What is the Kansas State Wildcats NIL strategy for football in 2027?

👁 0 views📖 2,265 words⏱ 10 min read📅 Published Jun 3, 2026

Direct Answer

Kansas State's 2027 football NIL strategy is a survival blueprint for the new revenue-share era: a fully consolidated front-door collective (Wildcat NIL absorbed into the athletic department on December 1, 2025), a football roster spend in the $18-19 million range against the $22.7 million House cap, and a retention-first philosophy that pays a tight core of stars led by QB Avery Johnson ($1.8M On3 valuation) instead of chasing top-25 portal classes.

Head coach Collin Klein — promoted from offensive coordinator after Chris Klieman stepped away citing NIL fatigue — is selling Manhattan businesses, Ahearn Fund donors, and former players on a pay-to-keep model rather than the buy-everything-that-moves model used at Texas, Ohio State, and Texas A&M.

The Wildcats are not trying to outspend the SEC. They are trying to be the best-run mid-budget program in the Big 12, and the 2027 strategy is built around that admission.

1. The Money: What K-State Actually Has to Spend in 2027

The House v. NCAA settlement set the first-year revenue-share cap at $20.5 million for 2025-26, with a 4% annual escalator and a recalibration every three years. Carried forward, the 2026-27 cap lands near $21.3 million and the 2027-28 cap near $22.2 million.

Kansas State has publicly committed to funding the full cap, which Athletic Director Gene Taylor has described as "roughly a 20% increase to our athletic budget" — a real number that has to come from ticket sales, Ahearn Fund contributions, multimedia rights, and sponsorships, because NCAA distributions cannot be used to fund the rev-share pool.

1.2 Football's slice of the pie

Within that cap, K-State has signaled a football allocation of roughly $18-19 million per year through 2027, with men's basketball at $3-4 million, women's basketball under $1 million, and the remainder split across baseball, volleyball, and Olympic sports. For context, Texas Tech reportedly committed $28 million to its 2026 football roster alone, Texas and Ohio State are operating north of $35 million in combined rev-share-plus-collective spend, and Oregon's Phil Knight-backed program is in a category by itself.

K-State is not in that conversation and does not pretend to be.

1.3 The retention premium

Because the Wildcats cannot win bidding wars, their dollar-per-retained-starter ratio is the most important number in the building. Industry estimates put K-State's average retention deal at $180,000-$350,000 for non-skill starters and $400,000-$1.2M for the QB room, edge rushers, and starting offensive tackles.

Avery Johnson's reported package — anchored by the Red Bull global deal, Freddy's Frozen Custard, Long McArthur, CVS, WTC Fiber, and the Wildcat NIL-Bev-Hub Strawberry Lemonade SKU — pushes his total annual NIL plus rev-share into the $1.5M-$2.0M range, and that is by design: keep the franchise QB, build everything around him.

2. The Collective: Wildcat NIL's Absorption Is the Strategy

2.1 What the December 1, 2025 announcement actually did

On December 1, 2025, Kansas State Athletics announced it would absorb the roles and responsibilities of Wildcat NIL, the independent collective founded by former Wildcats Curry Sexton, Pierson McAtee, Ryan Henington, and Jace Friesen. The move collapsed three separate giving channels — the Ahearn Fund (traditional athletic giving), Wildcat NIL (collective NIL), and rev-share funding — into a single front door managed inside the athletic department.

2.2 Why this matters for 2027

Independent collectives became a tax and compliance liability the second the House settlement took effect: the College Sports Commission and Deloitte's NIL Go clearinghouse now require third-party deals over $600 to pass a "valid business purpose" and "range of compensation" test.

By bringing Wildcat NIL in-house, K-State shortened the audit trail, made every dollar count against the cap properly, and gave donors a single tax-deductible-where-applicable receipt. It also let the school own the data on which boosters are paying for which positions, which is the single most important operational asset in the rev-share era.

2.3 The donor pitch

The 2027 ask to Ahearn Fund donors is built around three tiers: a $2,500-$10,000 annual sustaining gift, a $25,000-$100,000 position-sponsor tier (a donor or business group funds a position room — QB, edge, OL, secondary), and a $250,000+ "franchise underwriter" tier for retention of named starters.

The "Wabash" beer partnership — proceeds support K-State NIL — is the retail-facing version of the same pitch and is being expanded to additional consumer SKUs in 2027.

flowchart TD A[Donor or Business] --> B{Single Front Door K-State Athletics} B --> C[Ahearn Fund Traditional Giving] B --> D[Rev-Share Pool $21-22M Cap] B --> E[Third-Party NIL Deals Routed through Opendorse] D --> F[Football $18-19M] D --> G[MBB $3-4M] D --> H[Other Sports $1-2M] E --> I[NIL Go Clearinghouse Deloitte Audit] I --> J[Approved Deal Paid to Athlete] F --> K[Avery Johnson Tier $1.5-2M] F --> L[Starter Tier $180-400K] F --> M[Depth Tier $50-150K]

3. The Roster: Pay to Keep, Don't Pay to Chase

3.1 Portal posture under Collin Klein

The 2026 portal cycle — K-State's first under Collin Klein after the Klieman transition — produced a D+ grade from The Athletic with 27 players added and 32 lost. That grade is misleading: it measures star-rating churn, not strategic fit. Klein's stated rule, reinforced internally since his promotion, is "retain the room before you raid the portal." The 2027 portal posture flows directly from that rule: only fill genuine holes, never bid above sticker on a player another Big 12 program already wants, and prioritize developmental two-year contracts over one-and-done mercenaries.

3.2 The Avery Johnson re-up

Retaining Avery Johnson through his senior year was the single biggest 2026 win and anchors the 2027 strategy. Johnson's portfolio — Red Bull (the first global brand to ink him), EA Sports College Football 26, Freddy's, Long McArthur, CVS, WTC Fiber, the Bev-Hub Strawberry Lemonade, and the On3 valuation of $1.8M — is a case study the staff now uses on every visiting recruit: *"This is what it looks like to be the franchise here."*

3.3 The high school class

Because cap dollars are finite, K-State's 2027 high school class leans into three-star-with-development-upside recruits the staff has evaluated longer than competitors. The pitch: smaller signing-bonus NIL ($25K-$80K) plus a clear path to a $200K-$400K sophomore re-up if production hits.

Compare this to Texas A&M's reported $1M+ freshman packages under the prior coaching regime — a model the Aggies are now actively unwinding because of cap pressure. K-State's model is boring on purpose: smaller upfront, larger backloaded, with performance and academic clawbacks written into the contracts.

4. The Operating System: Opendorse, INFLCR, and the Compliance Stack

4.1 Opendorse as the marketplace

Kansas State runs its official athlete marketplace on Opendorse (opendorse.com/kansasstate-wildcats), the same vendor used by Nebraska, Ole Miss, and dozens of other power-conference programs. Every third-party deal — from a Manhattan dental office sponsoring a linebacker to Red Bull writing Avery Johnson a global check — flows through the platform, gets clearinghouse-screened by NIL Go (Deloitte), and is logged for audit.

4.2 INFLCR for content distribution

K-State athletes use INFLCR for content delivery — game photos, highlight clips, branded assets — which are then pushed to athlete social channels and tagged to sponsors. This is the invisible plumbing that turns a $25K local deal into something the sponsor actually feels they got value from, which is how mid-budget programs keep small businesses renewing year over year.

4.3 The compliance moat

The single biggest 2027 risk for every program is a NIL Go denial that becomes public. K-State's stated approach is conservative-by-default: deals are structured below the auto-flag thresholds, valuation memos are kept on file for every deal over $10,000, and the athletic department's compliance office reviews every position-sponsor tier before a check is cut.

This is less sexy than the Texas approach and far less likely to produce a Sportico headline at the worst possible moment.

5. The Comparables: Where K-State Sits in the Big 12

5.1 The spending tiers

The Big 12 in 2027 sorts into three NIL-plus-rev-share tiers: a top tier (Texas Tech ~$28M football, BYU and Oklahoma State pushing $20M+) driven by mega-donor underwriters, a middle tier (Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, TCU, Baylor, Cincinnati at $14-19M), and a lean tier (West Virginia, Houston, UCF, Arizona, Arizona State at $10-14M).

K-State sits comfortably in the middle, above the median, and realistic about the ceiling.

5.2 The Klieman exit signal

When Chris Klieman publicly cited NIL fatigue as a reason for stepping back, it was a flashing warning light to every mid-budget AD in America: the coaching premium for NIL navigation is real and rising fast. K-State's response — promoting Collin Klein, a coach who grew up inside the program and is culturally aligned with the donor base — was a deliberate bet on continuity over outside-hire shock value.

The 2027 strategy depends on Klein keeping that donor trust through at least one full recruiting cycle.

5.3 The Casey Alexander question

On the basketball side, Casey Alexander inherited a roster with far less NIL runway than the football program. That gap is a planned imbalance: K-State's strategy explicitly prioritizes football retention over basketball ambition because football revenue funds everything else in the department.

Donors are being told this directly, which is itself part of the 2027 playbook.

6. The Risks: What Could Break the Plan

6.1 An Avery Johnson injury

Concentration risk is the single largest exposure. If Johnson is lost for the season, the NIL-deal flywheel slows immediately — the Strawberry Lemonade, Wabash beer extensions, and donor renewals all run partly on his visibility. The mitigation is a named backup QB retention contract and front-loaded multi-position storylines (a starting LB, a starting CB, an OL anchor), so the program is not a one-athlete brand.

6.2 A NIL Go denial that goes public

If a flagship deal gets rejected by the clearinghouse and Front Office Sports or Sportico reports it, the donor pipeline can freeze for an entire quarter. K-State's mitigation is the conservative-by-default structuring described in section 4.3.

6.3 A Big 12 realignment shock

If the Big 12 loses a top-tier media partner or sees another round of realignment in 2027-28, conference revenue distributions drop, which directly squeezes the rev-share cap funding. Mitigation: K-State has been building Ahearn Fund reserves specifically to bridge one bad media cycle without cutting roster spend.

flowchart LR A[Donor Confidence] --> B[Ahearn Fund Reserves] B --> C[Rev-Share Funding] C --> D[Roster Retention] D --> E[Wins on Field] E --> F[Ticket and Sponsor Revenue] F --> A G[NIL Go Approval Rate] --> A H[QB Health and Brand] --> A I[Big 12 Media Deal] --> C

FAQ

Q: How much is K-State actually paying its 2027 football roster? A: Approximately $18-19 million in combined revenue-share plus third-party NIL, against a school-wide House cap of roughly $22 million.

Q: What happened to Wildcat NIL as a standalone collective? A: It was absorbed by K-State Athletics on December 1, 2025, and now operates as part of a single donor-and-NIL front door managed inside the department.

Q: Why did Chris Klieman step away? A: He publicly cited NIL fatigue and the changed coach-player dynamic. Collin Klein was promoted from offensive coordinator as a continuity hire the donor base already trusted.

Q: How much is Avery Johnson making in NIL? A: His On3 valuation is $1.8M, with named deals from Red Bull, EA Sports, Freddy's, Long McArthur, CVS, WTC Fiber, and the Wildcat NIL Strawberry Lemonade. Combined with rev-share, his total package is in the $1.5M-$2.0M range.

Q: Can K-State realistically beat Texas Tech or Oklahoma State in a bidding war? A: No. The strategy is explicitly not to bid head-to-head on a marginal portal player. K-State wins by paying its own room first and filling holes second.

Bottom Line

Kansas State's 2027 football NIL strategy is the clearest mid-budget Big 12 playbook in college football: consolidate the collective into the athletic department, fund football at $18-19M against a $22M cap, anchor the cap around Avery Johnson and a tight retention core, let Collin Klein hold the donor relationships Klieman built, and refuse to chase portal stars at prices that break the model.

It is not a championship plan. It is a sustainability plan that keeps K-State above the median in the Big 12 without the booster-burnout risk programs like Texas A&M and Florida State have created for themselves. In a league where half the teams will overpay and crater by 2028, boring and solvent is a competitive advantage.

Sources

Keep reading

### Direct Answer

Kansas State's 2027 football NIL strategy is a **survival blueprint for the new revenue-share era**: a fully consolidated front-door collective (**Wildcat NIL absorbed into the athletic department on December 1, 2025**), a **football roster spend in the $18-19 million range** against the **$22.7 million House cap**, and a **retention-first** philosophy that pays a tight core of stars led by **QB Avery Johnson** ($1.8M On3 valuation) instead of chasing top-25 portal classes. Head coach **Collin Klein** — promoted from offensive coordinator after **Chris Klieman stepped away** citing NIL fatigue — is selling Manhattan businesses, Ahearn Fund donors, and former players on a **pay-to-keep model** rather than the buy-everything-that-moves model used at Texas, Ohio State, and Texas A&M. The Wildcats are not trying to outspend the SEC. They are trying to be the **best-run mid-budget program in the Big 12**, and the 2027 strategy is built around that admission.

## 1. The Money: What K-State Actually Has to Spend in 2027

### 1.1 Revenue-share cap math

The **House v. NCAA** settlement set the **first-year revenue-share cap at $20.5 million** for 2025-26, with a **4% annual escalator** and a recalibration every three years. Carried forward, the **2026-27 cap lands near $21.3 million** and the **2027-28 cap near $22.2 million**. Kansas State has publicly committed to **funding the full cap**, which Athletic Director **Gene Taylor** has described as **"roughly a 20% increase to our athletic budget"** — a real number that has to come from ticket sales, Ahearn Fund contributions, multimedia rights, and sponsorships, because **NCAA distributions cannot be used** to fund the rev-share pool.

### 1.2 Football's slice of the pie

Within that cap, K-State has signaled a **football allocation of roughly $18-19 million per year** through 2027, with **men's basketball at $3-4 million**, **women's basketball under $1 million**, and the **remainder split across baseball, volleyball, and Olympic sports**. For context, **Texas Tech reportedly committed $28 million** to its 2026 football roster alone, **Texas and Ohio State are operating north of $35 million** in combined rev-share-plus-collective spend, and **Oregon's Phil Knight-backed program** is in a category by itself. K-State is **not** in that conversation and **does not pretend to be**.

### 1.3 The retention premium

Because the Wildcats cannot win bidding wars, their **dollar-per-retained-starter ratio** is the most important number in the building. Industry estimates put K-State's **average retention deal at $180,000-$350,000** for non-skill starters and **$400,000-$1.2M** for the QB room, edge rushers, and starting offensive tackles. Avery Johnson's reported package — anchored by the **Red Bull global deal**, **Freddy's Frozen Custard**, **Long McArthur**, **CVS**, **WTC Fiber**, and the **Wildcat NIL-Bev-Hub Strawberry Lemonade SKU** — pushes his total annual NIL plus rev-share into the **$1.5M-$2.0M range**, and that is **by design**: keep the franchise QB, build everything around him.

## 2. The Collective: Wildcat NIL's Absorption Is the Strategy

### 2.1 What the December 1, 2025 announcement actually did

On **December 1, 2025**, Kansas State Athletics announced it would **absorb the roles and responsibilities of Wildcat NIL**, the independent collective founded by former Wildcats **Curry Sexton, Pierson McAtee, Ryan Henington, and Jace Friesen**. The move **collapsed three separate giving channels** — the Ahearn Fund (traditional athletic giving), Wildcat NIL (collective NIL), and rev-share funding — into a **single front door** managed inside the athletic department.

### 2.2 Why this matters for 2027

Independent collectives became a **tax and compliance liability** the second the House settlement took effect: the **College Sports Commission** and **Deloitte's NIL Go clearinghouse** now require third-party deals over **$600** to pass a **"valid business purpose"** and **"range of compensation"** test. By bringing Wildcat NIL in-house, K-State **shortened the audit trail**, **made every dollar count against the cap properly**, and **gave donors a single tax-deductible-where-applicable receipt**. It also let the school **own the data** on which boosters are paying for which positions, which is the single most important operational asset in the rev-share era.

### 2.3 The donor pitch

The 2027 ask to Ahearn Fund donors is built around **three tiers**: a **$2,500-$10,000 annual sustaining gift**, a **$25,000-$100,000 position-sponsor tier** (a donor or business group funds a position room — QB, edge, OL, secondary), and a **$250,000+ "franchise underwriter" tier** for retention of named starters. The **"Wabash" beer partnership** — proceeds support K-State NIL — is the **retail-facing version** of the same pitch and is being expanded to additional consumer SKUs in 2027.

```mermaid
flowchart TD
  A[Donor or Business] --> B{Single Front Door<br/>K-State Athletics}
  B --> C[Ahearn Fund<br/>Traditional Giving]
  B --> D[Rev-Share Pool<br/>$21-22M Cap]
  B --> E[Third-Party NIL Deals<br/>Routed through Opendorse]
  D --> F[Football $18-19M]
  D --> G[MBB $3-4M]
  D --> H[Other Sports $1-2M]
  E --> I[NIL Go Clearinghouse<br/>Deloitte Audit]
  I --> J[Approved Deal<br/>Paid to Athlete]
  F --> K[Avery Johnson Tier<br/>$1.5-2M]
  F --> L[Starter Tier<br/>$180-400K]
  F --> M[Depth Tier<br/>$50-150K]
```

## 3. The Roster: Pay to Keep, Don't Pay to Chase

### 3.1 Portal posture under Collin Klein

The 2026 portal cycle — K-State's first under **Collin Klein** after the Klieman transition — produced a **D+ grade from The Athletic** with **27 players added and 32 lost**. That grade is **misleading**: it measures star-rating churn, not strategic fit. Klein's stated rule, reinforced internally since his promotion, is **"retain the room before you raid the portal."** The 2027 portal posture flows directly from that rule: **only fill genuine holes**, **never bid above sticker on a player another Big 12 program already wants**, and **prioritize developmental two-year contracts over one-and-done mercenaries**.

### 3.2 The Avery Johnson re-up

Retaining **Avery Johnson** through his senior year was the single biggest 2026 win and **anchors the 2027 strategy**. Johnson's portfolio — **Red Bull** (the first global brand to ink him), **EA Sports College Football 26**, **Freddy's**, **Long McArthur**, **CVS**, **WTC Fiber**, the **Bev-Hub Strawberry Lemonade**, and the **On3 valuation of $1.8M** — is a **case study** the staff now uses on every visiting recruit: *"This is what it looks like to be the franchise here."*

### 3.3 The high school class

Because cap dollars are finite, K-State's **2027 high school class** leans into **three-star-with-development-upside** recruits the staff has evaluated longer than competitors. The pitch: **smaller signing-bonus NIL ($25K-$80K) plus a clear path to a $200K-$400K sophomore re-up** if production hits. Compare this to **Texas A&M's reported $1M+ freshman packages** under the prior coaching regime — a model the Aggies are now actively unwinding because of cap pressure. K-State's model is **boring on purpose**: smaller upfront, larger backloaded, with **performance and academic clawbacks** written into the contracts.

## 4. The Operating System: Opendorse, INFLCR, and the Compliance Stack

### 4.1 Opendorse as the marketplace

Kansas State runs its **official athlete marketplace on Opendorse** ([opendorse.com/kansasstate-wildcats](https://opendorse.com/kansasstate-wildcats)), the **same vendor** used by Nebraska, Ole Miss, and dozens of other power-conference programs. Every third-party deal — from a **Manhattan dental office sponsoring a linebacker** to **Red Bull writing Avery Johnson a global check** — flows through the platform, gets **clearinghouse-screened by NIL Go (Deloitte)**, and is **logged for audit**.

### 4.2 INFLCR for content distribution

K-State athletes use **INFLCR** for content delivery — game photos, highlight clips, branded assets — which are then pushed to athlete social channels and tagged to sponsors. This is the **invisible plumbing** that turns a $25K local deal into something the sponsor actually feels they got value from, which is **how mid-budget programs keep small businesses renewing year over year**.

### 4.3 The compliance moat

The **single biggest 2027 risk** for every program is a **NIL Go denial** that becomes public. K-State's stated approach is **conservative-by-default**: deals are **structured below the auto-flag thresholds**, **valuation memos** are kept on file for every deal over **$10,000**, and the athletic department's compliance office reviews **every position-sponsor tier** before a check is cut. This is **less sexy** than the Texas approach and **far less likely** to produce a Sportico headline at the worst possible moment.

## 5. The Comparables: Where K-State Sits in the Big 12

### 5.1 The spending tiers

The Big 12 in 2027 sorts into **three NIL-plus-rev-share tiers**: a **top tier** (**Texas Tech ~$28M football, BYU and Oklahoma State pushing $20M+**) driven by mega-donor underwriters, a **middle tier** (**Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, TCU, Baylor, Cincinnati at $14-19M**), and a **lean tier** (**West Virginia, Houston, UCF, Arizona, Arizona State at $10-14M**). K-State sits **comfortably in the middle**, **above the median**, and **realistic about the ceiling**.

### 5.2 The Klieman exit signal

When **Chris Klieman publicly cited NIL fatigue** as a reason for stepping back, it was a **flashing warning light** to every mid-budget AD in America: the **coaching premium for NIL navigation** is real and **rising fast**. K-State's response — promoting **Collin Klein**, a coach who **grew up inside the program** and is **culturally aligned** with the donor base — was a **deliberate bet on continuity over outside-hire shock value**. The 2027 strategy depends on Klein keeping that donor trust through at least one full recruiting cycle.

### 5.3 The Casey Alexander question

On the basketball side, **Casey Alexander** inherited a roster with **far less NIL runway** than the football program. That gap is a **planned imbalance**: K-State's strategy explicitly **prioritizes football retention over basketball ambition** because **football revenue funds everything else** in the department. Donors are being told this directly, which is itself part of the 2027 playbook.

## 6. The Risks: What Could Break the Plan

### 6.1 An Avery Johnson injury

Concentration risk is the **single largest exposure**. If Johnson is lost for the season, the **NIL-deal flywheel slows immediately** — the **Strawberry Lemonade**, **Wabash beer extensions**, and **donor renewals** all run partly on his visibility. The mitigation is a **named backup QB retention contract** and **front-loaded multi-position storylines** (a starting LB, a starting CB, an OL anchor), so the program is not a one-athlete brand.

### 6.2 A NIL Go denial that goes public

If a **flagship deal gets rejected** by the clearinghouse and **Front Office Sports** or **Sportico** reports it, the **donor pipeline can freeze** for an entire quarter. K-State's mitigation is the **conservative-by-default** structuring described in section 4.3.

### 6.3 A Big 12 realignment shock

If the **Big 12 loses a top-tier media partner** or sees **another round of realignment** in 2027-28, **conference revenue distributions drop**, which **directly squeezes the rev-share cap funding**. Mitigation: K-State has been **building Ahearn Fund reserves** specifically to **bridge one bad media cycle** without cutting roster spend.

```mermaid
flowchart LR
  A[Donor Confidence] --> B[Ahearn Fund Reserves]
  B --> C[Rev-Share Funding]
  C --> D[Roster Retention]
  D --> E[Wins on Field]
  E --> F[Ticket and Sponsor Revenue]
  F --> A
  G[NIL Go Approval Rate] --> A
  H[QB Health and Brand] --> A
  I[Big 12 Media Deal] --> C
```

## FAQ

**Q: How much is K-State actually paying its 2027 football roster?**
A: Approximately **$18-19 million** in combined revenue-share plus third-party NIL, against a school-wide House cap of roughly **$22 million**.

**Q: What happened to Wildcat NIL as a standalone collective?**
A: It was **absorbed by K-State Athletics on December 1, 2025**, and now operates as part of a **single donor-and-NIL front door** managed inside the department.

**Q: Why did Chris Klieman step away?**
A: He **publicly cited NIL fatigue** and the changed coach-player dynamic. **Collin Klein** was promoted from offensive coordinator as a **continuity hire** the donor base already trusted.

**Q: How much is Avery Johnson making in NIL?**
A: His **On3 valuation is $1.8M**, with named deals from **Red Bull**, **EA Sports**, **Freddy's**, **Long McArthur**, **CVS**, **WTC Fiber**, and the **Wildcat NIL Strawberry Lemonade**. Combined with rev-share, his total package is in the **$1.5M-$2.0M range**.

**Q: Can K-State realistically beat Texas Tech or Oklahoma State in a bidding war?**
A: No. The strategy is **explicitly not** to bid head-to-head on a marginal portal player. K-State wins by **paying its own room first** and **filling holes second**.

## Bottom Line

Kansas State's 2027 football NIL strategy is the **clearest mid-budget Big 12 playbook in college football**: **consolidate the collective into the athletic department**, **fund football at $18-19M against a $22M cap**, **anchor the cap around Avery Johnson and a tight retention core**, **let Collin Klein hold the donor relationships Klieman built**, and **refuse to chase portal stars at prices that break the model**. It is not a championship plan. It is a **sustainability plan** that keeps K-State above the median in the Big 12 without the booster-burnout risk programs like Texas A&M and Florida State have created for themselves. In a league where **half the teams will overpay and crater by 2028**, **boring and solvent is a competitive advantage**.

## Sources

- [On3 — Kansas State Wildcats Team Page](https://www.on3.com/teams/kansas-state-wildcats/)
- [On3 NIL — Avery Johnson Strawberry Lemonade Deal](https://www.on3.com/nil/news/avery-johnson-kansas-state-qb-releases-custom-soft-drink-partnership-wildcat-nil-collective-strawberry-lemonade/)
- [Kansas State Athletics — K-State to Absorb Wildcat NIL Efforts (Dec 1, 2025)](https://www.kstatesports.com/news/2025/12/1/athletics-k-state-to-absorb-wildcat-nil-efforts-streamline-giving-opportunities)
- [Opendorse — Kansas State Wildcats Marketplace](https://opendorse.com/kansasstate-wildcats)
- [Sports Illustrated K-State — House of Scholarships: Kansas State and the New Era of College Athletics](https://www.si.com/college/kstate/house-of-scholarships-kansas-state-and-the-new-era-of-college-athletics-01jz6163f7fs)
- [Sports Illustrated K-State — Kansas State's Transfer Portal Class Gets a Low Grade](https://www.si.com/college/kstate/football/kansas-state-s-transfer-portal-class-gets-a-low-grade)
- [CBS Sports — House v. NCAA Settlement Approved](https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/house-v-ncaa-settlement-approved-landmark-decision-opens-door-for-revenue-sharing-in-college-athletics/)
- [CBS Sports — How Athletes Will Be Paid as July 1 Ushers in New Era](https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/how-athletes-will-be-paid-as-july-1-ushers-in-new-era-for-college-sports-nil-changes-enforcement-contracts/)
- [The Mercury — K-State Athletics to Absorb Wildcat NIL Efforts](https://themercury.com/k_state_sports/k-state-athletics-to-absorb-wildcat-nil-efforts/article_51eb5253-a192-4f75-a746-9f6c06413ac7.html)
- [Wildcat NIL Official Site](https://catsnil.com/)
- [KSNT — New Wabash Beer Sales Help Support K-State NIL](https://www.ksnt.com/sports/kansas-state-wildcats/new-wabash-beer-sales-supporting-k-state-nil/)
- [Heartland College Sports — Is Kansas State Giving Casey Alexander Enough Resources?](https://www.heartlandcollegesports.com/2026/05/14/is-kansas-state-giving-casey-alexander-enough-resources-to-win-in-the-big-12/)

Was this helpful?

Related in the library