A Muzzle of Bees

Are Iowa's NIL efforts being pulled in too many directions to be effective?

Last September, Beth Goetz changed the direction of Iowa’s efforts at an NIL collective. Before her ascendancy to athletic director, Iowa Athletics appeared to have an arm’s-length relationship with its collective, “The Swarm.” Gary Barta was reluctant to funnel resources there that he expected to get from those same donors for the department budget. Barta wouldn’t even give his donor list to the collective, because a dollar in the collective was one less dollar he had for the Gary Barta Memorial Wrestling Complex, Skin Care and Tire Center.

Goetz almost immediately pivoted, leaning into The Swarm Collective as a necessary partner in a successful athletics program. On September 21, Iowa announced that any donor making a one-time gift of $1,000 or more, or committing to a monthly gift of $100 or more, could direct their support to a particular program.¹ “We want to support the donor interest [in Iowa Athletics], whether it is in purchasing tickets or contributing to scholarships, facilities and NIL” was the Goetz pull quote from the announcement. The mere mention of NIL in the context of donors was a significant change. Eight months later, we may be seeing the unintended consequences of that decision, and the inevitable effects of Iowa’s donor base having too many things to fund.