Kentucky is hiring Michigan State athletic director J Batt to replace Mitch Barnhart after Batt spent just one year in his position with the Spartans, UK announced Monday. He will be entering his third Power Four athletic director job after he also served as Georgia Tech’s AD from 2022 to 2025 before taking the Michigan State job in 2025.
Batt, 44, is a former North Carolina soccer player and well-traveled administrator with a track record for having a quick trigger on inherited coaches in high-profile sports. As Kentucky basketball coach Mark Pope enters a critical third season, Batt’s patience with UK’s most historically proud program will be a significant plot line in Lexington.
Just five months into his tenure as athletic director Batt fired seventh-year Georgia Tech basketball coach Josh Pastner in 2023. This past November, he fired second-year Michigan State football coach Jonathan Smith just five months into his AD tenure with the Spartans and quickly replaced him with Pat Fitzgerald.
Pope is 46-26 and 20-16 in the SEC through two seasons with a 2025 Sweet 16 appearance. The Wildcats were eliminated in the second round of the 2026 NCAA Tournament following another season inhibited by injuries to key players.
After a rocky offseason, Kentucky salvaged its 2026-27 roster by luring center Malachi Moreno back from NBA Draft consideration and landing No. 3 ranked transfer Milan Momcilovic from Iowa State. The Wildcats are ranked No. 17 in Gary Parrish’s Top 25 And 1 and landed as a No. 7 seed in the latest 2027 CBS Sports Bracketology projection.
Ensuring the health of Kentucky men’s basketball will be a vital part of Batt’s job.
“The championship standard has been established at Kentucky and we are committed to upholding that standard of excellence,” Batt said in Kentucky’s announcement of his hiring. “Our continued success will take everyone in the Big Blue Nation, working together to provide resources to our teams and our student athletes that position them for success. With that standard as our North Star, Kentucky Athletics and Champions Blue are well positioned to deliver results in the changing landscape that is college athletics today.”
Batt will also be working with a brand new football coach as 36-year old former Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein takes over following Mark Stoops’ 13-year tenure.
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Between the beginning of Stein’s tenure and the arrival of a trajectory-defining third season for Pope, it’s a pivotal moment for Kentucky, which recently restructured its athletic operations. Batt’s past moves on Pastner at Georgia Tech and Smith at Michigan State suggest that he won’t be slow to act if the Wildcats struggle on the hardwood in the 2026-27 season.
Batt’s role grows in Lexington
Not only will Batt hold the traditional “athletic director” title, he will also be the CEO of Champions Blue LLC, Kentucky’s nonprofit athletic department spinoff. It’s a structure that allows the university to “separate the commercial aspects of its athletic program from its academic and administrative arms.”
In essence it’s a new collegiate athletics model more in line with a corporate structure that will allow UK to move more nimbly on big-picture athletics projects and NIL obligations than it could while operating as a department within the confines of a publicly funded state university.
Batt brings leadership experience from within a similar structure at Michigan State, which launched its Spartan Ventures initiative during Batt’s tenure. Batt will officially start the job “later this summer,” according to Kentucky’s announcement.
