC” Concepcion, the ACC Rookie of the Year, was returning to NC State.

Now coming off the best athletic season in school history and elevated football expectations, One Pack is seeking to expand its reach and push its membership to 5,000 by 2025.

“The impact is tangible, not only in football,” Vurnakes said, pointing to the number of transfers on NC State’s men’s basketball team, which in March won its first ACC title since 1987 and reached its first Final Four since 1983.

Those achievements, along with the women’s basketball team reaching the Final Four, fueled a subscriber increase for the collective, which formed in January when previous independent collectives Pack of Wolves and Savage Wolves merged. Football coach Dave Doeren’s plea to fans to donate after the Wolfpack’s victory against UNC last season led to hundreds of thousands of dollars in one-time contributions.

“There needs to be a financial commitment for our fan base,” Doeren said.

One Pack reached the 1,000-subscriber mark in August and is now closing in on 1,200, Vurnakes said. The average contribution is about $60 per month, though One Pack offers memberships starting at $10 per month.

Membership model

For the money, fans receive merchandise and experiences, such as facility tours, calls from athletes, invitations to closed practices, on-field opportunities and meet-and-greet chances with athletes. One Pack hosted more than 30 donors on the field before NC State’s season-opener against Western Carolina.

“We’re in the business of providing fan experiences and those moment people want to pay for to drive revenue so the collective has the resources it needs to attract and retain the players that are going to have the most impact at NC State,” Vurnakes said.

At 5,000 monthly subscribers, One Pack expects to generate about $4 million annually. It uses that money to pay players for appearances or events. More than 160 athletes at NC State have signed with One Pack. The majority of those are in football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball and baseball, Vurnakes said.

Those conversations can happen during the recruiting process.

UNC, which recently moved its collectives under a single umbrella, does not use a subscription model. Instead, it manages NIL services and opportunities for North Carolina athletes.

The NCAA changed its rules about name, image and likeness in July 2021, allowing – for the first time – athletes to legally profit off their athletic fame. The change, coupled with other drastic moves in college athletics including unfettered transfers and conference realignment, has taken some getting used to for fans. Vurnakes said he still spend a lot of time talking through NIL.

“NC State people like that players work for the money,” he said, highlighting the football team’s 100 participation at a “Meet the Pack” event. “It’s not a blank check. They’re doing it every month. If they don’t show up to the tasks, they’re not getting paid that month.”

NCAA settlement, revenue sharing

More change – and more money for players – is coming.

The NCAA’s proposed $2.8 billion settlement in an antitrust lawsuit would allow schools to pay more than $20 million annually to athletes directly as soon as next year. The proposed settlement set out to limit outside collectives, but the judge in the case raised objections to that part.

Vurnakes said his group is a third-party and what it does should not be regulated by the NCAA.

“The collective will exist to be a third-party commercial arm,” Vurnakes said. “We’re leaning into the fan side of it. We know we have over 100,000 fans and alumni in the state of North Carolina.”

One Pack is likely to lose some of its big one-off donations, which will likely go directly to the athletic department to fund the revenue share.

NC State athletic director Boo Corrigan said his department values all-around competitiveness. In addition to the success in basketball and baseball, which reached the College World Series in June, NC State finished No. 21 in the year-end all-sports ranking.

“We’re trying to be good at everything is the way that we look at it,” Corrigan said. “We’ve got to do what’s right for NC State, and other people are going to make other decisions.”

He said there are ongoing discussion about how to distribute the roughly $20 million in revenue-sharing payments. Some athletic departments are using the proposed distribution model from the settlement (75% for football, 15% for men’s basketball, 5% for women’s basketball and 5% for other athletes) as something of a template for future distributions.

Corrigan said NC State has not yet decided how the revenue will be split among programs or within teams.

“I don’t know is an acceptable answer,” Corrigan said. “We’re going to figure out how we’re going to do it. We’ve got to be creative in the way that we approach this, from finding revenue streams to continuing to grow the pie.”

Corrigan said there would not be a 50% or other lage fee attached to ticket sales. But acknowledged that there is likely to be some addition to tickets or some portion of donations used to supplement the budget.

Money from One Pack would be in addition to that, Vurnakes said. The aim is to generate $3 million to $4 million in “recurring and predictable NIL money to be able to put into the budget” through subscriptions before other one-off fundraising events.

Source: wralsportsfan.com