Iowa Swarm Launches in Support of Student-Athletes

NIL Collective Ties in Charities in Effort to Compete on New College Sports Landscape

Iowa women's basketball coach Lisa Bluder speaks with Iowa Swarm CEO Brad Heinrichs during a press conference Tuesday morning at The Heights Rooftop at the Courtyard Marriott in Iowa City, Iowa. (Rob Howe/HawkeyeNation.com)

IOWA CITY, Iowa - Jan Jensen said the questions have changed on the recruiting trail.

Jensen, Iowa’s associate head women’s basketball coach, said in the past recruits and their parents have asked about academics, the culture of the program, etc.

Now, she said, she faces questions about how name, image and likeness fit into the program.

“Now it’s all about this,” she said. “It’s a challenge.”

Jensen and the rest of Iowa’s women’s basketball staff, as well as the football and men’s basketball staffs, can now answer that question.

The Swarm Collective, which will offer NIL opportunities to Iowa’s football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball players, was introduced Tuesday at a press conference in Iowa City.

“I will tell you, I think NIL is here to stay,” said Brad Heinrichs, an Iowa graduate and former student-athlete who is the CEO of the collective. “These kids have earned the right to earn money off their name, image and likeness.”

The collective has two components, business and philanthropic. The goal, Heinrichs said, is to connect athletes with businesses, as well as charities.

“I want to open doors for these kids,” said Heinrichs, who was a member of Iowa’s men’s golf team before graduating in 1997. “Obviously we’re going to find out, take the appetite of a lot of local businesses to see if they might be interested in one of our student-athletes. If there’s interest, we’ll go to a particular student-athlete they might be interested in, or group of student-athletes they might be interested in, to see if we can’t bring those together. Helping these players get in touch with these businesses is one of our main objectives.”

“It’s absolutely essential for survival,” men’s basketball coach Fran McCaffery said. “Will it help? Yeah. The hope is it will keep us on a level playing field.”

“I’m so appreciative of Brad’s initiative on this,” football coach Kirk Ferentz said. “It’s so common-sense. It makes perfect sense. And most important, it makes sense for us at Iowa.

“NIL’s not going away. You can either put your head in the sand or try to address it.”

Athletes who work with charities will receive a stipend for their work. They can also be connected with businesses for promotional work.

“It’s not as if these student-athletes do no charity work,” Heinrichs said. “They do. They’re just now finally going to be compensated for some of the things they do.”

“The players are going to get paid, which they should,” McCaffery said. “They’re going to interact with the business community, which they should. There will be a philanthropic program, which is also outstanding. And they’ll be prepared for the real world.”

Several of McCaffery’s players, including his sons Connor and Patrick, had NIL deals last season.

“I can tell you last year alone, the guys who had NIL deals, how they interacted with the business community, was outstanding, in every way,” McCaffery said. “NIL is here to stay, and it should be. You can’t be dealing with multi-billion dollar entities, and everybody’s making money except the players. That was flat-out wrong.

There will be opportunities for individuals who donate to the collective. One event being planned is a trip to New York with the men’s basketball team for the Jimmy V Classic game against Duke on December 6.

“For fans that want to contribute, there will be a spot on the team plane to travel to New York,” Heinrichs said. “They’ll get to watch the team warm up. They’ll be able to listen in on some of the strategies Coach McCaffery shares with the team. I can tell you, I would have never had that opportunity before.”

The coaches approve of the collective’s plan.

“Up until February, I just kind of sat back, read the headlines. I didn’t really think about it at all,” Ferentz said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s not going away. I’ve heard people say it’s not sustainable — I totally disagree with that. I think the NIL concept is sustainable.

“The way Brad has laid it out, it totally makes sense.”

“I think Kirk has run his program like this, Fran has run it like this, Lisa has run it like this — we’re big culture people,” Jensen said. “We’re not a fancy, bright-shining program out in the glitz and glamor of L.A. We’ve got to have everyone matter, whether you’re a star player or not. So when this came out, it’s like whoa, how are we going to manage this? This, I think, can hopefully help us hold serve, and not compromise who we are. Because none of us got into this to be a mini-pro team.

“This gives us a little bit of, like, ‘Hey, come here and we’ll take care of you.’”

Heinrichs has visions of coming up with big dollars for athletes, as well as helping area charities.

““I do think we’re going to need several million dollars to go where we want to go,” Heinrichs said. “Whether that’s 5 (million), 10 (million), I’m not sure. But we’ve got a ways to go.”

“What we’re going to do is offer a compelling case. We’re going to run a great organization, and hopefully people in the community get behind us.”

“This should have been done years ago,” McCaffery said. “Our student-athletes should have been interacting with the community. We sell that in the recruiting process — the networking, ‘It’s a Hawkeye state, you’ll be connected, but you have to wait four years.’ Now you don’t have to wait.”