NIL & Athlete Financial Planning | Harrisburg PA | PAC Financial

Three kinds of people find this page. A parent holding a screenshot of a deal their kid was just offered, wondering what happens if they sign it. An athlete with a collective or revenue-share payment sitting in a checking account, aware that something should be done with it and not sure what. And a mom on a travel-team group chat at 11pm, adding up hotel nights and quietly wondering what this dream is doing to the retirement accounts. If you are any of the three, you are in the right place, and you should know something before you read another word: we went looking for a dedicated NIL financial planning practice in Central Pennsylvania before we built this one, and we could not find it. So we built the thing we could not find.

What is NIL and athlete financial planning?

It is wealth planning applied to the strangest income pattern in America: real money, arriving young, inside a career window measured in seasons, with no guarantee of another check and a whole community watching. Since the House settlement opened direct revenue sharing at schools and the PIAA opened NIL to Pennsylvania high school athletes, that pattern now reaches Central PA kids before they can rent a car. The plan connects the short window to the long life: how deals get evaluated, where the money lives, what gets invested and when, who is allowed near the money, and how the family stays a family after the money shows up. NIL income is taxable and usually requires quarterly payments, which is why a qualified tax professional joins the roster on day one; we build and run the planning and investing side, which is our licensed lane, and we coordinate the rest.

Why would an athlete family choose PAC Financial?

Walk into most advisory offices and mention a collective payment, and you will spend the first twenty minutes explaining what a collective is. Walk into ours and you will interrupt an argument about the Mid-Penn. Steve Marrazzo, our President, played at Bishop McDevitt, shares a jersey number with one of its most famous alumni, and coaches with the Holy Name Jets, where he has watched his own players grow from youth football into NCAA athletes. Sonya Essis, our operations manager, officiates football at the NFL and NCAA levels and wore the white hat at a national flag football championship this summer. Christian Marrazzo and Tucker Nicholas grew up playing on Harrisburg fields.

And Tucker brings something to this practice that no certification teaches. While studying at Pitt, his music went viral overnight, and within months he was fielding record label offers, Atlantic Records among them, getting wined and dined the way college programs court recruits. Then he read the fine print. He watched friends come into life-changing money in their early twenties, watched almost none of it get invested, and watched the regret arrive by thirty. That experience is why this practice exists, and why the advice on this page sounds the way it does. We have seen the movie. We know where the plot turns.

The three ideas this practice is known for

The designated no. When athlete money arrives, requests follow, and they come from people the athlete loves. Nobody warns families about this part, so we planned for it. Gift windows get defined in advance. Money decisions pause during the season, and the deep-dive reviews happen in the dead center of the offseason, because your focus is the asset and we schedule around it. And when someone pushes past the plan, the family points them to us. We deliver the no, we absorb the frustration, and we take it on the chin so your athlete never has to spend a relationship to protect a balance. Families tell us this one idea is worth more than everything else we do.

The oxygen-mask rule. For the sports parents, who outnumber NIL earners a thousand to one: fund the dream from cash flow, never from retirement accounts or high-interest debt. Secure your own future first, the way the airlines teach it, because the single best financial gift you can give your athlete is parents who never need to move in with them at 75. That line sounds funny until you have seen the alternative. We have seen the alternative.

The CRD Test. Before anyone touches athlete money, ask for their CRD number and look them up free at brokercheck.finra.org while they wait. An honest professional hands the number over happily. Ours is 8206134, and you are invited to check it before you ever call us. Better still, our standing offer to every family in the 717: if someone is pitching your athlete, bring us the card, the DM, or the proposal, and we will help you run the checks at no cost, even if the answer is that you found a good one and it is not us.

What actually happens in the first meeting?

No forms, no signatures, no pitch deck. You bring one number: the athlete's earnings so far this year, the newest deal paperwork, or last season's honest sports-spending total. We spend an hour at the same table, athlete and parents together, mapping where the money is, where it is leaking, and what the next three moves are. Then you take that map home, and it is yours whether or not we ever speak again. Come armed, too. Ask us how we get paid, and expect a plain answer. Ask who holds the money, and hear about third-party custody in your own name. Ask what we will not do, and get a real list. The families who grill us hardest in the first meeting tend to become the ones who stay for decades, because trust that was tested holds.

What does this look like in real life?

Hypothetical example, for illustration only. A Mid-Penn family's son signs with a program and a five-figure payment lands, the largest single deposit in the family's history. Within a month, three things happen on schedule: a cousin floats a business idea, a stranger DMs the athlete about an investment opportunity, and the athlete prices a car. With the plan already built, none of those become arguments. The cousin gets our number, and we handle the conversation. The DM fails the CRD Test in ten minutes. The car comes out of a spending bucket that was sized on purpose, so nobody has to play the villain. The rest is already working: set-aside respected, future bucket funded automatically, first review already on the calendar for the dead center of the offseason. No drama, no cousins lost, no headline. That is the whole product: money that stays boring so the athlete can stay locked in.

Who do we serve across the athlete money lifecycle?

Travel-sports families budgeting the dream years before anyone writes their kid a check. PIAA high school athletes fielding their first NIL offers. College athletes and parents handling collective and revenue-share money. Working professionals across the 717's sports economy, from Double-A baseball on City Island to AHL hockey in Hershey, plus the coaches, officials, trainers, and retired pros whose income follows a season or a scoreboard. Wherever your family sits on that arc, there is a plan shaped for it, and a next stage we have already mapped.

Who should not hire us?

An athlete earning a few hundred dollars from local deals needs a budget and a habit, not an advisory relationship, and we will tell you that for free and mean it. The conversation starts mattering at four and five figures, when a collective or revenue-share payment arrives, when the pitches start stacking up, or the night a family finally adds up what the dream actually costs. Education first, always: half of what we tell families in a first meeting is what not to pay anyone for, including us.

Is anyone else in Central Pennsylvania doing dedicated NIL financial planning?

Honest answer: the region has real NIL infrastructure, and families should know all of it. Penn State Harrisburg athletes have a marketplace through Opendorse, Harrisburg law firms have stood up dedicated NIL legal teams, and Central PA businesses are funding deals at a scale most people have not registered. What we could not find anywhere in the region was the fourth lane: a dedicated financial planning practice built for the athlete's money itself, from travel ball through the pros. That lane is ours, it is the one that compounds for the rest of the athlete's life, and this page and the library below are what it looks like when a firm takes it seriously.

The Football & Finances library

Every stage of the athlete money lifecycle, mapped and free. Start where your family is:

What Youth Sports Really Cost: the budget years, and the oxygen-mask rule.
The NIL Parents' Playbook: the first deal, the 48-hour rule, and the family guardrails.
NIL Money and the 3.3-Year Career: the career math and the case for planning on day one.
The Complete Game Plan: all six parts, including the designated no.
Who Helps NIL Athletes in Central Pennsylvania: the local ecosystem, for athletes and sponsoring businesses.
The Pros Next Door: planning for the 717's working professionals.
The CRD Test: how to vet anyone who asks to manage the money, including us.

Start with one number

Not a commitment. Not a contract. One number: what the athlete has earned this year, or what the family spent on sports last season. Bring it to a table where football is the first language and the money talk is judgment-free, and leave with a map you keep either way. Call PAC Financial at (717) 564-6400 and ask for Tucker. We serve athlete families across Harrisburg, Mechanicsburg, Carlisle, Hershey, Camp Hill, Middletown, Hummelstown, New Cumberland, and all of Central Pennsylvania, and we schedule around your season, not ours.

This information is for educational purposes only and is not legal or tax advice. Hypothetical examples are for illustration only and do not depict any actual client or outcome. NIL rules continue to evolve; details are current as of September 2026. Organizations referenced are not clients of or affiliated with PAC Financial. Consult qualified legal and tax professionals regarding your specific situation. Securities and advisory services offered through Osaic Wealth, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC. Check the background of financial professionals for free at brokercheck.finra.org.