GT NIL Collective Launching Soon: SwarmtheATL.com

gtchem05

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This was posted on a member-only forum at another site yesterday, but I just spoke with the original poster, PTCJacket, this morning who gave me the go-ahead to post this here as well. It could just as easily be posted in the basketball, baseball, or other sports forums, but I thought it would get the most views here. Mods, feel free to relocate or pin at your discretion.


"Hey Jacket Fans,

Just wanted to inform everyone that we should have a public NIL collective ready to launch within the next week to 10 days. There are a number of folks on the Coach’s Committee for Football that have been involved in this effort as well as others and I want to thank them for their support.

SwarmtheATL.com [which is not up and running just yet] is designed to provide enhanced fan engagement opportunities. We will offer 5 different membership or engagement levels and each will come with exclusive access to GT student-athletes, former players, coaches, GT insiders, and unique experiences such as private dinners, shootarounds, and donor provided pregame field access and passes to attend a home football game in a suite. More details will be made available as we rollout.

Our objective is to use the funds raised through this entity to provide NIL compensation to current athletes. We will form an Advisory Committee sourced from the Coach’s Committee to determine how the funds we raise should be dispersed both equitably and opportunistically. Although it has taken us a while to get to this point, we feel confident that as we launch SwarmtheATL that it will put us on a level playing field with other schools in our division.

I look forward to everyone supporting this effort to help further enhance our athletic programs’ competitiveness."



And a little more info from what I know:

The site will be hosted by Dreamfield Sports which has already created similar collectives for Florida State and Central Florida. Click on their links to get an idea of what the Tech site will look like.

I spoke with the external affairs director at Dreamfield yesterday, and they are super focused on ensuring full NCAA and legal compliance with their work. Their goal is not to draw big-donor money away from the athletic department, but rather to gather a large volume of smaller contributors (big contributors of course welcome too, but just not as much the focus) who will truly be receiving something in return for their contributions. This will include the type of access described by PTCJacket in his post, and will cost something in the range of $10 - $500 per month in a tiered format.

Dreamfield charges 15% overhead to manage and host the website, process payments, arrange and staff events, and ensure compliance. This is a much better deal than other similar sites that charge closer to 30% overhead. There may be a small portion of added expenses that aren't fully defined as of yet such as facility fees for an event, but this means that nearly 85% of the contributions will go directly to GT student-athletes. Right now, the project needs to prove scalability before it can offer some specs such as earmarking funds for a specific player or sport. Once an adequate volume of members is achieved, this may become possible.

Contributions to Swarm ATL will not be tax-deductible, but a group is working to form a 501c3 non-profit organization to support NIL work in collaboration with local Atlanta charities as well.

I'll be sure to post again once the site is up.
 
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Oakland

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It's probably too early to ask this question, but once a person signs up, can we view other Deerfield sites like the examples above? This could really be interesting.
 

gtchem05

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It's probably too early to ask this question, but once a person signs up, can we view other Deerfield sites like the examples above? This could really be interesting.
It's Dreamfield rather than Deerfield, but what you said is something I have thought of as well and like the idea. I don't think it will be set up that way initially, but hopefully in the future. Being able to easily compare our performance to other schools would likely increase fan engagement, and I have mentioned that idea to those at Dreamfield designing the site. As a debatably wise coach said more than a few times, "Competition is king!"
 
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awbuzz

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"Georgia Tech athletes can begin to benefit soon from a name, image and likeness collective that is set to launch Wednesday. Tech football players Jeff Sims and LaMiles Brooks and men’s basketball player Deebo Coleman promoted the “Swarm the ATL” collective opening for business from their social-media accounts Monday."

 

gte105u

Georgia Tech Fan
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Long time poster on another site, long time lurker here. Saw the chatter on Swarm the ATL. Started a thread on 247, but wanted to chime in here. The page's Terms and conditions reference FSU, and they do not make a single reference to Georgia Tech. Also says it is a private company, did not see reference to non profit. If fans want to contriute to NIL, great. But want to be sure the limited dollars our program and athletes are getting from donors are going where they are supposed to...

11104487.jpeg
 

RonJohn

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Long time poster on another site, long time lurker here. Saw the chatter on Swarm the ATL. Started a thread on 247, but wanted to chime in here. The page's Terms and conditions reference FSU, and they do not make a single reference to Georgia Tech. Also says it is a private company, did not see reference to non profit. If fans want to contriute to NIL, great. But want to be sure the limited dollars our program and athletes are getting from donors are going where they are supposed to...

View attachment 12466
Dreamfield is the company behind it. They also run an NIL collective for FSU. I would assume that the terms page is a mistake by either the collective or Dreamfield by copying the terms from the FSU site and not replacing all of the site specific text.

There is absolutely nothing not for profit about NIL. In my opinion, these collectives are less actual NIL and more about paying the players. However, if a player is paid to do advertisement for a company, Morgan and Morgan for example, that is a for profit business paying for advertising services. The company can deduct the expenses, not because they are a donation, but because they are a business expense. If an athelete is paid for advertising, or a meet and greet, or a video message, or anything like that it is taxable income that they will have to report. As such, I don't understand your concern that it is a non profit. I would however like to understand how much of the money goes to athletes vs how much Dreamfield gets for the marketing/merchandise/event productions/etc.
 

gte105u

Georgia Tech Fan
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Houston, TX
Dreamfield is the company behind it. They also run an NIL collective for FSU. I would assume that the terms page is a mistake by either the collective or Dreamfield by copying the terms from the FSU site and not replacing all of the site specific text.

There is absolutely nothing not for profit about NIL. In my opinion, these collectives are less actual NIL and more about paying the players. However, if a player is paid to do advertisement for a company, Morgan and Morgan for example, that is a for profit business paying for advertising services. The company can deduct the expenses, not because they are a donation, but because they are a business expense. If an athelete is paid for advertising, or a meet and greet, or a video message, or anything like that it is taxable income that they will have to report. As such, I don't understand your concern that it is a non profit. I would however like to understand how much of the money goes to athletes vs how much Dreamfield gets for the marketing/merchandise/event productions/etc.
My understanding, and I am far from an expert admitted, that most of the pure NIL groups are set up as non profit. There is then transparency there in how much actually goes to the players. This is different from an endorsement deal say for a car dealer, where GT fans are not contributing directly.

Perception with these NIL groups are they are funding the players. If $. 010 per $1 goes to players, then there is likely better ways to support our programs and players. And if it's a for profit private company there is no way to verify the claim. Money is at a premium, accurate information to the donors (they say donation form on site) to make informed decisions is my goal.
 

BuzzThePlumber

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"Georgia Tech athletes can begin to benefit soon from a name, image and likeness collective that is set to launch Wednesday. Tech football players Jeff Sims and LaMiles Brooks and men’s basketball player Deebo Coleman promoted the “Swarm the ATL” collective opening for business from their social-media accounts Monday."

Site is live now, just signed up for a monthly contribution.
 

ThatGuy

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Site is live now, just signed up for a monthly contribution.
Looks great! Unfortunately, their tiers don't exactly work for me - although I'm 100% sure I'm in the minority due to my unique circumstances. I'm not currently in the position to afford $300 per year (unless I downgrade my A-T fund donation...🤔) - and being in Colorado, the thing I'd pay for is access to a good Discord community (don't think they'll be bringing youth camps to Denver, although I wish that could happen). If they're trying to offer different benefits, I would think they would need to find a way to address the large number of GT alums who are spread across the country - but again, that may be the fact that I'm in the midst of massive home renovations right now and all my disposable income is tied up.

I think I'll continue my annual A-T contributions until we start to see whether the Swarm collective is actually more important. Will be an interesting thing to watch play out. If I was in Atlanta, though, I'd do it in a heartbeat. My kids would LOVE some of the opportunities to go to camps and events with Tech players (like I did when I was a kid).

Also, good on Section 103 for getting the shirt printing contract. Love to see it.
 

awbuzz

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ADTS thoughts...

“At the end of the day, we’ve still got to pay for the scholarships and all the things we need to provide our student-athletes as well as our teams,” Stansbury said...

 

cthenrys

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Highland Village, TX
ADTS thoughts...

“At the end of the day, we’ve still got to pay for the scholarships and all the things we need to provide our student-athletes as well as our teams,” Stansbury said...

I don't think this is going to end well for us...
 

Gold1

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ADTS thoughts...

“At the end of the day, we’ve still got to pay for the scholarships and all the things we need to provide our student-athletes as well as our teams,” Stansbury said...

I don’t want him managing my money tbh
 

gtchem05

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
321
Long time poster on another site, long time lurker here. Saw the chatter on Swarm the ATL. Started a thread on 247, but wanted to chime in here. The page's Terms and conditions reference FSU, and they do not make a single reference to Georgia Tech. Also says it is a private company, did not see reference to non profit. If fans want to contriute to NIL, great. But want to be sure the limited dollars our program and athletes are getting from donors are going where they are supposed to...

View attachment 12466
Just to clarify any potential confusion: As far as I know, there are only two GT collectives that have been launched thus far. These are complementary to one another but serve their purposes by different means. Swarm the ATL is a for-profit collective owned by Dreamfield Sports who also owns collectives associated with fans of UCF and FSU. Swarm the ATL was launched this past Wednesday.

There is also a non-profit collective, Jackets for Atlanthropy, which was launched on May 3rd. Contributions to Jackets for Atlanthropy are tax-deductible.

The fact that the websites for both of these collectives contain links to one another highlights the goal of being collaborative rather than competitive with each other. After all, they share the ultimate goal of supporting and improving GT athletics.

My donations are relatively meager, but I have personally chosen to financially support both of these collectives in addition to the AT fund because GT fans need all 3 of these platforms to succeed.
 

Buzztheirazz

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Yeah. I plan to contribute at some point to both but now isn’t a great time for me financially. Also want to contribute directly to Tech. Planning to do that in the form of season tickets.
 
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