Wayne Brant Named Chief Business Officer. Fran Taylor Named Sporting Director.

Wayne Brant has been named Chief Business Officer of the Colorado Rapids, the club announced Monday. He previously was Senior Vice President of Business Operations. Additionally Fran Taylor has been named Sporting Director, having been hired as Assistant General Manager in 2018. This comes after the club naming Pádraig Smith President last week.

Brant has been with KSE since 2007. His contract in his new role runs through the 2026 MLS season.

“Wayne has been a key driving force behind our continued growth as an organization and the culture that underpins everything we believe in,” said Smith. “He has been instrumental in the development of our long-term vision for the club and the strategic initiatives on which our growth on and off the field has been built. We are thrilled that he has committed his long-term future to the club and believe he will play a leading role in helping us achieve our goals as an organization.”

“Between the Apple TV broadcast deal, the addition of Leagues Cup and various initiatives the club has planned, this is an incredibly exciting time for us to continue building on the momentum of recent years,” said Brant.

“Fran has played a key role in our on-field success in recent years and the advancement of our player identification, recruitment and roster construction strategy, so we’re excited to extend this deserved promotion and secure his future with the club,” said Smith.

To an extent, these are title changes. Smith has been the highest level executive at the club since Tim Hinchey left in 2017. Effectively, he’s been the President for a few years. These new titles for Brant and Taylor reflect the club updating the org chart.

Smith is still the visionary for where the club is at and where it wants to go. Brant may be a member of the old guard, but he’s in alignment with vision on the business side. Fran Taylor clearly is cut from the same cloth on the technical side and has helped to build out the infrastructures and processes that the club’s roster building philosophy is based on.

One club source did say that the day-to-day responsibilities aren’t changing significantly but that the big move is the additional staff. The top of the pyramid is changing slightly but the big story is that the bottom of that pyramid is being built out.

“I do see my role as putting the right people in the right places across the organization and then supporting,” Smith said in an interview with DNVR on Thursday. “In general, we’re hiring really talented, hardworking, ambitious people who come into the club. That breeds a culture of excellence. We’re bringing in about 30 people, increasing the size of the club by a third,” he added.

Additional hires include Ruth Fahy as Vice President of Club Administration & Compliance, Gabbie Pelloni as Director of Team Administration & Operations, James Roeling as Director of Soccer Development, and Gabriel Pinto as Director of Emerging Talent & Youth Recruitment. Promotions include Drew Moor being added as an Elite Player Development Coach, Chris Zitterbart as Chief Scout, Matt Pfeffer as Director of Analytics, and Andrew Kewley as Futures Program Director.

The club also announced additions on the business side, with an emphasis on media and marketing. This could be response to the needs of Apple TV content wise and the club’s goal of growing revenue streams now that a shirt sponsor is in place. There’s more staff to spearhead the club’s effort to better engage fans this year. The club has the goal of doubling its fanbase by 2027.

The club is building out the scouting team, analytics department, and filling in the gaps in the technical staff, at the first team and academy levels. These hires have a diversity of backgrounds and knowledge that will help. You can read all about that here. Smith, Taylor, and Robin Fraser now have an arsenal of people to help support them. We don’t know publicly how much has been added to the payroll. Some fans have expressed frustration that the club is not yet a perennial playoff team and KSE could be spending money on promotions that could be kept on the field.

In any case, between the transfer fees spent to bring new players in this winter and these new hires, the club is clearly investing new money on the technical side. If Fran Taylor and his staff could hit instantly on that next U22 signing, that would be great.

Photo Credit: John Babiak.