Three things to know about new Kentucky AD, Champions Blue CEO J Batt
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- Kentucky will hire J Batt as athletics director and CEO of Champions Blue this summer.
- At Georgia Tech, Batt helped raise athletic fundraising by more than 40%.
- At Michigan State, Batt helped form Spartan Ventures and secured a $400 million donation.
For the first time in 24 years, Kentucky has hired a new athletics director.
The school announced former Michigan State and Georgia Tech athletics director J Batt will replace longtime AD Mitch Barnhart later this summer. Barnhat’s last day on the job before retirement is June 30.
Here are three things you need to know about the new CEO of Champions Blue LLC.
J Batt is a prolific fundraiser
UK made it clear from the start of the search for Barnhart’s replacement that it was prioritizing revenue generation in the next hire. When the school announced the next athletics director would carry the “CEO of Champions Blue” title as well, the chances of a hire from professional sports or the business world appeared to increase.
In Batt, UK appears to have found a candidate who brings both a proven money-making track record and experience with the unique challenges of college sports administration.
At Georgia Tech, Batt helped break the school’s previous athletic fundraising record by more than 40%. In his one year at Michigan State, he helped create Spartan Ventures, a tax-exempt corporation tasked with maximizing revenue and supporting NIL opportunities for athletes, and secured a $400 million donation.
“I always imagined that I would be a fundraiser my whole career,” Batt told the Lansing State Journal in December. “Some people dislike fundraising because they always say, ‘I hate asking for money.’ Like you’re never asking for money for yourself. You’re asking for the institution and for the young people that you’re supporting. And for me, that’s always been something I think is important.
“If you’ve really done a great job, you’re building genuine relationships through shared experiences and connecting opportunities to have impact to a donor’s true philanthropic intent. It’s their wish, it’s their intent. How are you building a bridge to that opportunity?”
J Batt worked for a former Mitch Barnhart lieutenant
When Barnhart announced his retirement in March, speculation about his replacement immediately centered on the list of former Barnhart lieutenants now leading their own athletic departments.
UK did not hire any of Barnhart’s proteges, but Batt’s career is closely tied with one of them.
Prior to being hired as Georgia Tech’s athletics director in 2022, Batt spent five years working as a deputy athletics director for Greg Byrne at Alabama. Byrne followed Barnhart from Oregon State to Kentucky in 2002, spending three years in Lexington as an associate athletics director.
“His work ethic, character, wisdom, and vision for the University of Alabama have been great assets to our men’s basketball program, and we are thankful for everything he has done to help our team and staff,” Alabama basketball coach Nate Oats said in a statement when Batt was hired by Georgia Tech. “I think he is a perfect fit at Georgia Tech, and I’m excited to see what the future holds under his leadership.”
J Batt’s Michigan State tenure was only one year
Batt would not have been an obvious candidate for Kentucky to pursue when the job opened because he had only been hired by Michigan State in June 2025.
Upheaval in Michigan State’s administration appears to have paved the way for his departure, though.
In May, Michigan State president Kevin Guskiewicz announced he was leaving the school for Clemson. Batt had cited his relationship with Guskiewicz, who was a doctor at North Carolina when Batt was a soccer player there, as one reason he left Georgia Tech for Michigan State last year.
Guskiewicz cited tension within the Michigan State Board of Trustees, which had offered him a sizable raise, as the reason for his departure.
“While I firmly believe we are all better when there is a diversity of viewpoints informing decisions, our ability to make meaningful progress is hampered when disagreements move from offering alternative perspectives into publicly undermining decisions and putting personal interests above the best interests of the university and our faculty, staff and students,” Guskiewicz wrote in a letter to the Michigan State community. “What is perhaps most troubling is the actions of some to abuse their access to privileged and confidential information to mispresent facts, manipulate situations and selectively use and leak that information to promote personal agendas.”