North Carolina A&T is officially in the NIL Collective Game.
Earl Hilton III, NC A&T’s Director of Athletics, announced that the athletic department has an NIL Collective.
“We have a collective at A&T,” Hilton said on the live Zoom. “The Pride of A&T Collective is what it is called. It is functional. It’s active right now.”
Hilton explained that the collective was soft-launched last week, with plans for a more in-depth launch in the near future with a functional website.
Hilton explained that money that goes to The Pride of A&T Collective is NOT tax deductible, unlike money that is donated to the Aggie Athletic Foundation. The AAF is a 501-C organization, while the collective is for businesses looking to connect with student-athletes to market their ventures.
“If you have a business that would benefit from being associated with connected to a team or an individual student-athlete, the collective is the way to go,” Hilton said.
Hilton walked the stakeholders on the call through the history of athletic compensation, explaining that the NIL collective was the next step and that North Carolina A&T was in the game.
“Our student-athletes have the opportunity to receive money from all three of these revenue streams. Through scholarships, cost of attendance or Alston Money/academic support — or through Name, Image and Likeness.”
In addition to the news about the collective, Hilton also shared information about a change that will be felt during the football season.
“We have a problem. It’s a good problem to have,” Hilton said. “We have run out of the ability to take care of all of our Aggie Athletic Foundation donors and the benefits that they qualified for Aggie Stadium at Truist Stadium during football season.”
Hilton explained that historically there were 1200 reserved seats and about 98 tailgate spots that had been held for individuals who are legacy ticket holders, but not members of the AAF. A letter was sent out explaining that would no longer be the case.
“We made a decision so that we could take care of our AAF donors to put those seats and those two spots back in the inventory so that the donors who are supporting athletics will have the opportunity to buy those seats and to buy those tailgate spots at the beginning of the purchase period to priority purchase period for the foundation moving forward,” Hilton stated.
North Carolina A&T is set to open its home schedule in 2024 against historic rival Winston-Salem State University.
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