Sold-out “We Are” Philadelphia event aids Penn State NIL push.
Penn State head coach James Franklin put the issue of name, image, and likeness in blunt terms. Celebrating another successful recruiting class in December, the topic remained of utmost significance to the Nittany Lions in their pursuit of the nation’s best football players.
Pleased to be taking NIL seriously, he acknowledged the program’s need to continue along that path.
“I think our guys have done a good job being aggressive. We haven’t really changed our overall philosophy. But the reality is, NIL is a factor now, and if you’re not able to offer similar opportunities that other schools are, it’s going to make it challenging,” Franklin told Penn State’s Brian Tripp. “So we’ve been aggressive there and trying to close the gap. We still have some work to do. I think that’s the reality of it. But, at the end of the day, we’re still offering an opportunity to get a world class education, play big-time football, and then we need to make sure that we’re able to offer similar opportunities to every other program in the country that we’re competing with.”“We Are… in Philly” event sells out
Thursday evening, that progress of that work is again coming into focus with the “We Are… in Philly” event to be held at the Union League of Philadelphia. Happy Valley United, the NIL collective supporting Penn State athletics, followed last year’s inaugural offering with the same format – a VIP reception from 6-7 p.m. followed by a three-hour evening event hosted by Franklin, with dozens of special guests including Saquon Barkley, current coaching staffers, and other notable former players.
Along with a venue change, HVU announced this week that the event has already delivered an improvement on last year’s results. Selling out the event, the Penn State fan and business community’s reception has been encouraging to Rachael Pritzker, organizer of this year’s event.
