For Iowa’s Swarm Collective to ‘go where we want to go,’ it may ‘need several million dollars’

UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS — Ohio State’s number is $13 million.

That’s how much football coach Ryan Day thinks Buckeye boosters need to raise annually for name, image and likeness to keep his roster intact, according to a June Cleveland.com report.

“I don’t have that big of a number in mind,” said Brad Heinrichs, the CEO of Iowa’s Swarm Collective at a Tuesday news conference.

But still, the number at Iowa will probably have plenty of zeros at the end of it.

“We’re going to need several million dollars to help us go where we want to go,” Heinrichs said. “Whether that’s 5, 10, I’m not sure, but we’ve got a ways to go.”

At the same time, Heinrichs said he’ll likely have a “better idea” of what’s possible in 30 days. The Swarm Collective — where any interested athletes in football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball can profit from fans while supporting nonprofits — is in its infancy after officially launching on Tuesday.

The “several million dollars” number for NIL revenue may have some sticker shock, but it’d be a fraction of what Iowa Athletics receives annually in donations.

In the 2018-19 fiscal year — the most recent year with data available that was not affected by COVID-19 — Iowa brought in about $35.4 million in contributions, according to Iowa’s NCAA financial report.

If donors either increased their giving to Hawkeye causes from 2018-19 by 14 percent or diverted 14 percent of their contributions from UI Athletics to the collective, that would be enough for the collective to have $5 million.

Heinrichs refuted the idea that his collective will compete with the athletics department for donors.

“Do I view it as a competition? No,” Heinrichs said. “We’re all Hawks. We’re all trying to further the brand.”

Survival in NIL era

As Heinrichs unveiled the collective publicly Tuesday, Iowa coaches did not understate its importance.

“It’s absolutely essential for survival,” Iowa men’s basketball coach Fran McCaffery said following Heinrichs’ news conference. “The hope is it will keep us on a level playing field.”

Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz similarly described the collective as “critical” for the Hawkeyes to keep up with their peers.

“NIL is not going away,” Ferentz said. “You can put your head in the sand, or you try to address it."

Ferentz at first “really didn’t spend much time worrying” about NIL, but that changed in February.

“Since February, I’ve really tried to immerse myself a little bit and get knowledgeable,” Ferentz said.

Many other schools already have collectives in place. Other Big Ten schools where boosters have already established NIL collectives include Wisconsin, Nebraska, Illinois, Ohio State, Penn State and Indiana.

Some are further along in operations than others, though. After its June 4 unveiling, the Varsity Collective at Wisconsin has essentially been silent, per a Wisconsin State Journal report.

Not a blue-blood

As the differences in NIL goals between Iowa and Ohio State showed, survival in the NIL era likely will look different for the Hawkeyes than for some of the top-tier football programs.

“We’ve never been in that ballpark,” Ferentz said. “It’s just like we don’t have 110,000 seats in our stadium, and we shouldn’t. That’s not us."

Ferentz compared it to the existing differences in recruiting between Iowa and a school like Ohio State or Alabama. The Hawkeyes’ 2022 class is 30th in Rivals’ rankings while Ohio State’s class is fourth and Alabama’s class is second.

“We’re not going to beat Alabama or Ohio State on a recruit unless their dad played here or they had a brother here,” Ferentz said. “There’s exceptions to that rule, but we haven’t built our program that way.”

A top-dollar prospect might not be a good fit in Iowa City anyway, regardless of the sport.

Iowa women’s basketball associate head coach Jan Jansen said the players recruited in football and men’s and women’s basketball usually “aren’t chasing the glitz and glamour of a Hollywood market.”

“You’re going to lose some that want a Lamborghini, but that’s never going to be who we are here,” Jansen said.

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