Northwestern joins every other B1G team, forms NIL collective

Northwestern is no longer the only B1G school without a NIL collective.

Founded by former Wildcat Jacob Schmidt, the TrueNU Collective becomes the 1st official NIL collective for the school. Schmidt stepped down from his position as director of football operations to lead the collective. Schmidt acknowledged that the team was behind the curve on the NIL front, but that they are now “in the game.”

Wildcat fans have been clamoring for an answer as to how the team plans to compete with other schools in the NIL space, and it seems they finally have an answer.

Darren Heitner of Heitner Legal says that the collective will initially be “charity-focused, but plans to add a commercial arm in the future.”

The Wildcats have much work to do to keep pace with the rest of the conference. Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, and Iowa all have very ambitious collectives. Iowa’s NIL collective called Swarm Collective was influential in landing transfer QB Cade McNamara from Michigan.

The TrueNU Collective has thus far compensated Wildcat athletes from 3 sports, but is “not fully operational as of yet.”

An ambitious NIL program will definitely help Northwestern on the recruiting trail. Currently, the Wildcats have the 8th-ranked recruiting class in the B1G for football in 2023. The Wildcats are faring even worse in basketball, with the lowest-rated B1G recruiting class for 2023.