SWARM CEO Brad Heinrichs joined KXnO’s “The Morning Rush” on Wednesday morning alongside hosts Travis Justice and Ross Peterson to clear the air surrounding Kadyn Proctor’s transfer situation.
The former five-star who signed with Alabama after initially committing to the Hawkeyes in the 2023 class made waves when he transferred to Iowa following his freshman season with the Crimson Tide.
The 6-foot-7, 360 pound offensive tackle started all 14 games for the Crimson Tide at left tackle as Alabama won the SEC championship over Georgia and advanced to the College Football Playoff.
Given Iowa’s offensive issues over the last several seasons, particularly along its offensive line, Proctor’s arrival created optimism for rapid improvement entering the 2024 college football season. Of course, that optimism evaporated and took an interesting twist when news broke on Tuesday that Proctor was planning on transferring back to Alabama.
Hawkeye fans were concerned that Proctor had absorbed a portion of The Swarm Collective’s NIL funds and then made the dash back to Alabama.
Heinrichs joined KXnO to ease fans’ concerns.
“Hawkeye fans out there that have given to the Swarm should rest easy. Kadyn Proctor hasn’t gotten a dime of their money, so that hopefully will appease people. The money that they’ve given to the Swarm collective, the student-athletes have to actually do work for charity to get that and he hasn’t done any of that yet. So, he has not gotten a single dime from the folks that have donated to the Swarm collective. Hopefully, Hawkeye fans will hear this and breathe a sigh of relief,” Heinrichs said.
Heinrichs made sure that Iowa fans know that there are no signing bonuses with The Swarm Collective.
“No, there’s no signing bonuses. Those are illegal because that becomes more of a what they call pay-to-play. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen guys. I mean, but it doesn’t happen with us. I’ve read the same stuff you’ve read and it may be true, it may not be true. That’s a hard part about this. You don’t know what is really true and what isn’t, but I can tell you there are no signing bonuses with Swarm. Again, Hawkeye fans can rest easy. There’s not been any of that in this case. People that have donated. He hasn’t taken their money and left town and stolen from us if you will. None of that’s happened,” Heinrichs said.
Per Heinrichs, Proctor did get a small sum of money from The Swarm, Inc., but the bulk of the money Proctor could have earned would have been through charity work that he did not do.
“We’re structured a couple of different ways. We have the collective, which the student-athletes have to do work for charity in order to get paid. So, they go and they deliver Meals on Wheels on a Saturday morning for three or four hours, then they’re going to get paid a certain amount for doing that. The other piece of it, and this is where Kadyn has gotten some money, but only probably 15% of the annual amount, is on the Swarm Inc. side where he can do marketing work for businesses. So, corporations. A corporation asks Kadyn Proctor to do a commercial or advertising, social media or otherwise, then he’ll get paid to do that as well. So, that’s the only place where he’s actually gotten some, very little, money for NIL purposes since he’s been at Iowa. It’s not taken anything from the fan base,” Heinrichs said.
In other words, Proctor did get a small sum of money from several of SWARM’s corporate partners.
“That’s correct. So, our corporate partners have asked him to do some things and he’s fulfilled some of those obligations that are outlined in his contract. But, he hasn’t, like I said, he hasn’t gotten very much yet. I’m not the smartest guy in the world as you guys know by talking to me, but I am smart enough to get good legal counsel and, in our contracts, we have stipulated in there, spare you the legalese, but if the guy transfers to Alabama and he’s playing down there, we’re not paying him. The contract’s like completely void out, so there’s not any concern about if he does leave, which apparently that’s what social media is telling us is that he’s leaving if that is in fact the case, then he won’t ever get any money from us,” Heinrichs said.
While it’s a bummer for Iowa football that Proctor isn’t sticking around, Hawkeye fans can take solace in the fact that he didn’t earn from their Swarm donations.
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