Ask the AD: December 12, 2025

Brian Smoller (BS): Welcome to another edition of Ask The AD. Brian Smoller along with the Director of Athletics, Gene Taylor, and thank you for joining us and being patient. We were going to do this last week, but then... we had a little something pop up. And that kind of took precedent.

Gene Taylor (GT): Yeah, kind of took our focus away from this, and on a coaching higher. You know, celebrating Chris Klieman's time here and bringing in Colin Klein. So it was a crazy week.

BS: Let's start there. How are you doing? By that? I mean, that was a hectic week last week.

GT: You know, not a lot of sleep last week, honestly. Just everything from not knowing what Chris was going to do early and then when he came in the office on Wednesday, and then realizing that you got to get this quickly turned around. Also knowing that Colin was out there, and some opportunities for him as coaching position. So, yeah, just a lot of moving parts but it was at the end of the day, it was a good week. Obviously, you know how much Coach Klieman meant to our program, and how much he's done. He's going to be around, and it's not like he's going anywhere for good. And we got Colin Klein, which is, you know, a great hire for a lot of reasons.

BS: No, no doubt. And already two announcements of his staff, Trey Scott and Stanton Weber. Two former players being able to also reunite with him.

GT: Yeah, you know. So that's what he's been busy doing. I mean, I give him a lot of credit. And anytime a coach has got two jobs that they have to do, his preparing for CFP playoff run, and then coming back here and talking to staff. And so I don't know. If I didn't get a lot of sleep, I guarantee he hasn't got any sleep the last couple of weeks so good for him.

BS: Fun to see him back on staff with K-State. And really, something we all knew would happen someday, like I said on the day that he was hired, but just didn't think it would be this fast. All right, so now that that is behind us and we kind of move forward, let's get to these questions from our fans. We've got a lot. We had a lot of comments and questions from going into this week's Ask The AD. We start first, from X, this is from Eric @ew2x4, who asks: "How do you evaluate the success of our football and men's basketball teams and staff? What metrics are used?" This question was formulated a lot of different ways, but the basis of it is interesting. I think, just from a general perspective. As an athletic director, you're the boss of all these teams and coaches, how do you use your evaluation of what's a successful team and what isn't?

GT: Well, you know, I think Chris Klieman actually touched on it in one of the last post game press conferences at Colorado. They asked him, you know, 'was this a disappointing year?' And he said, 'Well, depends on when you ask me, right?' And then, so for me, it's kind of the same thing. And I'm a little closer to watching it, because I go to practice and I know what they're struggling from an injury perspective, or just, how they played. And so, yeah, you know, obviously 2-4 was not the greatest start. But you see him fight back, and you see him get some good wins, and you see him at a tough loss at Utah. So you know, a couple of things. One, the team really wanted to continue to fight. And a lot of teams at 2-4 wouldn't have done that, and would have ended up 3-9 or whatever. And so to me, I evaluated, okay, didn't start great, but they were able to get the team back in a good place and finish strong. And to me, that's a sign of still coaching that has an impact, and players that still believe and all those kind of things. I take that all into it. It's not always just based on wins, right? What's the progression? And same thing you know with the basketball teams, knowing that Jeff Mittie had a really veteran team last year that could have took us to the round of 16. That this year is going to be probably a little bit more of a struggle. And men's basketball started out great, but we got a lot of basketball left. So at the end of the year, I'll kind of look back and put all those things into place and kind of work through with the coach of what you what the year was and get their their opinion. I'll give my opinion and we'll sit down and talk about it.

BS: Well, it doesn't sound like there's a stipulation of, you got to meet a certain amount of wins.

GT: No, I've never been a, you know, you got to win so many games. I think they just put pressure on coaches. And, you know, they get it, right. And they know if they have multiple years that aren't great, obviously, decisions have to be made. But I never do that at the beginning of each year.

BS: All right, we go to the next question, which is from MJ, @mj_from_kansas, who asks: "We are in a revenue arms race. Is progress being made with selling ads on the field, a jersy patch sponsor, stadium-wide spirits sales, and naming rights for Bramlage?" So kind of four different areas there to hit.

GT: Well, you know, we've always been working on the Bramlage thing for a while, and just trying to get that done and find the right company that fits, and is willing to to make that investment. The naming rights on the field and the jersey patches. Jersey patches just got approved. So that's probably gonna be a next year thing, because the NCAA just approved those jersey patches. So you'll see more and more of that. Naming on the field, same kind of deal - we've been working on it. It just became available last year in terms of legality or rules availability. And so we've been working on that. So it just takes a while to get companies to invest in the type of dollars that we're talking about. But yeah, it's what's kind of being worked on constantly. And I think once the market kind of settles in, and where you can have some comparative teams. 'Well, this company got this much for their field logo or whatever.' And we work through our Learfield group very closely with that, and we're constantly working with them on that. So it's a it's an ongoing process. It's not that we just haven't done anything. We were working on it very hard.

BS: And it sounds like baseball may be close too.

GT: Baseball may have an opportunity in this kind of realm as well. So it's not like it's not happening. It's just those kind of investments take a lot longer to get a company to do that.

BS: Actively going after it. On the beer sales, obviously it's a question we get a lot about (or exit and re-entry), beer sales. I think there's a perception out there that we're missing out on millions of dollars from not having beer sales in the stadium. Could you clear that up a little bit?

GT: Yeah, I don't think it's millions of dollars based on when you have your concessionaire. And there's obviously the revenue share there, and there's expenses of putting in the systems in place. But it's probably a potential net of a half a million for us in our stadium size. You know, in some of these schools that have bigger stadiums and have bigger numbers, yeah, that you're seeing million dollar plus revenue streams from that. But just with the with our volume, is probably going to be about a half a million net profit from that. But it's still half a million dollars, don't get me wrong, and so that's why we look at it and just make sure we make the right decision.

BS: There's also state of Kansas rules and laws that apply to that as well, just that are unique to our state as it comes to the facility and beer sales and all that. All right, next question is from @EmawEli, who asks: "Between revenue sharing, the absorption of Wildcat NIL, the Fighting Ever Fighting campaign, and the Ahearn Fund, it feels a little confusing as to where funds are going when we donate. Can you explain how money gets divvied up or where donations go for different campaigns?"

GT: And that's a great question. And that's one of the reasons we took Wildcat NIL in-house, because it was confusing for for our fans. 'Do I give it to Wildcat NIL? Do I give it to Ahearn Fund? You know, tickets?' I think you've got to look at it as this. We have just big pockets or buckets of money. We have the Ahearn Fund bucket of money. We have the ticket sales bucket of money. We have conference revenue distribution bucket of money. We have the Learfield bucket of money. Those are the revenue streams, the big ones. And what our fans were getting confused at, was the Wildcat NIL, which we needed. And they did a great job, because it was a different game back then. Now that we control those dollars to those athletes, it's better for all the money to come into the Ahearn Fund. Once it's into the Ahearn Fund, no matter how you give it, if you want to give it to support student-athlete scholarships or endowments, or you want to give it to licensing, all those kind of things. That's just one bucket of money that we divide up amongst the entire department. So yeah, football has the biggest budget because they have the biggest numbers. So they're going to get most of the total dollars in the budget, and it just kind of goes down from there. But it's really a few buckets of revenue, and they all feed in to every program. And right now, with revenue share, that $20 million is divided up again, football gets the most, men's basketball, women's basketball. And so if you give dollars to the Ahearn Fund, they're going to go to those sports in that area, plus scholarships, plus a lot of other things they cover.

BS: Think one of the other things that people often ask is, 'How aggressive is K-State being in the NIL space and in the rev share?' Rev share is what it is, but in the NIL space, and what would be your response?

GT: Yeah, I would say we're very aggressive. The challenge for us has been we've had to focus so heavily on the $20,500,000 because we have to get that. Where a lot of schools are getting significant investments from their university. We work with our university, but right now, this first year, we have to fund that all the through our donors and through our other revenue sources. So we haven't had a chance to really go out and get aggressive. Now that we've got the 20 million mostly in place, that's our next focus. And whether it was Colin Klein or whoever, and now Colin's coming in with some new ideas from the league that he's been in. That's going to give us a chance to go out and really spend some effort and find ways to find true NIL dollars that can really help our program.

BS: Yeah, and be creative in that space. Looking forward to seeing that. All right, so this question comes from Scott Goodheart, kind of along the same line as far as those different revenue buckets. He says: "With Utah's recent private equity move, what are your thoughts on this in general? And do you see K-State venturing into something similar?"

GT: Yeah, you know, first of all, private equity is confusing. There's a lot of different types of private equity. The Utah thing is unique. We did early on look at private equity several months ago, when it was just starting to come into college athletics. It didn't work for us. Our donors were... not skeptical, but it's just there's a lot of percentage that they take out of that they want back out of that private equity. The Utah thing's a little unique. I haven't studied it enough to really dive into it deeply. It's a little different. There are some things when I read it that I would be uncomfortable as the Athletic Director of giving up in terms of what they're doing there. But I again, for me to really do a lot of comments on it. Are there creative ways that private equity are looking at? Man, if you go to a general private equity person that's been doing this for 11 they'll tell you know, the more we learn about college athletics, our true private equity just doesn't work. There's just too many limitations with how we generate revenue. But are they getting more creative? Yeah, they are. And we're looking at those options. And there's companies out there that are coming in with some new ideas that we're looking at and considering to see if we could take it to our donors and see what their interest is. But there's a lot that goes into private equity. A lot of things you have to be aware of and concerned about before you sign on to the bottom line.

BS: A lot of things to consider when you're an AD. It's not just coaches and teams and all that stuff, but all that reading through all that information I can't imagine.

GT: Probably should have taken a couple more finance classes.

BS: Listen, we're in a state of flux all the time in college athletics. It happens every year. It seems like we're talking about it. And there is also still that sentiment out there that we're not done as far as the change on the center on the horizon college athletics. This next question comes from @Whitney_Hartman, who asks: "Do you think you have put K-State of the best position for the next round of realignment discussion?" Which it doesn't feel like that's imminent, but yet, 2030 is the number you always hear that's out there on the horizon.

GT: That's when the TV new deals come out. I don't know how it falls, whether it's us or the Big 10 or whichever comes next, but we're in that. We're in that progression of that's why Brett Yormark only signed a six year deal as opposed to 15 year deal, because he knew he wanted to be in that next round. I will say we're doing everything we can, we're filling the stadium, we're winning games, we're winning games, we're going to bowl games, we're going to NCAA tournaments. Those are things that conferences look at. But what I would tell you that Brett Yormark as a conference, has gotten us in a position where, collectively as a conference, that's when the new TV deals, they're not looking at one particular school, they're gonna say, 'what's the value of the Big 12?' I think with some of the things he's done and some of the creative things he's done, the Big 12 brand is elevated quite a bit over the last few years, and that's what's going to help us. We've got multiple TV partners now that are already invested into our conference. I think that'll help from a competitive standpoint, when you get multiple people wanting to bid on you. So Brett Yormark knows that business way better than I do, and so I think individually, as a school, you just have to be the best version of yourself and continue to have success. And then once the conference comes together, then it's really about the conference and where they are in the in the view of the TV partners. And I think we're in a great place right now.

BS: Love the idea of being with many different TV partners as well. I think it's been great to see TNT's coverage and everybody else of football season. And now, as we get to basketball, and as basketball, this will be our last general question from the fans. Comes from Mark M @mmendenh7302: "It's been 20 years since Mitch Richmond's jersey was retired...", which I had to go look that up. I was like, 'That can't be right'. But it barely, it is. "Is there ever going to be a retirement of a jersey again? Maybe Ed Neely, Dean Wade, Jacob Pullen, just to name a couple?" We've had a few things on our plate, I know, as far as the athletic department. But jersey retirements and basketball, what's the criteria? I think, one that would have somebody I know we're waiting for Jacob to be done.

GT: Yeah, I think you know, Jake is probably the next one on the list, and but it's just a matter of, as we've said before on the show, that is when he's ready and he can be here and we can celebrate him. You know, I think it's just you look at their career here and the impact that they had, like, you know, All-American status, how many All-Conference, all those kind of things, they play into all of that. So I think once we get Jacob done, then we'll probably spend some time on who's the next deserving. And I think that's one thing you have to remember, is you can't just focus on the most recent. You got to look back, because there's probably a lot of players that might certainly qualify for that, but we just have to make sure we get the right ones in. And it makes sense as to why their jerseys being lifted up in the rafters. Because that's a pretty high honor.

BS: Yeah, no doubt. It's kind of the same for the K-State Hall of Fame and K-State Athletics Hall of Fame. I know that's been a process that Kenny Lannou and that group has really been working through and trying to find who the people working judiciously through the timeline of who needs to be eligible and who's in. All right, we're going to end with, as we always try and do, a good question to kind of lift everyone's spirits. It comes from our good friend @scottwildcat, who says...

GT: There is a Santa Claus.

BS: There is, well, that was not the question, but he says: "I'd love to know Gene and Brian's favorite Christmas song and Christmas movie." So do you have a favorite Christmas song or a favorite Christmas movie?

GT: Christmas song for me is Silent Night. I just love that. I just love that song. There's many, but great movie, you know, what is it? What's the one that everyone debates whether it's a Christmas movie or not? I would say...

BS: Die Hard?

GT: Die Hard, yeah, but that's really not my favorite one. I'd say like Miracle on 34th Street is probably one of my favorites.

BS: I saw a joke the other day that said, Die Hard, absolutely, is a Christmas movie because it's Hans down the best one. Hans. He falls at the end anyway, you'll get it later. The Christmas song for me would be Hallelujah by Cloverton. And then Christmas movie, you know, Christmas Vacation's the greatest. I mean, it's great. Chevy Chase. I always laugh at Scrooge from Bill Murray. Those are two great ones, if you've seen it.

GT: Yeah, there's a lot of good ones.

BS: Absolutely, the new one that's out from Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell - Spirited. It's on Apple TV. It's a good one too. Appreciate the time. I know it's a busy time. Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas to you. I know there's no bowl game this year, but a fun time to be around with K-State football as they enter into a new era, and hopefully we'll be talking to you here in a month or two about basketball on the rebound.

GT: Absolutely. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Everybody have a great holiday. Merry Christmas, and we'll see you soon.

BS: All right, that's it for this edition of Ask The AD. Thank you for your patience and the questions and comments. We read them all, even the good ones and the bad ones. We'll see you next time for Ask The AD.

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Ask the AD: December 12, 2025

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