gtchem05
Jolly Good Fellow
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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.
"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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) - 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.
