{"id":705562,"date":"2026-06-15T14:02:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T14:02:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/705562\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T14:02:05","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T14:02:05","slug":"kentucky-set-to-hire-michigan-state-ad-j-batt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/705562\/","title":{"rendered":"Kentucky set to hire Michigan State AD J Batt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kentucky<\/a> set to hire Michigan State\u2019s<\/a> J Batt as its next athletic director, sources tell On3. He will replace Mitch Barnhart, who is retiring after nearly 25 years. Batt emerged<\/a> as the target of the search over the weekend. <\/p>\n

Michigan State president Kevin Guskiewicz left East Lansing in May for Clemson<\/a>, the latest administrator turnover for the Spartans. Batt\u2019s departure will mark the latest turnover for Michigan State, with his successor marking the fourth athletic director since 2021. <\/p>\n

Viewed as one of the top fundraisers in college athletics, Batt is the former Georgia Tech<\/a> athletic director who promoted Brent Key<\/a> to head coach. Key\u2019s gone 27\u201320 with a nine-win season in 2025. Sources view Batt\u2019s hire as critical for roster fundraising for Will Stein<\/a> and Mark Pope<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cAcross these institutions, J has distinguished himself as a record-breaking fundraiser and leader who strategically invests in facilities to maximize resources and revenue,\u201d Kentucky president Eli Capilouto said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Batt was hired at Michigan State last June. In only 12 months, he hired Pat Fitzgerald<\/a> as the Spartans\u2019 next head football coach. He also formed Spartan Ventures to capitalize on outside revenue. <\/p>\n

Batt was previously at Alabama from 2017 to 2022, where he was the Crimson Tide\u2019s chief operating officer and chief revenue officer. He launched a 10-year, $600 million capital campaign during his time at Alabama. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s made previous stops at East Carolina, Maryland, James Madison, William & Mary and North Carolina.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kentucky set to hire Michigan State\u2019s J Batt as its next athletic director, sources tell On3. He will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":705563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-705562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=705562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}