Penn State Football has a problem on its hands.

The landscape of college football is forever changing, and in the last five years we have seen more change than maybe ever before. The transfer portal has become crazier than NFL free agency and student athletes can now make some money on their name, image, and likeness.

All of those changes, I feel have good reasoning behind them, but both the transfer portal and NIL could use some work.

Rule changes, which we all know will take a long time for the NCAA to figure out.

So, until those rules are changed this is what we, as fans, have to deal with.

The problem is, Penn State, it’s fans, and its respective NIL collectives continue to underwhelm. 

How Penn State Football is Coming Up Short with NIL

I decided to take this question I’ve had to Twitter.

Asking the simple question of do you donate to Happy Valley United(HVU)?

For those that may not know, HVU is Penn States biggest and now singular NIL collective.

Allowing fans to donate one time or become a recurring member for X amount of dollars a month, with perks to follow for doing so. 

718 votes later these were the results: 

22% said yes 

59% said no 

19% said they did not know how. 

To be blunt, that’s an extremely concerning result.

There are 423 people who said “no” they do not donate.

Some folks gave me explanations in the comments as to why. Financial hardships, don’t think players should be getting paid, they get tuition paid for why should we pay them more, it shouldn’t be on the fans to pay this.

Those are all valid arguments and ones that I personally understand and I can see why you’d say it, but I’m going to be truthful with you. 

It’s not good enough.

These are the cards which are dealt, and if you are reading this article, it’s safe to assume you love Penn State Football. NIL is a large part of continuing the program’s success tomorrow and into the future.

A lot of fans like to say “well James makes this amount …” Just stop.

It does not matter what coach we have, they are going to ask for the same thing that James Franklin is asking for. Maybe more.

So, what decisions are we as fans going to make?

Are we going to find that extra 20 bucks a month? Or are we going to say nah, and allow this program to continue to fall well behind those programs we are trying to chase. 

I think it’s safe to say most fans don’t like our transfer portal woes. Especially when it comes to wide receivers. NIL is a part of this my friends.

These transfers are not only looking for playing time but being offered lucrative NIL deals from the Oregon’s, Michigan’s, Ohio States of the world to come play there for a year or two.

Penn State can’t do that right now, and it’s real cause for concern.

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Happy Valley United Coming up Small for Penn State Football

Now, this article isn’t just a bashing of fans, I think the collective has done a TERRIBLE job marketing this. 

Happy Valley United has to do a better job selling the collective.

On every social media platform and at every game they are allowed to. And you barely see it anywhere. On X alone there are fan accounts with thousands of more followers than HVU has. Penn State Football announces they are going to the Peach Bowl and HVU social media puts out NOTHING, to try and jump on the excitement of that announcement.

The State Light beer partner was exciting, but how many people actually know that directly benefits PSU? How is a small fan account running a poll that finds 19% of the people who voted don’t even know how to get involved? Why aren’t emails going out? Phone calls being made? Announcements in front of 110k people on a fall Saturday? Where is the marketing?

It’s disgraceful and to be honest I’m tired of it. We need to do better. Much better!! 

Think of it this way, if you manage to get 107k people, the size of Beaver Stadium to donate 25 dollars a month to HVU, that’s 2.6 million dollars a month.

Would you pay 20 bucks to watch Chop Robinson play at Penn State again, rather than declare for the NFL Draft? I certainly would. 

It’s all food for thought but I will tell you this much. If Penn State Football does not get better in the NIL front on all ends, we are going to continue to chase the programs we desperately want to beat. 

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