UK loves new name on baseball stadium. It’s versatile and scandal-proof.

The business of athletics, naming rights and partnerships is tricky.

One corporate scandal and suddenly an athletic department’s pretty new stadium inadvertently becomes part of a complicated, unrelated story. Or maybe it’s vice versa.

Knowing that those things happen even with the best of intentions, Mitch Barnhart can’t stop smiling about Kentucky’s latest stadium name. The UK athletics director knows the Cats hit a home run before Kentucky Proud Park even opens.

“It is an absolute privilege to be able to partner with Kentucky Proud, and I think it speaks to the heartbeat of our state and the pride that we have in our state,” Barnhart said Friday after the university’s Board of Trustees approved a new name for the UK baseball stadium. “It also speaks to the work ethic of the people in our state. I think it transcends a lot of boundaries here.”

Barnhart is discussing the new, 15-year partnership entered with Kentucky Farm Bureau and JMI Sports, which owns the naming rights for UK athletics facilities. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed Friday.

Kentucky Farm Bureau opted to name the $49 million baseball stadium that sits on Alumni Drive “Kentucky Proud Park,” as a nod to the commonwealth’s farmers and the official state marketing program for agricultural products made here.

“Kentucky Proud Park is a unique partnership and unique friendship,” Barnhart said. “I think it will be wonderful for our state. I think it has a lot of pieces that make me happy.”

The new baseball stadium, will have an official ribbon cutting in February when the season opens around the Southeastern Conference, but the team already is practicing and has had scrimmages there.

Despite the cold temperatures, Barnhart noticed UK baseball players out working Thursday night as he drove home.

“Lights were on and balls were flying and it was pretty cool,” he said smiling.

The stadium project included an all-turf field with permanent seating for 2,500 with space on the grass berms to accommodate more than 4,000. Temporary seating can be installed to take the capacity up over 7,000 for NCAA Tournament games.

Kentucky’s top athletics official has said many times that the venue might not have come to fruition had the deal with JMI Sports not happened in 2014 when the company purchased UK Athletics’ multimedia rights for $210 million over 15 years.

That figure included a $29.4 million signing bonus that helped fund capital projects like the baseball stadium.

Once it was in the works, the JMI Sports team went about finding a perfect name. Signage and other things will be added in the coming months.

“It will say ‘Kentucky Proud Park’ and it will be really, I think it’s something our fans can latch onto and I think people will take great pride in it,” Barnhart said.

When the new ballpark opens in February, Barnhart said they will carry over some things from the old Cliff Hagan Stadium and “time capsule some stuff.

“You get these opportunities but once in a while. For our baseball stadium to have essentially a $50 million ballpark that we’re opening up is special for our program and special for our guys.”

Much like the Kroger Field partnership that integrated parts of the grocery’s brand, Kentucky Proud Park probably will include products made around the state.

“Absolutely. Absolutely,” Barnhart said. “We’re going to incorporate that and bring that in. We’re not exactly sure. We’ve got a lot of pieces of that puzzle about how we’re going to do all those things. But you’ll see it weaved throughout our stadium. I’m pretty confident of that.

“Not exactly sure what it’s going to look like yet, but you’re going to see it. We’re excited to do that. I don’t think there’s anything that could be more exciting than to find a way to feature our folks from across the state and different things we can do. I think it’s very unique.”

Other name changes coming?

Kentucky has a long wish list of facilities and upgrades for various programs that all fall under the university’s $2.1 billion capital campaign launched a few weeks ago.

But Barnhart doesn’t see any other name changes on venues happening any time soon.

“In terms of actual naming rights, no,” he said. “We’ll have some donors that are going to do some very special things and we’re going to make sure we honor them the right way. To this point, we really haven’t done anything else and we’re sort of just working our way through those processes.”

Next on the wish list is working through renovations at Memorial Coliseum piece by piece. UK put in a massive scoreboard screen in one end zone and ribbon boards in another as a start.

Those upgrades let fans know “that we’re not walking away from that facility,” Barnhart said. “That’s an important facility for us. It’s clear that we’ve got intentions to be there. We’re going to get that done.

“That and tennis. We’ve got a lot of projects along the way about our student-athlete experience and things we’re going to do with our academics.”