An Open Letter from Gary Barta

I think you just need to be on their mailing list. If you down-loaded tickets your in the system, or receive emails from the athletics dept. Talk about a backflip by Barta, I wonder how many seconds after news of his statements about the Swarm before his social media inboxes and phone blew up. Every Iowa site I watch ran his comments and encouraged fans to contact him. It's one thing to say legally they have to stay out of direct financial cooperation with the Swarm but the fact that he was talking about it in public was stupid. Then I read this letter and laughed my ass off. Talk about a politician, very flexible depending on the audience. It really does sound like he is a bird protecting his nest of donor eggs. Sorry Barta, NIL is here to stay and your going to have to share the pie and appearance matters. The athletic dept. needs to at least pretend to encourage the Swarm and NIL participation.
 
In my view, Barta (and yes he is a politician, but that's sorta his job) is balancing three issues:

1. They don't want to fall behind the curve and be at a competitive disadvantage.
2. Title IX and other legal pitfalls.
3. And this isn't talked about enough, but there is NOT an endless supply of cash out there. Will NIL create more funds and bring some folks off the sideline who like the idea of influencing kids to Iowa, but otherwise would not give cash to the athletic program? Sure. But mostly, I suspect this is a bit of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

He truly does need to balance all this, especially 1 and 3. Keep in mind that Barta is the fund raiser in chief for the athletic department. When he needs a new building or just cash to run things, is he going to start getting No's or just less money because money is diverted into the collective? Does Iowa want to assist a collective that it has no control over and that will assuredly divert millions of dollars a year that would have otherwise gone to the athletic department???

I mean, I think the answer is that you have to support the collective process given the current landscape of the game, but man, that is a dicey proposition for any institution that relies heavily on regular cash from loyal donors.
 
NorthKCHawk said:
In my view, Barta (and yes he is a politician, but that's sorta his job) is balancing three issues:

1. They don't want to fall behind the curve and be at a competitive disadvantage.
2. Title IX and other legal pitfalls.
3. And this isn't talked about enough, but there is NOT an endless supply of cash out there. Will NIL create more funds and bring some folks off the sideline who like the idea of influencing kids to Iowa, but otherwise would not give cash to the athletic program? Sure. But mostly, I suspect this is a bit of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

He truly does need to balance all this, especially 1 and 3. Keep in mind that Barta is the fund raiser in chief for the athletic department. When he needs a new building or just cash to run things, is he going to start getting No's or just less money because money is diverted into the collective? Does Iowa want to assist a collective that it has no control over and that will assuredly divert millions of dollars a year that would have otherwise gone to the athletic department???

I mean, I think the answer is that you have to support the collective process given the current landscape of the game, but man, that is a dicey proposition for any institution that relies heavily on regular cash from loyal donors.
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Cogent.
This program has some tightropes to walk in the coming months, for sure.

And, I do want to point out that Barta just promoted the collective. Without actually promoting it.
I mean, he would have given it away if he had provided a link, but anyone with a brain who read this (that didn't already know), now knows the name of the collective and within a few seconds of Googling should be able to find it.

"You guys, there's this collective out there. It's called The SWARM. We, as a university can't participate with THE SWARM. We can't use our database of donors to collect for THE SWARM or promote THE SWARM. But, the SWARM is totally legal, and independent of the University. If people want to donate to THE SWARM, we can't stop them either. We're just not going to work directly with THE SWARM."

That's how I read it.
 
dagdaj said:
Cogent.
This program has some tightropes to walk in the coming months, for sure.

And, I do want to point out that Barta just promoted the collective. Without actually promoting it.
I mean, he would have given it away if he had provided a link, but anyone with a brain who read this (that didn't already know), now knows the name of the collective and within a few seconds of Googling should be able to find it.

"You guys, there's this collective out there. It's called The SWARM. We, as a university can't participate with THE SWARM. We can't use our database of donors to collect for THE SWARM or promote THE SWARM. But, the SWARM is totally legal, and independent of the University. If people want to donate to THE SWARM, we can't stop them either. We're just not going to work directly with THE SWARM."

That's how I read it.
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Yup
 
I just got an email from with a video from KF telling me to support The Swarm Collective. Sure seems like a lot of mixed messages
 
At this point, you just have to scramble and survive. In the short term, programs without an aggressive NIL Collective are going to be left behind. If you are KF, you can't worry about Barta's next building. You need cash to bribe players now. Maybe in a couple years some level of rules can be crafted to allow for competitive balance, but until that happens, Iowa has to try and keep up with the Joneses.
 
NorthKCHawk said:
In my view, Barta (and yes he is a politician, but that's sorta his job) is balancing three issues:

1. They don't want to fall behind the curve and be at a competitive disadvantage.
2. Title IX and other legal pitfalls.
3. And this isn't talked about enough, but there is NOT an endless supply of cash out there. Will NIL create more funds and bring some folks off the sideline who like the idea of influencing kids to Iowa, but otherwise would not give cash to the athletic program? Sure. But mostly, I suspect this is a bit of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

He truly does need to balance all this, especially 1 and 3. Keep in mind that Barta is the fund raiser in chief for the athletic department. When he needs a new building or just cash to run things, is he going to start getting No's or just less money because money is diverted into the collective? Does Iowa want to assist a collective that it has no control over and that will assuredly divert millions of dollars a year that would have otherwise gone to the athletic department???

I mean, I think the answer is that you have to support the collective process given the current landscape of the game, but man, that is a dicey proposition for any institution that relies heavily on regular cash from loyal donors.
Click to expand...
I would maybe agree if the $train wasn’t pulling up to the college station with Big Ten Streaming rights aboard. The great facilities, staff, and overblown athletic dept. mean nothing if you are not a competitive program. NIL is the wind that’s blowing the best players to their destinations. NIL is all important right now. That’s why a collective is so important as it will spread out the donations and not further tax the heavy donors. The collective can spread out the money and connect the Star players with business sponsors. It doesn’t have to be a choice or one or the other. Personally I’d rather my money go the student athletes than the suits.
 
What am I missing? Barta and Ferentz backed off/clarified comments that were interpreted by social media geniuses to be critical of our NIL process. The plan has been publically stated, since then, by the Head guy, to need $10,000,000 annually to stay competitive. I have seen no negative reaction to that statement.

Barta has maintained his position that private party addresses will not be released to the Swarm. Damn right, GB. Leave my privacy alone! I have received from GB and KF, as a Golden Hawk, encouragement to join the Swarm. Clearly, they have my
email, my mailing address, my priority info, my cell #, my level of giving, records of my degrees, my records of season ticket purchases, and God knows what else.
I voluntarily provided this information to the Iowa Athletic Department. If they had shared it with the Swarm without my permission, they would be sorry.

Only a wild guess: Some HN posters would have blasted Iowa Athletics for privacy violations if they had passed out private information. Oh well. At least they would have been right about that.
 
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