How competitive can Hawkeyes be long-term in NIL, transfer portal?

Editor’s note: This is the third of a three-part series analyzing the state of the transfer portal and what it means for Iowa Athletics and beyond.

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IOWA CITY — The intertwined nature of the transfer portal and athletes’ monetary income via name, image and likeness is certainly no major revelation in 2023.

The transfer portal is “all NIL,” Iowa head men’s basketball coach Fran McCaffery said earlier this year.

Of course, the transfer portal happens without NIL on many occasions, and vice versa. But a successful NIL infrastructure is increasingly paramount to a college team’s transfer portal success.

Fortunately for Iowa fans, the momentum of the Swarm Collective and other factors offer hope of the Hawkeyes being competitive in this relatively new ecosystem.

The collective raised “well north of $3 million” in its first year when including pledges, Swarm founder Brad Heinrichs said earlier this summer on The Gazette’s Hawk Off the Press podcast.

“But we’ve got a long ways to go in order to be as successful as we want to be,” Heinrichs said.

The collective set a goal to raise $5 million annually and have 10,000 members, but Heinrichs expects that number to increase as time goes.

“In five years, it’s probably going to take 10 million to be in the same zone,” Heinrichs said.

Anecdotally, Iowa interim athletics director Beth Goetz told Heinrichs she believes based on “her intel” that Swarm is the “fourth-best NIL program in the conference.”

“That beats the heck out of 14th,” Heinrichs said.

But that is not where he would like Swarm to be.

“I want to compete with Ohio State,” Heinrichs said. “I want to compete with Michigan. I want to compete with Penn State. I want to compete with the best of the Big Ten.”

Heinrichs, a former Iowa golfer, believes the fan base is “rabid enough” to reach that level.

"Once they start to see results, once they start to buy into our vision, once they get past the ‘oh, I think it’s wrong that players are getting paid,’ once they move past that, that’s when I think we’ll really start to take off,” Heinrichs said.

The collective has gotten creative in its fundraising efforts, including with sales of Swarm beer and Swarm vodka. The Swarm Golden Ale, made by Exile Brewing Co. in Des Moines, raised $58,500 for the collective in July alone.

“I’ll make Swarm toothpaste if it means that we can get passive income for the Swarm and help us compete and do the things we’re trying to do,” Heinrichs said.

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Iowa’s change in leadership atop the athletic department also has the potential of boosting the Hawkeyes’ NIL positioning.

Friction between Heinrichs and former Iowa AD Gary Barta was evident at times as Heinrichs sought more support from Barta’s department. But Goetz, Heinrichs said, “does realize that NIL is here to stay.”

“You want to continue to just make sure that in any space — whether it’s NIL, facilities — we want to be the best version of Iowa we can be,” Goetz told The Gazette. “How do we be innovative and creative and make sure that we leverage all the strengths — the great strengths — that Iowa has, that the Iowa fan base offers?”

Heinrichs notices a “self-awareness now over there that we need to be a partner with the Swarm and not an adversary.”

That leaves Heinrichs optimistic about future growth opportunities for the collective.

“They can really be a catalyst for us, and that’s what I’m hoping for,” Heinrichs said. “That’s what I’m counting on.”

Iowa’s transfer portal results so far

Iowa football solved several needs via the portal, including at quarterback, linebacker and wide receiver. Quarterback Cade McNamara, tight end Erick All and linebacker Nick Jackson all have been captains on Power Five teams.

Away from football, the transfer portal results have not necessarily been there yet for Iowa’s basketball programs.

Iowa men’s basketball went shopping in the portal and landed commitments from former Valparaiso forward Ben Krikke and former Belmont center Even Brauns.

Several others, however, passed up on the Hawkeyes, including South Carolina-bound forward B.J. Mack and Virginia-bound forward Jordan Minor.

McCaffery made the observation that other teams have a “rather large salary cap.”

“They can buy a team,” McCaffery said in April.

Iowa women’s basketball — a team coming off a national championship appearance with consensus national player of the year Caitlin Clark returning — had an open scholarship and sought some transfer portal players, but it did not pan out.

“Our ‘salary cap’ wasn’t as good as other people,” head women’s basketball coach Lisa Bluder told reporters last month.

Of course, Iowa’s staff also was selective of who it would add.

“There were about 1,000 players in the portal, and about 10 of them were good enough to play for us,” Bluder said.

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com