MSU AD leaves for Kentucky

The Den
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Supposedly a key player in the MSU NIL fundraising.

Thoughts on this, bad fit for MSU or internal politics?

# J Batt leaves Michigan State to be Kentucky athletic director

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.

More: Elbow, apple, carpet, saddle, bubble. How five words made J Batt Michigan State’s next AD

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.

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.

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I have a buddy who was a long-term multi decade MSU administrator who crossed over in his career between sports and development and community relations and government relations.

He was a couple steps below having to have his direct report as the President, and a couple years ago basically there was a larger meeting with the President, not the current one but the previous one that had so much trouble for being a giant a******, sitting in. My buddy, who’s pretty personable, kind of warms up the audience and then is asked the question “where do you see yourself in five years here at the U”, and answers “well I don’t think I’ll have the top job but I’d like to continue to advance and serve the University”, paraphrased but similar. Somehow the President took that wrong and as a threat and he was let go within the next month.

Long story short MSU’s administrative side is a giant f****** mess right now and I don’t blame anyone who wants to get the hell out, and I don’t just mean on the sports side it’s obviously overall if you’ve been keeping up with the changes at the trustee and board and president levels.

Not that Michigan’s a whole hell of a lot better right now either but damn, I learned many decades ago while I was still a corporate jerkweed that the higher you are up on the ladder the closer you are to the door. Have not been dissuaded from that Outlook yet

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Or very good luck.

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It’s a sad thing for our state of much of a shit show it is there. I hope they sort it out before the students suffer.

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Kid can’t even read !!!

Stuttering Adam Sandler GIF

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They seem do be doing fine academically. MSU still ranks very high in many academic areas and as an educational institution as a whole. They are just shitty in when it comes to football, as it should be.

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My daughter is a recent graduate. She entered out of state on an academic scholly. I was extremely disappointed in the quality. Very different from my experience 30 years ago. Some Exclusively online classes, poor teaching (not uncommon to many schools), poorly updated dorms. Steadily rising tuition. Very disappointing. And they just got a 600M donation for sports. Where is that dough?

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Msu biggest issue is the waste of space BOT. F them all. Their difficult to work with

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I heard Chris Solari on collegesports serius this am and he didn’t come across as reall optimistic about the future, stated that the issues has been going on for five decades at MSU. If you go back to Izzo’s hiring there were BoT members who didn’t want Izzo.

# Wojo: Izzo furious as Michigan State blows another chance to get it right
full article at link

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When Pat Fitzgerald was introduced as the new football coach last December, the excited talk was about “alignment” across the university, from top to bottom. Barely six months later, the offices are empty again and MSU is stuck with a confusing disaster.

“I’ve had it,” Izzo told reporters Monday. “This is self-inflicted. We just lost the best president that may have ever been here, one of the best. And there are other dominoes that get affected when things go wrong like that. I’m very upset about it. And I’m sick of it.”

Many Spartans presumably are sick of it, from alums to students to the Hall of Fame coach who’s 71, and contrary to his abundant energy, won’t be around forever. Mostly, people are disgusted by the infighting, petty politics and lack of a clear, shared vision. Much of the ire is directed at the Board of Trustees, the eight-member panel entrusted with protecting MSU’s interests. Governing boards at universities are important oversight tools, but MSU has historically been rife with disagreement.

Guskiewicz cited Board dysfunction as a primary reason for his departure, even spurning an offer to double his salary to stay. In his resignation letter, he blasted away, calling his relationship with the Board of Trustees an “unsustainable situation.” He pointedly wrote, “What is perhaps most troubling is the actions of some to abuse their access to privileged and confidential information to misrepresent facts, manipulate situations and selectively use and leak that information to promote personal agendas.”

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As outsiders, it didn’t take Guskiewicz and Batt long to recognize the size of the challenge. Batt launched Spartan Ventures to raise NIL funds for athletes, and almost immediately, its for-profit arm, Spartan Media Ventures, raised questions about third-party stakes in a public university. You can debate whether it’s good or bad, but the debate itself is important. Except that it devolved into rabid public arguments about transparency and oversight.

J Batt is leaving Michigan State after just a little more than a year as Michigan State’s athletic director. Katy Kildee, The Detroit News

To quell the airing of grievances and leaking of sensitive information, the Board majority approved “revised ethics and conduct standards” and required each Trustee to sign it. Failure to do so could result in public censure or removal. Three trustees — Rema Vassar (D-Detroit), Dennis Denno (D-East Lansing) and Mike Balow (R-Plymouth) — refused, citing freedom of speech and commitment to their duties, before it was approved.

MSU is not the only university to struggle with alignment, as UM has had its own notable disagreements between the president and Board of Regents. Michigan is looking for its fourth president in four years, after Santa Ono departed and president-elect Kent Syverud stepped down because of a cancer diagnosis.

MSU is seeking its seventh president in eight years (counting interims), going back to the 2018 resignation of Lou Anna Simon in the midst of the Larry Nassar sexual assault scandal. That also cost AD Mark Hollis his job, and Hollis said Monday he’d be interested if MSU wanted him back. Finding another AD that fits could be problematic without a permanent president. And finding a permanent president could be problematic considering the power of the Board, which ousted president Samuel Stanley Jr. in 2022.

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“The increase in messages came shortly after MSU men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo said on Monday that university alumni should “stand up” to the Board of Trustees in response to Guskiewicz’s and Batt’s impending departure.”

Wonder if Izzo’s comments have actually inflamed things to a dangerous level.

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Why would they? Izzo is right.

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Because Izzo is a highly respected part of the Spartan community. His calls for the Alum to “stand up against the trustees” could very well have led to some over-zealous actions. My guess is that he will probably come out now and back track a bit on his comments.

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That’s on the over zealous, not Izzo. He has every right to voice his frustrations and should.

When people start talking about “tone”, I become curious of whether it’s an actual threat. I mean is there a nice way to threaten someone with violence? Tone sure sounds like they are dealing with angry alumni, not necessarily threats to their safety.

“It’s the tone that gets you really worried,” Balow said. “There’s been some really bad things said, and then with the whole doxxing incident with the addresses all being out there, I’m just like, this is not acceptable.”

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The voters get an opportunity to nuke the BoT, but they never do.

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The issue is always the 20-60-20 rule IMO for voters on this type of stuff

20% really care
20% will likely never care

How do you get that 60% motivated enough to care?

Apathy is real

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Ahhh, I don’t know…maybe it is….who cares anyways.

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Oh well, whatever. Nevermind.

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every-vote-counts-black-sheep

chris farley fml GIF by TRVRSAPPAREL