Once a week through October, Nevada Sports Net will publish an article on Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) and how it's impacting college athletics and, more specifically, the Nevada Wolf Pack. This series is presented in partnership with Friends of the Pack, Coit Services, EC Construction, Champion Chevrolet and Bradley Drendel & Jeanney. Today's feature is a profile on a recent Friends of the Pack event held at The Eddy in downtown Reno.
While the biggest perk of landing a name, image and likeness deal is the immediate money associated with that contract, there are also long-term benefits.
One of those is creating relationships with notable people in your community, which could pay off long term when your playing career ends.
"This is a good opportunity because it gives us a chance to get a little money in our pockets," Nevada running back Sean Dollars said. "That always helps people like us who are not able to get a job and who are in the facility for a tremendous amount of hours and can't have a day-to-day or week-to-week paycheck. (But) it's good to know who your supporters are to able able to get the whole community together to just ride for one another no matters through the ups and down, wins and losses.
"More than football, it's me being able to gain relationships outside of football. If I ever want to do any job outside of football, I'll be able to have a tremendous amount of connections through meetings and even events like this and being able to talk about my life and being able to get other people's wisdom on how they built their career to be able to follow in their footsteps, so it's more than football to me."
The Wolf Pack's biggest NIL collective, Friends of the Pack, held a mixer earlier this month at The Eddy in downtown Reno that included Wolf Pack players, local businesspeople, fans and Nevada athletics employees.
"I think this is good for the players and good for the community because it helps raise awareness for what we're really trying to do in more fun and creative ways," Friends of the Pack general manager Austin Clutts said. "It shows that the players not only care, but they're involved and they want to be hands on and really talk to the people, get to know who the community is while the community gets to know who they are."
"Friends of the Pack" is Nevada athletics' largest NIL collective and raises money that's distributed to Wolf Pack athletes. It has began a crowdfunding model that includes monthly and annual memberships, including the bronze pass ($25/month or $250/year) the silver pass ($50/month or $500/year) and the gold pass ($100/month or $1,000/year). You can learn more about "Friends of the Pack" here.