IPS Ambassador Payton Wilson "Super Excited To Get To Work"

NC State star linebacker Payton Wilson has agreed to a NIL with Inside Pack Sports to provide exclusive content and sponsorship opportunities throughout 2023.

Wilson discusses the NIL agreement and much more with IPS.

NOTE: Click the video above to watch the annoucement with Wilson. Below is a transcript of the discussion.

Payton, before we get going, I want to ask you, you announced last week your decision to return for your final year. What's the feedback been like? What was it like with fans, friends, teammates? What's the feedback been like this first week or two?
Yeah, it's been really awesome, man. You know how Wolfpack Nation is, they love their players. It was great. I mean, I'm still today, I'm still getting texts and messages from Wolfpack Nation saying how happy they are that I'm coming back, and I'm grateful for that. My teammates are really excited and I think we're just ready to get back to work and finally chase that dream.

Think you surprised any of them, or do you think some of them kind of had a feel, this might be the way you're leaning?
Yeah, I think some of my closer friends really knew because, I mean, we are a close team and I definitely let some of them know. But some of the guys didn't and I hope that they were excited about it and they're ready to get to work, because that's what I'm coming back to do.

We have a special announcement today. Back in December, we ran a fundraiser to sponsor an athlete for the upcoming season at Inside Pack Sports. We chose to do it with you, and Payton we worked out an agreement and are excited about the opportunity. We've kind of just before we started taping, we went over the schedule of commitments in the office, you got a look at what we're going to be doing over the next year. Excited about it?
Yeah, super excited about it. I think it's a great opportunity for the fans to be able to actually interact and see what the daily life and inside scoop of what we actually do during this season is going to be, and offseason as well. I'm thankful for the fans that help for this, and I'm just really excited to be able to give them some good content and good up-close feed.

Just to give some background, we're going to start in January and each month we’ll be doing something specific with Payton, leading all the way up to the season.  In-season we’ll have a weekly podcast or some sort of interaction with you where we can get your thoughts on the season. This is something that we've been really excited about trying to do since the arrival of NIL, and you’ve been able to benefit from NIL.  How much has it changed for you, just overall, the landscape of college athletics, just the ability for athletes to do what you're doing right now?
I think it's great. It has pros and cons like everything does, but I really think it's great that athletes are able to, we're able to benefit off of our name. We put in a lot of work and I think it's great that we're able to make something off of that.

But what I really take from it, I mean I'm making connections that I've never in my life thought I would be able to make. If football stopped for me today, I feel like through NC State and through NIL, I've connected with enough people to be able to say, "Okay, I can make it. I'm good, I have connections."

It's just awesome. I think before, it felt like you had to tiptoe around everything for someone to get to know someone. It's great for someone like me to actually be able to come over here and enjoy doing things with guys, like the guys that run Inside Pack Sports. It's just something that I've wanted to happen for a long time and I think it's something that's going really well.

We did a feature on you last week talking about your announcement, taping it with you, and one of the things I mentioned, and it was, I love the fact that when you came over to tape it here and we started initially discussing setting something up, you were very vocal about working for it, right? And it kind of gave the impression that you know out there, some guys may not be working for what they're getting from NIL. So can you just expand on that a little bit, and how important it is for you to earn what you're getting?
Yeah, I don't have any specific person or anything that just gets money to play, but I think as an athlete in NIL, I think you should be willing to work for your money. It's not like this person's giving you a certain amount of money just to be good at football. These people need something in return. They're doing this to benefit their business as well as you, but at the end of the day, both people need to be getting something out of it. I think that's the way that every athlete should look at NIL.

And you really did that for us with your announcement video. I'm pulling it up right now... your announcement video you put on your social media page. I'm looking at the up-to-date views as we tape this.  Payton, 62,000 views of your tweet, 317,000 views of the video. That's a lot of exposure for us, man. I appreciate it.
Yeah, of course, of course.

So thank you, Payton, for joining us and obviously becoming the first official IPS Ambassador.
Yep. I'm super excited to get to work. Thank you.