By Keon Edington / The Jambar
The Penguin Collective, a name, image and likeness volunteer group that supported Youngstown State University student-athletes for years, will cease operations at the end of 2025 with the recent launch of the Penguin NIL initiative.
The university’s program was introduced as the NCAA finalized a settlement from House v. NCAA that restricted college athletes’ compensation. According to an article by ESPN, the NCAA will pay nearly $2.8 billion over the next decade to student-athletes who competed in college from 2016 through present day.
The ruling allows schools to share money with athletes beginning the 2025-26 school year. For YSU, that shift will come through NIL.
Designed to help student-athletes gain recognition with brands and sponsors, Penguin NIL aims to give student-athletes more opportunities with deals and access.
YSU increased its partnership with Opendorse to aid student-athletes with getting involved in NIL. Tyler Burk, director of YSU’s Penguin NIL, said the program’s structure gives student-athletes multiple avenues to grow their brand based on signed deals.
“There’s education — learning how to manage your taxes and building your brand and reading contracts,” Burk said. “There’s a marketplace via our partnership with Opendorse, athletes can create a profile and our fans can find them.”
Fans can purchase officially licensed merchandise with an athlete’s name and number, where the player earns a percentage from each sale. Burk also said that athletes can have a one-on-one meeting to discuss their partnerships and set goals for the future.
Burk said the program is operated exclusively by YSU employees.
“It’s pulling everybody from different departments here at the university,” Burk said. “I oversee everything, but we have different individuals in other areas across campus that are involved.”
While the Penguin Collective made a substantial impact, Burke said the volunteers were full-time employees elsewhere, which made the program harder to run.
“We had a great relationship with the Penguin Collective,” Burk said. “They did a lot for student-athletes and we worked really closely with them, but under this new environment, it didn’t make sense to have.”
With a full-time staff focused solely on the Penguin NIL, the initiative will absorb many of the functions from the collective. Burk said expectations for the program’s first year center on ensuring smooth operation.
“My expectation is just trying to get to the end of the year and hopefully you know it’s successful and being accessible to our student-athletes,” Burk said. “Trying to come up with any new ideas, programs, and resources that we can come up with throughout the year and really listen to our student-athletes and and take their feedback.”
