Panini America Partners with The Brandr Group on Collegiate NIL Initiatives

Panini America has announced a multiyear partnership with name/image/likeness (NIL) agency, The Brandr Group.

Panini recently introduced Panini College, a dedicated NIL platform that enables all athletes at a partner university to have their own Panini trading card under the Panini NIL brand. The platform initially launched with football and volleyball athletes from Ohio State University, University of Nebraska and University of Texas via The Brandr Group’s group licensing programs at those universities. Panini expects to onboard additional schools through the remainder of the year.

In collaboration with The Brandr Group, Panini College will expand to additional partner schools, sports and athletes throughout the country. The Brandr Group will assist Panini with numerous aspects of the platform, including securing and managing select school and athlete relationships, plus providing support for certain elements of the product development process.

“Our Panini College platform illustrates our belief that collegiate athletes in all sports should have the ability to have their own trading card,” says Jason Howarth, senior vice president, marketing and athlete relations, Panini America. “The Brandr Group is also a leader in the NIL space, with a tremendous roster of partners and programs, so for us to collaborate with their team to help grow our Panini College platform is a natural fit. We will work together to create and enhance opportunities that benefit athletes, schools and fans.”    

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“We are excited to be partnered with Panini, as truly they are a leading global company in officially licensed sports card and collectible products space,” says Wesley Haynes, chief executive officer, The Brandr Group. “We share their vision for democratizing NIL products so the largest breadth of student-athletes possible have the ability to have their own trading card through their innovative on-demand offering for the schools where Panini has robust trading card rights. We think Panini’s planned product innovations and scaled product offerings will quickly become popular with college athletes, fans, collectors and consumers across the country. This is an exciting new and differentiated addition to the NIL group rights space for college, and TBG is thrilled to be able to help bring Panini’s best practices from the professional league space to college athletes across the country.”

The Panini NIL platform is the latest extension of Panini’s commanding presence in the collegiate NIL space. Panini’s athlete partnerships include University of Nebraska volleyball All-American, Lexi Rodriguez, who was the brand’s first female NIL athlete and several current collegiate athletes, including exclusive athletes, Quinn Ewers, V.J. Edgecombe, Tre Johnson, Arch Manning, Dylan Raiola, Julian Sayin and Zachariah Branch. Panini offers several collegiate-focused products, and earlier this year launched the enormously popular Caitlin Clark Collection. This multi-card set celebrates Clark’s legendary basketball career at the University of Iowa.

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