Texas NIL Collective Enters Into Partnership With Panini America

Panini America to become official trading card partner of Texas NIL collective

Arch Manning with a Panini autographed trading card / Panini American

The Texas One Fund, the official NIL collective for the University of Texas has entered into a partnership with Panini America. Panini America is one of the world's largest sports and entertainment collectibles companies. The company announced in a press release Thursday morning.

Panini America will be the official trading card partner of the Texas Longhorns.

Panini recently launched a collection called Panini College. It is a dedicated NIL platform that enables all student-athletes at a partner university, such as the University of Texas, to have their own Panini trading cards. Certain players will be featured by the company.

The platform has already launched with certain football and volleyball players from Texas. There are two other schools involved in the platform. They are The Ohio State University and the University of Nebraska.

Arch Manning with a Panini autographed trading card / Panini American

Players from Texas will have to join the Panini College platform, through the Texas One Fund in order to participate. The student-athletes will receive compensation based on card sales. There will also be other opportunities for the players to make money with co-branded merchandise.

"As a former student-athlete at the University of Texas, I'm thrilled to bring together two storied sports entities to empower student-athletes - past, present and future - at Texas and beyond," said Chris Ogbonnaya, vice president, NIL relations for Panini America and former Texas running back. Ogbonnaya also played in the National Football League. "The NIL space is ever-changing and evolving, but is still in its early stages, and Panini is primed to help student-athletes to engage with NIL opportunities at their respective schools."

Panini currently has partnerships with Longhorns Quinn Ewers, Tre Johnson and Arch Manning.

"The partnership with Panini presents another best-in-class NIL opportunity for the student-athletes we serve at The University of Texas through the Texas One Fund," said Patrick Smith, president of Texas One Fund, "We could not be more excited to work with Panini to bring our Texas athletes exclusive one-of-a-kind opportunities across a multitude of sports programs,"

The Texas One Fund provides opportunities for student-athletes at Texas to earn money through the NIL program. TX 1 Fund, LLC is the corporate entity that provides the assistance to the fund. It collaborates with businesses to provide corporate marketing opportunities for Texas student-athletes,