Swarm Collective keeps Iowa competitive in NIL space as ‘price tags keep going up’

IOWA CITY — As Tyler Barnes spoke to reporters at Iowa football’s local media day last week, Iowa’s Swarm Collective was close to his heart, literally and figuratively.

Literally, he was wearing a polo with the Swarm logo emblazoned on his left side.

“The more I can do to get that word out there, the best I’m going to try to do,” said Barnes, who was recently promoted to Iowa football’s chief of staff and general manager.

Figuratively, Swarm has been at the heart of Iowa’s efforts to attract and retain talent in the first two years of the NIL collective’s existence.

“It’s really difficult to win without great players,” said Brad Heinrichs, the CEO and founder of Swarm. “Without a strong NIL program, you’re going to have difficulty attracting great players.”

As the Swarm Collective looks to raise funds to compensate Hawkeye athletes via name, image and likeness, Heinrichs said “the price tags keep going up.” It’s at the point now that the men’s basketball price tag is “north of $1 million, closer to $1.5 million,” and football is “around $4 million.”

“It’s been amazing to me to see the price inflation out there for what the other collectives are paying student-athletes, so we have to be competitive,” Heinrichs said. “And we are.”

Swarm makes a difference in Iowa’s player retention

Iowa football does not have a massive transfer portal haul to show for Swarm’s competitiveness on the NIL front, but rather a high retention rate of players who could have pursued an NFL career after last year’s 10-win season. The only underclassman to go pro was Cooper DeJean, who became the highest-drafted defensive back of the Kirk Ferentz/Phil Parker era.

“When you look at what we were able to do last year — and I know a lot of fans want the new flash and the shiny transfers and all those guys — but we were able to keep six guys on our roster that all would be in an NFL camp right now,” Barnes said. “They all decided to come back, and without the Swarm, it wasn’t going to be possible.”

Tight end Luke Lachey, linebackers Jay Higgins and Nick Jackson and defensive backs Sebastian Castro, Jermari Harris and Quinn Schulte were among the notable players who decided to stick around for an extra season in Iowa City.

“Maybe a couple of them might have stayed no matter what,” Barnes said. “But I think deep down inside, if you got them off the record, they’d probably tell you that was a huge part of the reason they stayed.”

The transfers that Iowa did bring in included ex-Northwestern quarterback Brendan Sullivan and ex-Northwestern wide receiver Jacob Gill. North Dakota offensive lineman Cade Borud and Colorado State quarterback Jackson Stratton transferred to Iowa as well, albeit as walk-ons.

An updated look at Swarm Collective’s revenue sources

Heinrichs’ organization — now more than two years into its existence after launching in July 2022 — has enough membership to be “comparatively speaking, certainly competitive with other collectives across the Big Ten and across the country.”

Swarm is “just shy of 3,000 donating members,” Heinrichs said. Another 300-400 people are non-paying members who have signed up for free, perhaps to use Swarm Travel discounts, without donating to the collective.

Heinrichs believes much more is possible, though.

“I still believe that getting closer to 10,000 is really where Iowa should be at some point, hopefully sooner rather than later,” Heinrichs said.

Swarm’s membership count took a hit earlier this year when former five-star offensive lineman Kadyn Proctor backed out of his transfer portal commitment to the Hawkeyes and returned to Alabama.

“And that’s unfortunate because, as I said on just about every social media platform I could get my hands on, Kadyn didn’t take any of the donors’ money at all,” Heinrichs said. “I understand that he rubbed people the wrong way and really angered a lot of Iowa fans. And I wasn’t super enamored with the way everything went down either.”

Before Proctor’s exit, Swarm had more than 3,000 paying members. That has not been the only reason for membership stoppages, though.

“When we give them an exit interview or just kind of wonder why they’re no longer able to support us, sometimes it’s financial,” Heinrichs said. “There’s lots of different reasons that people aren’t able to help us, and I can completely appreciate that.”

Heinrichs estimated about 60 percent of Swarm’s revenue comes from “Joe Iowa fan giving $20 a month, that kind of thing.” The other 40 percent comes from corporate support.

“It would be better if it was a much higher percentage of the pie coming from Joe Iowa fan because getting a little from a lot of people is a lot more predictable,” Heinrichs said, “than counting on a high percentage from a certain corporation that could just decide, ‘Oh, we don’t have it in our budget this year, we’re going to spend it on something else.’”

Swarm has gotten creative with ways to raise funds, whether it be with Swarm Vodka, Exile Brewing’s Swarm Golden Ale and Swarm Vodka Soda or most recently Swarm Water.

“A lot of people have been giving me a hard time about how I’ve been a little too boozy with our affiliations, so hopefully the water will appease some people,” Heinrichs said.

The water bottles look somewhat similar to Smart Water, except it obviously is in the black-and-gold color scheme with Swarm’s logo on it. Proceeds of every case, which is produced by Des Moines-based Crystal Clear Water Company, will benefit Swarm.

“The Hawkeye fans are already smart, so they won’t need the Smart Water,” Heinrichs said. “Maybe they’ll go with the Swarm Water instead and help out the Swarm when they buy their water.”

As for Barnes wearing a Swarm polo during his media obligations last week, Heinrichs has another staff member in mind for that as well.

“I’m going to get on Kirk to wear one at some point,” Heinrichs said. “We’ll see whether I’m successful there.”

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