Ask the AD: May 16, 2025

Brian Smoller (BS): Hello and welcome to another edition of Ask the AD. Brian Smoller, along with the Director of Athletics, Gene Taylor. We're glad you could join us. We'll get to plenty of questions coming up in just a minute. Thanks again for sending those all in through social media channels and email, and whatever else.

Gene Taylor (GT): Good questions.

BS: Yeah, absolutely. Let's start with spring sports, because we're wrapping up the spring season here. Pretty soon will be summer before we know it.

GT: It will be.

BS: A great finish here by the spring sports.

GT: Yeah, you know both golf, obviously our women's golf being in the in the championship round, and men's golf in the regional. Both qualifying, first time for the women's golf to make it that far. Regional champion and Carla, again, another great individual performance. Baseball has had a tremendous series this past weekend against West Virginia. Two huge wins to get the series, and wrapping up with a road week against Cincinnati and then Big 12 tournament. But just a lot of positives. Track's having a great, great season as well. So just a lot of good things with our spring sports, for sure.

BS: Now, no doubt. And it'll be before we know, it already time for the football season. We've got some questions about football. Don't worry, we'll get to those in a moment. But we'd be remiss if the last time we spoke, we were running through three special videos breaking down the House settlement and that felt like it was an impending moment. But here we are still amazed, still undecided. So what can you tell us? And the question we get is from Facebook, I think it's from all of us, from Tony Ballard about: What's the role of the collective moving forward? Is K-State making plans to go ahead with the settlement? Where are we at?

GT: Yeah. I mean, obviously we talked a lot about the details of the settlement in those three series, and right now it's really we're waiting on Judge Wilkins. She was supposed to do a settlement final approval on April 7. She liked most pieces of the settlement, except she had concerns about roster limits. That's probably the biggest pushback from objectors, as they're called, in terms of walk-ons and their lawyers, saying 'we don't agree with the roster limits, because it's going to limit the opportunities'. So she pushed back. Our attorneys got together and presented. They stood strong on keeping the roster limits. She pushed back again recently and said, 'You know, I really want you to come back and figure something out on the roster limits'. So we have presented, when I say "we", the attorneys for representing us, have presented something back to her that we hope she'll consider. I'm not going to go into the details of those, but then she has until Friday to listen to more objectors and consider what their concerns are. And then we anticipate sometime next week, which would be the week of May, I guess, 20th, that she'll have an answer. But she's just really concerned about cutting rosters right now, particularly with athletes that are currently on rosters. Coach Kleiman has been very vocal about that, and he has every right to be, because it is, you know, a very difficult decision. So we hope she'll come back and agree with what we've proposed. "We" being the attorneys to say 'here, Judge Wilkins is our kind of offer to you on the roster limits', and we'll see where she goes.

BS: In the meantime, plans have advanced that the settlement will go through.

GT: Yeah, and the question about the Wildcat NIL, you know, third party, the athletes will still be able to do third party NILs. We're still continuing to talk with Wildcat NIL, with their role. It gets complicated with the settlement. There's a lot of things that I could go into that we've been, you know, having conversations with them about what is their role, in terms of what they play for us. Probably maybe focus primarily on third party NIL deals, but we just are waiting until the judge comes back with a final settlement and to decide all that. Athletes can still get third party NIL deals. We've talked about that. It has to go through a clearing house, so just wait on Judge Wilkins at this point.

BS: Yep, and then all that other stuff will fall into place after that. In the meantime, K-State continues to advance plans as if the settlement is going to be active, and that is how most schools in the Power Four are.

GT: Yeah, we're preparing for her to approve it so we can hit the send button and get ready. All of our coaches are aware of what our plans are, and we're just waiting for her to make the decision.

BS: You mentioned, roster limits. And our second question from @Turnksu and comes from X and he talks specifically about football here, it seems the roster limits in football aren't good for the game long term. Do you envision the rule to be reversed? Now, you mentioned she had pushed back the judge on that but so far the proposal sounds like and again, we don't know for sure. It'll be grandfathered in for what's happening. So do you ever see it going back to allow walk ons for not just football, but other sports?

GT: I don't know anytime soon again, all this. I think as we go through the settlement, assume she approves it every year, I'm sure we're probably going to see things that we may adjust. And the attorneys have told us that it's going to be clunky, as they say, for the first couple of years, until we settle in. We probably there are pieces in the settlement that we've, when I say "we", the conference commissioners and the groups that are kind of managing the settlement, made a decision to say, you know, that really doesn't work. Let's go back and consider it. So I think it is, like I said, frustrating for the coaches, because Chris Kleiman did the right thing. He didn't know what the issue was. His decision was based on 105 if he hadn't had done that, and then she would have stayed and stood pat with the 105, then he had had 15 athletes that didn't have a chance to go in the portal. But I think there's gonna be a lot that we may adjust as we go along, as the years go along, but right now, we'll adjust based on what the judge wants us to do, and then we'll see where it goes from there.

BS: Yeah, hard to do right by everybody. That's the main thing here, trying to find a compromise.

GT: Yeah, I think if you ask coaches, they would prefer to have additional players, but if ultimately the decision is 105, or whatever the other roster numbers is, that's what we have to live with.

BS: All right. So speaking of football, of course, the new football field has just been installed. There's been plenty of great drone shots of that, both in the indoor and out at Bill Snyder Family Stadium. This question comes from @John5tork, and we paired it with a question about Bramlage as well, because on-field signage, or on-building signage, that sort of thing. The idea of putting something on the top of Bramlage, something putting on the football field, where are we at with those two things?

GT: The Bramlage thing we have looked at. We've actually got a cost for that, to put a big powercat up there. It's just kind of waiting to see, you know, what the best way is. If we do do it, we got to wait for nice dry weather and, you know, get it up there and get whoever's going to put it up there. And so it's not a cheap move. I mean, it'd be a fairly expensive thing to do, but we have looked at it. We do have a price. So I think once we get into some pretty steady good weather days, we'll go back up and look at that. Naming on the field, it's a sponsorship opportunity that we've approached folks about. And right now, we haven't found anybody that has a strong interest, but I think you could see it maybe, if not, this fall, certainly in the future, on the offsetting 25 yard lines from the from the Big 12 logos. So those kind of things we're still working on, which would be good, you know, opportunities for us to generate more revenue.

BS: Yeah and for those that have fears of it replacing the powercat at midfield, that would not be the case.

GT: That's not going to be the case. So, exactly.

BS: All right. So speaking of money and revenue and those sorts of things, we get this question. I swear every time we do an Ask the AD, we get these questions, and we throw it in here, just because, as we move into the new era, the revenue sharing era of college athletics, thought it would be fine to answer this question again. And the question comes from @jpfortmiller21 from X and then also Amie Wignall, who emailed a question in. Adding wrestling, adding softball? We get these questions a lot.

GT: You know, I think I've answered it the same as I love both those sports every This is the first school that I've been at that didn't have either one. In the perfect world, if we could do it, I'd look to add both of those sports, or at least, you know, start with women's softball from a gender equity perspective. But just with the challenge of finding $20,500,000 to manage the revenue share to add two more sports and the expenses that go along with that, it's not going to happen anytime soon. We need to figure out how we can generate this money for revenue share on a regular basis. And, oh, by the way, don't forget, we did talk about it every year. Every three years, it increases and goes up, you know, by a percentage. So it's going to not stay at $20,500,000 it's going to continue to rise. And so we need to focus on that. So that's where our biggest priority is right now. And adding sports right now, it's just not going to happen.

BS: Right. And you don't see that anywhere else across the country. And unfortunately, that's just the way it is right now.

GT: And I think in some cases, you're seeing a lot more sports being cut as opposed to added, right now.

BS: And that won't happen here at K-State, at least not anytime soon.

GT: Absolutely.

BS: All right, so the next question from @pssxntex on X, who asks, "When are the game times?"

GT: That's quite the name.

BS: It is! "When are the game times for the early season football home games going to be released? Out of state season ticket holder here needing to make travel plans."

GT: Well, that's good question. Perfect timing. We are going to be able to announce our non-conference games here sometime in June, but we have got word that our game in Ireland will be played at 11 Central Time, kickoff time. So I think that's what five o'clock over in Dublin, Ireland. So we're excited about that. That should be exciting for everybody, not too early, not too late. It'll be great for the folks in Dublin, because then they can finish the game and go enjoy Dublin for another evening or two. But that's what the folks in Dublin wanted. They prefer that time based on where the stadium is and the neighborhood. We preferred it just because of the 11 o'clock kick back here so, and it's gonna be on ESPN. So we're excited about that.

BS: Yep, plenty of attention for that week. Obviously, it's the biggest game of the week, the only game really everyone's focused on. So excited about that to kick it off. And before we get to the middle of June, you'll have home game times for those first three games or the first couple of home games. And then also tickets will go on sale June 10 for Ahearn Fund members. And then June 17 for single games for everybody. And June 10 also the date for tickets for just about everything in 2025-26 including deposits for 2026 baseball. So you can get that. Find out more through through kstatesports.com. All right, the last one, speaking of tickets and money and revenue, we spent a little time on NIL. This question comes from @Joe_Bagley90 who asks, "Has Gene Taylor seen the K-State cards from ONIT Athlete?" Now I had to be honest with you, I had to go look this up, actually.

GT: I actually saw that question. I you know, when it comes out, you send it out on X. I was not sure what that was, either. So to answer your question, no, I haven't seen that yet.

BS: It's a trading card company that 60% or more of the profits go back to the student-athletes if you buy the cards. And so far, K-State has cards for football, men's and women's basketball, I would assume our licensing department has partnered with that company.

GT: But yeah, obviously anything out there that's publicly for sale that generates revenue, licensing should have seen it. I hope they have. But yeah, it's another great opportunity for athletes to earn a little extra money, you know. Jersey sells, all those things are still part of the original NIL deal that athletes could get so but I haven't seen any of the cards yet. Right now. Maybe we should be collecting them and getting autographs on them and putting them in our, you know, savings. Someday.

BS: Maybe we should. Some are big into that. The trading card industry is that own niche sort of sport that has its own sort of life and and culture to it. But if you're into that, ONIT Athlete. A place, you can get some K-State cards. I think those are the only three sports so far and have them on there. Anyway, summer's upon us here pretty quick.

GT: Carla should get her own card.

BS: That's right. Absolutely, she should. So should the baseball team. It seems only fitting, right? Baseball cards in baseball?

GT: Yeah, absolutely.

BS: The summer will be here before we know it. I know it never ends for you, and no rest for the weary. Big 12 meetings on the horizon. Any big topics for the conference?

GT: Yeah, you know, I think the biggest thing we meet the week after Memorial Day weekend down in Florida, in Orlando. I think the biggest thing is just continuing to talk through the settlement. We hope by then the judge has approved the settlement. And so we'll really spend a lot of time on, you know, conference-wide issues and how we're going to manage the settlement, each of us, from an institutional perspective, and then how we feed that into the conference. And then there's always approval of schedules and just kind of normal things. And, you know, and then just really kind of update, I think Commissioner Yormark will give us an update on the CFP and where that's moving. That's a big topic now. Are we going to expand or what's the automatic qualifiers? That's still a lot of discussion there. So we'll get a lot of updates, and then we get a lot of updates from our TV partners. ESPN comes in, Fox comes in, all them, and they talk about the year ahead. So there's just a lot of information that's good time to get together and then figure out what's next for us.

BS: It'll be some stability to the conference as far as its membership for the next year, which will be nice. Hopefully they've seen a lot of good faces. Gene as always. Thank you for so much for doing this and answering questions.

GT: Great questions, and keep them coming. Appreciate it very much.

BS: Absolutely, before you know we'll be back, kicking off the football season in August, volleyball and soccer as well, kicking off in August, just a few months away. Hard to believe. For Gene Taylor, for Preston Koerner, who puts these things together, I'm Brian Smoller. Thank you for watching Ask the AD.

Kansas State University Athletics

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