The current landscape of college sports is ever-changing, and for many, it has posed concerns.
Nobody has to be more on board with it all, though, than an athletic director, who has to navigate through the chaos more than any coach or athlete.
That’s what Michigan State’s athletic director, J Batt, has had to do, and he’s embraced it. Rather than having grievances with the issues NIL and the transfer portal have produced, he’s taken it on as it is.
Batt spoke on this on Saturday when he joined FOX play-by-play announcer Jason Benetti and analyst T.J. Lang in the broadcast booth during the Detroit Lions’ preseason game against the Houston Texans at Ford Field.
“I’ve kind of always thought of it as an opportunity, T.J.,” Batt said. “At the end of the day, certainly, it’s different. Very different. But it’s an opportunity, and particularly as we move into the post-House settlement era, it becomes an opportunity for us to move forward, take ground, and as long as you’re able to deploy it well, be smart about it, and be strategic, and have this incredible fanbase that we have, it will be a continued opportunity for us.”
J Batt and NIL
Batt had spoken on the topic of NIL when he first addressed the Spartan community at his introductory press conference back in June.
“We’re going to be extremely successful and competitive in that space,” Batt had said. “We’re going to be intentional about providing all of our coaches the resources to be successful at a championship level. I’ll tell you,
“I believe that as we head into the revenue share of the post-House settlement, hopefully, what that requires will change, and how we approach that space will change. But I can tell we’ll have a great plan. We’ll be united in that plan. We’ll be aligned in that plan from President (Kevin) Guskiewicz to our coaches, and to our board as we head into that era.”
With that House settlement, universities can now pay student-athletes directly. The approval came back in June in a historic decision that would forever change the world of college athletics as we know it.
J Batt / Darrell Craig Harris, On SI
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