Iowa, Kentucky, Ohio State show tension between collectives, schools

From Lexington, Kentucky, to Columbus, Ohio, to Iowa City, Iowa, fans of college sports have expressed concern, if not cynicism, that the athletic director and athletic departments in those cities haven’t done enough to promote the NIL collectives aligned with their universities.

Collectives are sometimes equated to “shadow” general managers of rosters — perhaps out of fear from coaches, administrators or even fans — because of the NIL funds that they pay or arrange for athletes. Someday, leaders of some collectives and their contributors could potentially be compared to a shadow Board of Directors because of the potential fury of their faithful.

The NCAA released its latest NIL guidance in late October, explicitly allowing coaches and administrators to publicly promote collectives. It didn’t take long for Tennessee Director of Athletics Danny White to share a video on Twitter in which he promoted Spyre Sports Group and the Lady Vol Boost Her Club.

“Let’s be the top NIL destination in the country,” White wrote on Twitter.

Last August, On3 named Spyre Sports Group the most ambitious agency or collective in the country, and White’s public embrace seemed to match that ambition.

However, at several schools, including Kentucky, Ohio State and Iowa, it took longer for fans to receive the same type of explicit, public endorsement or acknowledgment of their respective collectives.

‘UK was just taking a measured approach’

In December, Kentucky Sports Radio‘s Matt Jones provided a window into the psyche of many Kentucky fans with a tweet that read, “UK Athletics, JMI and Mitch Barnhart are making the job of UK’s coaches so much more difficult than it needs to be by being the least progressive school in the SEC (and most of the country) on NIL.”

Jones’ tweet came more than a month after Kentucky published an open letter from Barnhart, the athletic director, that was titled, “Supporting Our Student-Athletes in All Areas INCLUDING NIL.” It listed three NIL-related organizations or initiatives, including The 15 Club, which the agency Athlete Advantage runs.

It’s one example of how a pro-NIL letter, statement or video from an athletic director is a necessity, but it may not be all that’s needed to satisfy stakeholders.

“I think that UK was just taking a measured approach on making sure that the NCAA — that there was enough legislation out there that they were not going to make a misstep,” Ryan Miller, the founder of Athlete Advantage, recently told On3’s Pete Nakos. “We did the same thing. That’s why we were only working in the business-to-business manner until that rule came out. I think that there’s a lot of clarity for what universities can do.

“Mitch Barnhart has been a phenomenal athletic director for the University of Kentucky. His measured approach, even though people don’t like it, he was doing the right thing on behalf of the school of not wanting to affect any program or the university because there was so little out there. As those roles are changing and actually coming out, they’re been very open and want to do anything and everything they can to help.”

The Swarm Collective CEO: Ohio State, Michigan’s ADs are ‘supporting their NIL’

After Michigan Director of Athletics Warde Manuel penned a letter to fans promoting four collectives or NIL clubs, Brad Heinrichs, the CEO of the Iowa-focused The Swarm Collective, tweeted in December, “Hmmm… both tOSU and Michigan’s ADs supporting their NIL programs… Santa, I hope you got my list…”

Michigan, by the way, has faced its own issues regarding its alignment with NIL.

Heinrichs sent a tweet days later that stated, in part, “Iowa up to this point has done nothing to help us. Zero.”

The news cycle at Iowa followed a similar trajectory as those at Kentucky and Ohio State.

There were outcries on Twitter and message boards from fans — if not the leaders of the collectives themselves — about how the university’s administration wasn’t supporting collectives enough.

Eventually, each school released a statement that supported their associated collectives or clarified their position.

Iowa released a two-page letter from Director of Athletics Gary Barta, which included Title IX concerns regarding its involvement with the collective.

“He did that probably in response to some social media posts that I had made,” Heinrichs said in a recent phone interview. “So, you know, I think that was a step in the right direction. But he also said that he’s not going to give us any sort of season ticket holder lists or donor lists or anything like that, and that’s certainly his prerogative.”

Heinrichs said he’s hopeful that Iowa will also promote The Swarm Collective when the athletic department contacts season ticket holders or donors directly.

Ironically, Iowa and Ohio State were two universities where some athletic department employees publicly supported collectives long before it was commonplace. After the NCAA released its latest guidance last fall, On3 cited the two schools as examples of schools whose coaches had embraced collectives months prior to the NCAA’s additional clarification.

Iowa, Ohio State head coaches support NIL activities

When The Swarm Collective launched in July, Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz, men’s basketball coach Fran McCaffery and women’s basketball coach Lisa Bluder attended the introductory press conference in a show of support.

“Brad has just done an unbelievable job,” Ferentz said last July at Big Ten Football Media Days, when On3 asked about his relationship with The Swarm Collective and Heinrichs. “I can’t imagine how much time and energy he’s put into this, as I just mentioned, inside a window of two months. Just an extremely impressive person … I’m so appreciative, and I don’t want to speak for other people.

“I think I speak for everybody on our campus’ behalf, just appreciative of his interest and his willingness to help.”

Heinrichs credited Ferentz for volunteering to film a video on behalf of The Swarm Collective. He said he thinks McCaffery and Bluder will soon do the same.

In April, McCaffery will attend one of The Swarm Collective’s events in Dallas, where members of the collective can watch former Iowa first-team All-American Keegan Murray and the Sacramento Kings play the Dallas Mavericks.

“They understand that if we’re successful, they’ll have an easier time retaining their current roster and also our war chest will be attractive to prospective recruits that they’re trying to get on campus,” Heinrichs said.

Collectives ask for more support while promoting fundraising success

In August, Ohio State Senior Vice President and Director of Athletics Gene Smith, football coach Ryan Day and men’s basketball coach Chris Holtmann attended a fundraiser for the Buckeyes-focused collective The Foundation. Two tickets cost $1,000. A table for 10 was available for $10,000.

Attendees could bid on a dinner for four with Day or Holtmann, among other auction items.

Leaders of The Foundation and The Swarm Collective have both attempted the delicate balance of calling for more support from their aligned universities, arguing a lack of support has held them back, while also promoting their fundraising success so far.

“I won’t lie to you,” Heinrichs said. “I would love to have more help from them as we move forward.”

The Twitter account for The Foundation said the collective’s deals with quarterback CJ Stroud and wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba were “each of their largest single NIL deals to date.” The next week, the account encouraged someone to, “Call OSU and tell them to help promote and support us more!”

Heinrichs, who tweeted in December that Iowa “has done nothing to help us,” also tweeted, “We have raised more money than most of the Big Ten so far.”

Heinrichs described his benchmarking process as informal. He said you don’t know if someone is intentionally embellishing or sandbagging another collective’s fundraising numbers they relay in conversation.

“Ohio State and Nebraska are clearly ahead of us,” he said. “I think Purdue is probably ahead of us as well because I think — I was told that Drew Brees made a pretty substantial commitment to their collective. There may be one or two others that are above us as well. I’m not sure but I think by and large, after those, I think that we stand pretty tall relative to some of the other collectives.”

A lack of NIL support could prove costly for ADs

An athletic director’s lack of support of NIL collectives, or even just the perception that’s the case, could potentially jeopardize his or her position.

There have been a few firings or separations with athletic directors where NIL was referenced immediately before or after the decision. It’s unclear, at least publicly, if NIL played a role in those decisions and if so, to what extent.

Weeks after the November separation between West Virginia and former athletic director Shane Lyons, Lyons told West Virginia MetroNews of the collective Country Roads Trust, “They wanted our coaches to be more involved in the promotion of that and from what I understand, they wanted us to be more involved in identifying potential donors for fundraising aspects of that. … Based on the discussions with President (Gordon) Gee, I think he thought we needed to be more aggressive in that area.”

In May, Wichita State fired athletic director Darron Boatwright without cause. The month prior, a group of Wichita State fans launched a fundraiser on GoFundMe that was titled, “Save Shocker Sports.” The funds were raised for marketing efforts, such as billboards.

The first bullet point on the fundraiser’s website stated, “Wichita State has not established any kind of NIL assistance or collective for its student-athletes. Both of the other D1 schools in Kansas have made this a priority. That falls squarely on Mr. Boatright.”

In October, Boatwright’s successor, Kevin Saal, and university president Dr. Rick Muma sat for a nearly 30-minute conversation about NIL on Wichita State’s “Forward Together” podcast.”

Bowling Green fired athletic director and former Falcons baseball player Bob Moosbrugger in August.

President Rodney Rogers released a statement that stated in part, “However, as Division I programs such as BGSU face the transformation of intercollegiate athletics – with opportunities and challenges such as name, image and likeness – along with the need to increase and diversify resources, and to refocus the holistic role athletics has on an institution, we need to consider new perspectives and strongly position BGSU Athletics for the future.”

There are now more than 200 NIL collectives across the country. Even athletes at Northwestern, which for months was the only Big Ten institution whose fans or donors hadn’t launched one, will now be supported by a collective.

In 2023, the concern for many Division I administrators, coaches and their fans is no longer whether they have an affiliated collective but whether the parties involved are actually aligned.

“Really since I had raised some concern, there have been, I would say, two steps in the right direction,” Heinrichs said of Iowa and its athletic director Barta. “One being the video that he released and then second, the letter that he wrote to the Hawkeye fans kind of notifying them about who we are and where to go find information.

“Having said all that, as you can imagine, the more help we can get the better because we don’t have the database that they do to reach Hawkeye fans.”