Cade McNamara thinks 'like 40%' entered transfer portal for NIL deals

Iowa quarterback Cade McNamara, who led Michigan to its first-ever College Football Playoff appearance in 2021 before recently transferring within the Big Ten, joined Jordan Palmer and Kyle Allen on their podcast “The Room.” McNamara discussed the convergence of NIL and the Transfer Portal.

“I think NIL and the Transfer Portal now, it makes having a sustained, good foundation, culture that much harder,” McNamara said. “As time continues, we’ll see which cultures stay the same.”

Allen and Palmer asked how many players McNamara thinks have entered the portal to try to receive more NIL deals from another school’s fans and donors.

“How many guys do you think are just trying to test the waters to see if they can get more money somewhere else?” Allen asked. “And how many guys do you think are doing that and then the school is going to offer them more money that they’re already at?”

“I guarantee you a ton,” McNamara said.

Palmer asked him to estimate what percentage.

“Like 40%, I think would do that,” McNamara said. “Now that I’m committed, like, I’m recruiting, basically. So I’m talking to dudes who are like, ‘Oh yeah, like my teammate’ — I’m talking to a guy who’s a second-stringer, and he’s out because he’s been screwed over like the last couple years but then the starter in front of him just put his name in the portal and it’s like, ‘Well, what are you doing? You’re supposed to be happy.’

“And then these guys are just like testing out, ‘Oh, what does the NIL package look like at anywhere else? If you’re going to guarantee me a start over at who knows where, then, oh, I’ll just take that opportunity.’ What I think is tough is this is creating such a gap between the big Power 5 [schools] versus the rest of the country.”

Cade McNamara discusses the role of NIL collectives

There are roughly 200 NIL collectives across the country that are designed to facilitate NIL opportunities for college athletes. The phrase NIL collective is a catch-all term that applies to various organizations, which range from nonprofit organizations to marketing agencies, that typically operate independently of the institutions whose athletes they support.

Here you can view On3’s database of NIL collectives across the country.

After McNamara committed to Iowa, the Iowa Swarm collective tweeted, “How about that?” along with a sunglasses emoji. In a reply, Iowa Swarm posted on its Twitter account a call to donate.

McNamara also promoted the collective with a tweet of his own.

“Hawkeye Nation! Couldn’t be more excited to come to Iowa City and play football, win championships, and join the SWARM! You should join the SWARM, too!” he tweeted, along with a link to the collective’s website.

“Thinking about Michigan, it’s like, OK, they have the biggest alumni [base] in the country,” McNamara said. “Why wouldn’t their players be making more than everyone else, you know? That’s just what’s kind of crazy with all this stuff is because you’d be surprised that some of these schools like Nebraska, like some schools that you wouldn’t think have it all dialed in like that, they do…

“These collectives, is what they call it, where the boosters is an organized group and they’re able to distribute… that’s how they raise the money. Schools like Nebraska, I know Iowa – Iowa has a great collection (sic) and it’s these groups that really, it’s like guaranteeing guys a certain amount of money extra just for being on the team. And that could be anyone, like a walk-on, anyone can get that half of the collective.

“And then there’s schools like Michigan who have really not much organized at all.”