How NC State’s ‘Red Reckoning’ with Will Wade has helped ticket sales, NIL funding reach recent highs

Will Wade arrived at his introductory press conference inside Reynolds Coliseum with a certain confidence in late March. Donning a grey pinstripe suit with a light blue dress shirt and a red and white candy-striped tie, NC State’s 21st men’s basketball coach appeared as if he needed to revitalize the Wolfpack fanbase.  One way of doing so? Using his confident bravado to test those clad in red and white with something that hadn’t been done since 1999: to fill the Lenovo Center to capacity on opening night. “If we maximize everything we’ve got, we can compete with anybody in the country. We have to maximize what we have,” Wade said on the stage in his first public appearance with the Wolfpack. “I challenge everybody who’s watching, all of our fans … I want to sell out the Lenovo Center. I want 19,500 people in there. We need to send a message. We need to let the state, the ACC and the nation know the Pack is back, and we are not to be messed with.” It was a daring statement. But that’s who Wade is. He’s unapologetically confident, and as he set the table for what was to follow in the eight months after, Wade’s new boss seemed to be energized by the opportunity to capitalize on the momentum he brought to Raleigh. “We don’t mind a challenge,” NC State Athletic Director Boo Corrigan said in a recent exclusive interview with TheWolfpacker.com. “That’s who Will is. He’s going to say some things that make you go ‘holy cow, he just said that.’ But we knew that’s what we were going to get.” Wade’s words that day didn’t fall on deaf ears. Instead, the Wolfpack fan base rose to the high bar he had set for them. NC State’s season opener against NC Central, which is set to tipoff at 7 p.m. on Monday night, sold out in record time as the program ran out of tickets on Sept. 23 — 41 days before the season began.  Not only did the Wolfpack pass Wade’s first test with flying colors, but the program’s season tickets sales have reached pre-COVID-19 pandemic numbers, while its NIL collective has been on a rocketship of growth since the 42-year-old coach arrived in Raleigh. “This is about everybody being in it together. I think when all of us are in it together, NC State’s a force multiplier,” Wade said. “It’s going to be a reckoning for the ACC and college basketball. You’re going to have to deal with us. … We’ve got one of the best fanbases in all of college athletics. We just haven’t always been aligned and on the same tune. We’re aligned now. And when we’re aligned, there’s nothing we can’t do.” Welcome to NC State’s ‘Red Reckoning.’