Detroit Economic Club: Kevin Guskiewicz Ph.D., J. Batt and Matt Elliott
Detroit Economic Club meeting with MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz Ph.D., Athletic Director J. Batt, and moderator Matt Elliott.
East Lansing — Michigan State needs a new athletic director. Again.
After losing President Kevin Guskiewicz to Clemson in May, Michigan State lost athletic director J Batt to Kentucky on Monday, the SEC school announced. The move comes only a year after the Spartans hired the 44-year-old away from Georgia Tech, and it leaves a significant hole at the top of MSU’s athletics department.
Michigan State has not yet named an interim athletic director, though Guskiewicz said in a statement that he “will be working with university and athletics department leadership over the coming days to name an interim and outline a search process for moving forward.
“We remain committed to supporting our student-athletes, coaches, staff, alumni and fans while continuing to pursue excellence in all that we do.”
Batt also will serve as CEO of Champions Blue, Kentucky’s for-profit LLC.
“We couldn’t be more excited to join the University of Kentucky and the Big Blue Nation,” Batt said in a statement released by Kentucky. “The championship standard has been established at Kentucky and we are committed to upholding that standard of excellence. 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.
“Despite this period of ongoing change, we remain in the opportunity business — creating opportunities for our student-athletes to compete and win championships, earn degrees and prepare for life after sport. We are excited to work with an outstanding staff and coaches on behalf of a University to deliver for the Big Blue Nation and to serve this special community that represents the entire Commonwealth.”
Saturday afternoon, ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported Batt had emerged as a frontrunner for the Kentucky job left vacant by the retirement of Mitch Barnhart. It took Kentucky another two days to negotiate Batt’s departure from East Lansing.
According to two sources familiar with the situation, Kentucky was not the only athletic director position Batt applied for since Guskiewicz’s departure. Other openings across the country include Virginia Tech, Purdue and Wisconsin.
Guskiewicz’s departure triggered a clause in Batt’s contract that slashed his liquidated buyout by 50% if he chose to leave before his contract’s expiration. That meant a $5 million payment by another school to lure Batt away in the first two years of his contract went down to just $2.5 million.
For Michigan State, Batt’s departure adds to a summer of uncertainty. He and Guskiewicz leave two major leadership positions open for Michigan State, which has suffered from significant instability over recent years. From an athletics viewpoint, since 1995 Michigan State has had seven different athletic directors, eight presidents and nine football coaches counting interim leaders. Michigan State will hire its third athletic director since 2021, a span led by four different presidents counting interims.
Batt departure follows rift between president, Board
It has barely been a year since Michigan State hired Batt away from Georgia Tech on June 2, 2025, for a six-year $12.6 million contract and the payment of his more than $2 million buyout at Georgia Tech. Batt came with a strong reputation as a fundraiser, something vital for a Michigan State athletic department hundreds of millions in debt and showing a deficit in recent years.
Michigan State leadership touted “alignment” with Batt’s hire — he held ties to Guskiewicz going back 25 years to their time at North Carolina when Batt was a soccer player and Guskiewicz was a concussion researcher.
Over the course of the past year, Batt made numerous key decisions for Michigan State, including hiring a new football coach in Pat Fitzgerald, embarking on a $1 billion fundraising campaign, crafting a $500 million renovation plan for Spartan Stadium and securing a $401 million commitment from local megadonors Greg and Dawn Williams.
On top of all that, Batt’s defining project was the creation of Spartan Ventures, a third-party entity composed of non-profit Spartan Athletic Foundation and for-profit Spartan Media Ventures LLC. The aim of its creation was to maximize revenues for athletics. It is intended to launch July 1, even with the departure of Guskiewicz and now Batt. The fiscal year 2027 budget approved by MSU’s Board of Trustees estimated a more than $114.7 million disbursement from Spartan Ventures to make up the majority of the athletics revenues this coming year.
“I appreciate the energy and innovation that J Batt brought to Spartan Athletics over this past year,” Guskiewicz said in the statement. “He has set our athletics department on a positive path, one that our outstanding and dedicated team will continue driving forward. During his tenure, he helped position our athletics program for success in a rapidly changing collegiate landscape while advancing our commitment to competitive excellence, academic achievement, and the student-athlete experience. Amy and I both wish J, Leah and their family happiness and success in Kentucky.”
However, the process of Spartan Ventures’ creation caused turbulence. MSU trustees Mike Balow, R-Plymouth; Rema Vassar, D-Detroit; and Dennis Denno, D-East Lansing, raised issues with a lack of transparency, including the requirement of a non-disclosure agreement to view certain documents related to Spartan Ventures’ creation. Though not exclusively the cause of discord between Guskiewicz and the Board, dissent regarding Spartan Ventures caused friction between the two sides, and with Batt, who also hired a number of C-suite administrators to athletics who also took leadership roles in Spartan Ventures.
The rift between Guskiewicz and the Board of Trustees finally fissured in May, even after trustees held a May 17 emergency meeting to approve a raise of Guskiewicz’s salary up to $2 million — nearly double his previous compensation — as well as a change to the Board of Trustees code of conduct that targeted dissent. Clemson announced Guskiewicz as its next president on May 27. MSU Board chair Brianna Scott said Friday there is no timeline for his departure or the naming of an interim president.
