North Carolina A&T committed to helping out their student-athletes by creating their Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) collective. A report from HBCU Gameday's Steven J. Gaither contained information about the new NIL collective from North Carolina A&T's athletic director Earl Hilton III.

“We have a collective at A&T,” Hilton told Gaither. “The Pride of A&T Collective is what it is called. It is functional. It is active right now… If you have a business that would benefit from being associated with connected to a team or an individual student-athlete, the collective is the way to go.”

Last year, eight NCAT athletes received NIL deals with McDonalds through their MyRewards program. The program targeted athletes from Fisk, NCAT, Tennessee State, and Alabama A&M. Five football players, a volleyball player, basketball player, and track & field athlete promoted McDonalds through their social media accounts. Now, with this new NIL collective, other businesses can get in on the action and have access to Aggie student-athletes.

“Our student-athletes have the opportunity to receive money from all three of these revenue streams,” Hilton said. “Through scholarships, cost of attendance or Alston Money/academic support – or through Name, Image, and Likeness.”

NCAT is not the only HBCU to open up an NIL collective; in fact, they join Howard and Hampton, both of whom opened their collectives in the fall of last year. Howard teamed up with myNILpay as a state-of-the-art program that allows fans and supporters to pay student-athletes directly through the app.

“By launching the University's marquee NIL collective, we are going to further enhance our student-athlete's NIL earning potential, and with the help of myNILpay, our die hard fanbase and alumni network now has an effortless platform to support their Bison family,” said Eric Grant, a board member of Howard's NIL collective, The Mecca Society.

On the other hand, Hampton partnered with INFLCR to create “The Hampton Pirate Exchange,” a program that, with INFLCR's technology, can track each student's NIL deals.

“The Hampton Pirate Exchange will provide another opportunity for the many Hampton alums who lead or own businesses to be engaged with our athletics department and support our student-athletes,” said Hampton's Deputy Director of Athletics for External Affairs and Chief Revenue Officer Vaughan Moss.