Heard an interview with the CEO of the Iowa collective ("The Swarm") and thought I'd share what he had to say.
*Goals for this year are to raise $1M for men's basketball and $3M for football. Feels that Iowa is solidly in the second tier of Big Ten schools when it comes to NIL. First tier of Ohio State, Michigan, Oregon, USC and maybe Nebraska. Did not mention Wisconsin, but seemed to be confident that Iowa is "certainly competitive" with Minnesota and Illinois. (To me, it sounded like he meant that they have better funding, but the word he used was competitive.)
*They put out a call for donations last week (on the same day that Kayden Proctor went into the portal) and raised $100,000 in a day. Acknowledged the NCAA prohibition on using NIL as an incentive to come to your school, but also stated that the reality of the situation is that when the athletes do come to your school, they expect to be paid "their market value" when they get there.
*Praised the hire of Beth Goetz and said she has been a vocal proponent of their fundraising.
*Said that he thinks that Iowa benefits from having just one collective rather than multiple collectives like some schools.
*Stated that the collective has over 3,000 members and gets about $1.2M in annual donations from those members. There are also corporate partnerships (like casinos, beer, vodka, etc.) that generate another $1M per year. Lastly, they have private donors (which he didn't distinguish from members, but I assume maybe means one time donors vs. longer term commitments from members to contribute $X per year). He didn't say how much they get from those private donors.
*Goal is to get to 5,000 members by the end of the year. Noted that only about 400 of the current members are football season ticketholders and sees that population as source for future growth.
*Claimed to have personally originated the idea of a partnership with a beer brand that everyone around the country is now copying.
*Newest things that they have in the works are a bottled water partnership and a travel search site where they earn commissions on bookings through their site (which he likened to Travelocity).