IU FOOTBALL ONLY
IU Student Athletes
A fund set up to make impactful NIL deals with
The Hoosier Hysterics NIL Collective provides a platform so that everyone from an individual fan to a large business can have a direct impact on Indiana University attracting and keeping the best student-athletes in the country. Our goal is to help Indiana WIN!
Better Talent = Better Performance.
This simple formula is why The Hoosier Hysterics Collective exists.
We want every current student-athlete and every prospective student-athlete out there to know that there are real NIL opportunities at IU.
And the most important thing..100% of the money raised for this Collective goes to IU Athletes.
Not 99%. Not 99.9%. 100%.
*The Hoosier Hysterics NIL Collective is an independently run organization and has no affiliation with Indiana University
WHO ARE WE?
Eric Pankowski
Ward Roberts
Eric Pankowski and Ward Roberts are proud alumni of Indiana University (’99 and ’00, respectively). They have been Hoosiers since birth and outside of their families, nothing means more to them than Indiana University Basketball and IU Athletics as a whole.
Pankowski is a multiple Emmy-Award winning executive producer of television shows and Ward is an independent filmmaker and actor.
In the Winter of 2018, Eric and Ward started the podcast, Hoosier Hysterics! A weekly show that focused on long-form conversations with Hoosier greats of the past quickly turned into one of the leading podcasts in the Indiana University community. They hosted a sold-out live event at the historic Bluebird in Bloomington where the icon himself, Coach Bob Knight, appeared for the first time in 20 years at a public IU Basketball-related event.
The Hoosier Hysterics podcast has become closely associated with IU Athletics as many coaches, administrators and current athletes have made regular appearances on the show.
When NIL became a reality in the summer of 2021, Eric and Ward used the Hoosier Hysterics platform to launch this first-of-its-kind Collective. Two die-hard fans who were tired of sitting on the sidelines and just complaining about IU’s athletic shortcomings, they decided to do something about it and The Hoosier Hysterics NIL Collective was launched.
Two die-hard fans who were tired of sitting on the sidelines and just complaining about IU’s athletic shortcomings, they decided to do something about it and The Hoosier Hysterics NIL Collective was launched.
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The idea is that the best and most passionate fanbase in college sports can have a direct impact on returning IU to glory.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
AGGREGATE:
All contributions are combined into one pot in order to make significant,
impactful and meaningful NIL deals. Through the Collective, any fan can make ANY size contribution he or she desires. The idea is that while one fan might only be able to contribute $10 to the Collective, a thousand fans doing the same, would produce a pot of money to make an NIL deal with a student-athlete that will have true impact. This pot accepts contributions from fans and businesses alike. From there, Eric and Ward make NIL deals with individual student-athletes and in exchange, the student-athletes will either provided promotional work for Hoosier Hysterics or promotional and marketing work for the businesses that contributed significant funds to the Collective.
CREATE:
The Hoosier Hysterics NIL Collective threw the first-ever Fan Fest for IU Men’s Basketball. This event drew three thousand fans who all paid for their ticket. That money, along with corporate sponsorships from The Mark Cuban Foundation, Community Cars, Dick’s Sporting Goods and more created a pot of money that was distributed amongst all IUBB players. In one event, IU had 13 scholarship players who could tell anyone who would listen how being an IU player earned them real money. We will continue to look to throw events that will raise money for NIL deals.
FACILITATE:
There are many businesses that support IU Athletics that would love to make NIL deals but they simply do not know how. We will work with those businesses to connect them to student-athletes and help produce an event or a promotion where the business gets value from the student-athlete in exchange for the NIL deal. The money will flow from the business to the Collective and ultimately to the player. The Collective will fill out all legal and accounting documents to take the pressure off of the local business. In some cases, the Collective will supplement a local business’s funds with money from the Collective to make an even more impactful deal with an IU Student-Athlete.
