Behind Kansas State AD Gene Taylor’s distress about state of college sports
In the emotional whirlwind of Chris Klieman’s apparently abrupt decision to retire last week, Kansas State athletic director Gene Taylor was sure to be fervent about his longtime friend. But few might have imagined what was consuming Taylor last Wednesday as he dabbed away tears, fought back more of them, began speaking with a quiver in his voice and said he’d been “a mess all day.”
Because even as he was lamenting the departure of Klieman, who had a stellar and even vital run at K-State, he also was mourning something broader and deeper: the churning and chaotic state of college athletics.
“If we don’t get this thing fixed … if we don’t get this thing under control, more really, really good guys like Chris Klieman are going to walk away from this business,” Taylor said at the start of his news conference, later adding, “because they just aren’t ready to deal with what we’re dealing with. We have to get this thing under control.”
Between the sudden news of the day and intense focus on Klieman’s impending replacement — former K-State star quarterback and assistant coach Collin Klein was announced a day later — Taylor was asked only one follow-up question about what he meant.
But he was so eager to elaborate that he was happy to speak about it on the phone Thursday afternoon — even as K-State still was navigating the details of Klein’s hiring.
While Taylor’s public words were widely, and not incorrectly, interpreted to be a sweeping denunciation of the excesses in the flux of the Name, Image and Likeness and transfer portal era, he had a more specific point in mind that essentially encapsulates it all.
He alluded to it when he said every school should sign an 11-page participation agreement put forth by the College Sports Commission to compel schools to cooperate with investigations, abide by enforcement decisions and not file lawsuits challenging rulings.
To Taylor, that means one thing more than anything else: so the business of college sports can be run “as equally as we possibly can. And that’s not the case.”
In fact, he added, schools are ignoring the settlement and operating outside the hoped-for agreement — points he expressed all the more bluntly in a phone interview with The Star.
To Taylor, schools declining to sign the agreement are making a troubling statement after months went into its making (by the CSC with and attorneys and officials from the Power Four conferences) to enforce rules emerging from the $2.8 billion House vs. NCAA lawsuit settlement.
“What they’re upset about is if they get caught cheating, they’re going to be in trouble,” said Taylor, who did not specify any schools. “They could lose revenue share. They could lose conference distribution, They could (suffer) postseason bans.
“Well, you know, if you’re not going to cheat, then this agreement’s OK in my opinion.”
Calling himself “fed up,” Taylor was particularly irked about payrolls spiking around the nation in the wake of the ruling last summer that was expected to help level the financial playing fields. Schools this year could spend up to $20.5 million of revenue-sharing to pay athletes. Most P4 schools, The New York Times reported, are spending 65-75% of that on football.
So when there’s talk of a $30-35 million payroll, as Lane Kiffin reportedly will have to work with at LSU, or even $40-$50 million payrolls through third-party NIL deals, Taylor sees not a reckoning with the issues but circumvention of the would-be rules.
As we spoke, I mentioned to Taylor something I remembered then-Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher saying a few years ago on The Paul Finebaum Show: “There’s always been NIL stuff going on. It just wasn’t legal.”
The implication being that now it’s all legal and above-board and fair.
Instead, in some ways the NIL era has opened Pandora’s Box.
“Before, it was under the table, and you didn’t really know about it but you kind of knew who was doing it,” Taylor said.
Now, he said, “Everybody’s like, ‘Oh, it’s legal. So we’re going to throw all kinds of money at it. But if you follow the letters of those settlements … legitimately, I don’t see it being (tens of millions above the allowable revenue sharing).”
But on the very day of Klieman’s resignation, attorneys general from seven states — Florida, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia — sent a seven-page letter to CSC CEO Bryan Seeley and the P4 commissioner calling the agreement “flawed” and “cartoonishly villainous.”
To the day, the release of that letter coincided with the collapse of the SCORE ACT, a bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives shortly after the House settlement. The legislation effectively was aligned with the mission of the CSC — which the NCAA created to administer the settlement and enforce the cap on revenue-sharing while overseeing third-party NIL deals.
Under that umbrella is NIL GO, which must approve outside NIL deals of more than $600 and requires that such deals are for a “valid business purpose” within a fair-market “range of compensation.”
All to avert loopholes and workarounds to funnel fortunes to prospects.
So if schools are touting having $15-20 million more to give beyond the revenue-sharing cap, Taylor said, “It all better go through NIL GO. And it all better be checked by NIL GO. And I don’t see how that’s possible.”
While there are valid aspects to clarify and tweak in the CSC’s work, Taylor is right about the effect and message of those not wanting to sign:
Without stronger structure with teeth and consequences, there will be incentive to further exploit the circumstances.
So you can only hope that those attorneys general meant it when they wrote “there are real problems in college sports that need to be solved.” And that their objections really are substantive and about such matters as conflicts with existing state laws ...
And aren’t just really against the spirit of the participation agreement and its capacity to meaningfully sanction those who break the rules.
Otherwise, this will never get under control.
And college sports as we know it will go from increasingly professionalized to entirely mercenary and drive out many more who loved it for what it was.