NASHVILLE, Tenn. — In barely five months, The Swarm Collective has shifted from an idea to a full-fledged operation with 1,300 contributors donating about $3 million toward Iowa football and basketball players.
The collective quadrupled its supporters when former Michigan quarterback Cade McNamara announced plans to transfer to Iowa four weeks ago. At the surface, it’s a major success story, especially for a new operation competing in the most unorganized era in NCAA history.
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“Having said that,” The Swarm Collective CEO Brad Heinrichs said, “we’re going to need $10 million a year to be where we need to be to sustain a level of success. If we’re able to get to $10 million, then I think our NIL program will be a force and force to be reckoned with and will be attractive to our student-athletes, for sure.”
Longtime coaches Kirk Ferentz and Fran McCaffery, in particular, rave about The Swarm Collective and have close relationships with Heinrichs. The collective’s reach directly impacts the coaches’ ability to attract top talent. The collective wasn’t formed in time in the spring to help McCaffery pick up a much-needed post player, but it might help in the future.
Nothing sounds better to Iowa football fans than an offense moving the ball with consistency. McNamara was the first step, and The Swarm Collective delivered. More points mean more ticket sales, increased donations to the athletic department and Tigerhawk T-shirts under every tree. It’s a win-win for everyone. Or so it seemed.
One of the first battlegrounds between athletic departments and individual sports about the reach of collectives appears to be taking place in Iowa City, Iowa. Unlike its contemporaries who have embraced every aspect of its collective, Iowa’s athletic department has taken a lukewarm approach. Athletic director Gary Barta thanked Heinrichs in a letter to Iowa supporters Tuesday but balked at supplying the collective with donor contact information.
“Access to the Hawkeye season ticket holder and contributor databases are never released directly to a third party,” Barta wrote in his letter.
There are Iowa fans, donors and ticket holders who aren’t familiar with The Swarm Collective. To some, even the acronym “NIL” (name, image and likeness) has negative connotations. But the collective doesn’t have the access to send out information about its mission, and the university refuses to endorse it. Iowa athletics won’t allow the collective to even have a table at its Hawkeye Huddle event before the Music City Bowl.
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“The answer that they’ve given us is that it hasn’t really been privacy concerns, which I would have expected to be the answer,” Heinrichs said. “It’s really been more about that there’s a line for which they feel like they can support us because of Title IX; that’s sort of the answer that I get. We don’t adhere to Title IX. We don’t need to adhere to Title IX. We’re set apart from the university.”
There’s also a desire for The Swarm Collective to invest in athletes for all 22 sports, but Heinrichs said: “The roadblock is just the sheer volume of student-athletes. Just with 125 or so student-athletes that we have now, it’s still an administrative burden.”
Sought for comment, Barta has let his letter stand as his comments but plans to discuss the topic Friday. He has yet to speak with Heinrichs, either. The disconnect has Iowa’s highest-profile coaches concerned, and that starts with Ferentz.
The Hawkeyes have lost eight players to the transfer portal this month. With the team competing against Kentucky on Saturday, the players will scatter to their hometowns for a few weeks before the second semester begins. With tampering so widespread that it’s ungovernable, several Iowa players have been contacted by programs about entering the portal. If The Swarm Collective can’t counter offers or produce one up front, there could be significant departures.
“We have to find a way to be competitive in our (area) and make sure that’s what we’re comfortable with,” Ferentz told The Athletic and Hawkeye Report in an exclusive interview. “It’s not only recruiting guys, but it’s keeping your own guys. And that’s really where it starts for us because we’re not going to be a team of free agents. We’re just not; no interest in it. And we take a lot of pride in the guys that have come here and grow in our program.
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“You hear stories, and believe me, I’ve heard a few personally, where so and so has made offers to these guys. And it’s just a reality. We’ve opened the door for this. Most importantly, in my mind, if a guy has earned his way up the ladder and has demonstrated he’s really not only a good player but a good team member, why would you want them to walk out the door?”
Ferentz is known for his conservative, perhaps risk-averse strategy on the field. But in this area, he’s aggressive. He understands for Iowa to compete on the field, it must win off of it through its collective. One player can mean the difference between a third-down completion and a pass breakup. It could determine the outcome of a rivalry game, a divisional title and potentially a College Football Playoff berth. It also provides the difference for a program like Iowa punching upward at Michigan and Ohio State or losing ground to its border foes.
“It’s a different era than five years ago, where typically we’re thinking about facilities and things like that,” Ferentz said. “Those aren’t changing. But I think we all have to change our priorities right now. Because I’m just out recruiting, and you just see what’s going on in the real world. You hear a lot of things. Nobody has any way of knowing what is factual and what isn’t. There’s a lot of embellishment going on. But all that being said, it’s real.”
It’s at this point when reality must deliver an uppercut to wishful utopia. In Iowa’s most recent available non-COVID-19 financial statement, football directly generated $81.6 million. Men’s basketball made $11.5 million, and the other 22 sports combined for $5.5 million in revenue. Of the $36 million in contributions, $34 million was labeled as non-specific. It doesn’t take noted rocket scientist and former Iowa professor Dr. James Van Allen to know most of those non-specific donations were geared toward football.
Football is Iowa’s cash cow, and even a minor slip sends a ripple effect through the entire university. A 7-5 season with losses to Iowa State, Illinois and Nebraska caused a major stir. The nation’s most underrated transfer portal addition and subtraction last year was Iowa losing Charlie Jones to Purdue. Had Jones stayed, Iowa is in Indianapolis. Instead, the Boilermakers were there.
Heinrichs described the collective’s challenges in a passionate stream of posts on the Hawkeye Report message board Saturday. It’s unusual for a person so connected with the athletic department to lash out following a policy disagreement. But Heinrichs, a 1997 Iowa graduate and former golf athlete, runs a successful actuarial business in Fort Myers, Florida. He has purchased ad time for The Swarm Collective through Learfield and its local subsidiary, Hawkeye Sports Properties, and he set up numerous fundraising activities. He wants every fan to know about the collective, yet the people who benefit the most from it have created barriers to its very success.
“I have historically felt somewhat hamstrung because I don’t have access to all the Hawkeye fans who might be generous enough to help us,” Heinrichs said. “So, you can see how my frustration sort of kind of came to a head with the predicament that we’re under, but yet I can’t reach the Hawkeye fans. So, I may have vented a little bit.
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“There is a sense of urgency for us to raise money in a hurry so that we can keep our rosters together so that we can be successful moving forward. That’s why I sort of took the approach that I did. I might have taken a softer approach up until this point. But when I start to see on the near horizon looming trouble, meaning kids may be leaving to go to schools where they can get better NIL deals, that’s when I felt like I needed to say something and try to force the action a bit, if you will.”
Whether it’s Barta’s idea to incorporate Title IX concerns or attorneys providing him with cover, anything resembling a Title IX predicament goes off like a hotel fire alarm with Iowa’s administration. It’s not like Barta hasn’t received poor legal advice previously. An assistant state attorney general incredulously recommended Barta reassign former senior associate athletics director Jane Meyer away from the athletic department when her partner, former field hockey coach Tracey Griesbaum, was fired in 2014. Meyer was let go, and a jury interpreted that move as retaliation. Ultimately, it cost Iowa athletics $6.6 million in a settlement that drained its reserves.
Griesbaum’s firing also brought a Title IX complaint filed by four field hockey players and an ensuing investigation, which was resolved in 2018. During the pandemic, Barta chopped four sports just 10 days after Big Ten presidents voted to cancel the football season. Representatives for the eliminated women’s swim team sued the athletic department for Title IX violations. The sport was reinstated, and Iowa also was forced to add another women’s sport (wrestling) to become Title IX compliant.
But only Iowa has used Title IX as a deterrent in promoting collectives. On Dec. 8, Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith fully endorsed collectives supporting the Buckeyes. On Friday, Michigan counterpart Warde Manuel did the same. Although Barta offered his appreciation for fans who donated to The Swarm Collective, his words were more matter-of-fact rather than outright supportive.
“There are, and will continue to be, limitations on the athletic departments involvement in collectives related to NCAA rules, tax laws, Title IX law, etc.,” Barta wrote. “The concept and rules surrounding NIL and collectives will continue to evolve. The Hawkeyes will continue to advance with those changes.”
Now isn’t the time for Iowa athletics to sit back, evaluate and assess an appropriate response to the situation. It’s also not the time to strong-arm an outside enterprise with the lone goal of keeping Iowa’s highest-profile sports competitive to ensure every athlete is treated equally. There’s a reason why every 2022 football ticket was sold by mid-July. If football can’t keep up, then the whole structure falls apart. This is revolution, not evolution.
(Top photo of Brad Heinrichs: Scott Dochterman / The Athletic)
