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.
Weeks of waiting have paid off for Michigan State, to the tune of $2.5 million.
The reversal of President Kevin Guskiewicz’s decision to leave for Clemson means Kentucky will owe the full $5 million contract buyout for poaching athletic director J Batt last month. A clause in Batt’s contract had cut that buyout in half if Guskiewicz left before him, but Guskiewicz’s decision to stay after all leaves Kentucky with the full buyout.
Guskiewicz, 60, had accepted the presidency of Clemson University in South Carolina after two years on the job at Michigan State. Three weeks later, athletic director J Batt also took a new job at Kentucky, which will pay him nearly $3 million per year on a six-year term sheet signed June 17.
As of Monday, Michigan State’s athletic director position is still occupied by Batt, 44, whose departure date for Kentucky is still to be determined. It is still expected that Batt will depart for Kentucky, and with that Michigan State will still need to hire a new athletic director.
Monday afternoon, Kentucky President Eli Capilouto confirmed Batt will still leave Michigan State for Kentucky, posting a statement on X that, “J Batt and I spoke this afternoon and he has reinforced his commitment to UK and his excitement about joining the Big Blue Nation as soon as possible. We are working quickly to finalize his start date and his family is eager to join our community as well.”
However, Michigan State will embark on its athletic director search with a $5 million sum from Kentucky aiding its search.
Buyout sum opens up Michigan State’s options for AD hire
Michigan State made an aggressive move when it hired J Batt away from Georgia Tech. It signed him to a six-year, $12.6 million contract in June 2025 that ranked Batt in the top 10 nationally in base salary. Michigan State also paid his $2 million buyout at previous school Georgia Tech on top of that contract. Now, a little over a year later, Michigan State must repeat that process all over again.
Contractually, athletic directors are on the hook for liquidated buyouts, assessed as damages for ending a contract early. In practice, however, this is almost exclusively paid for by the hiring institution. Usually buyouts are scaled by contract length, with more expensive sums in the early years of a contract and cheaper costs to depart later on.
A $5 million buyout is on the high end of the spectrum, reflective of Batt’s departure early in the second contract year of his tenure.
If Michigan State wanted to poach Michigan’s Warde Manuel, for example, the cost would be twice his base salary, which amounts to $3.8 million. The latest contract for Western Michigan athletic director Dan Bartholomae lists a liquidated buyout of $5.1 million until 2027.
Gaining $5 million for Batt’s departure gives Michigan State with a strong sum to hire Batt’s replacement. If the school uses the whole sum toward a new candidate, it could have its pick of the litter, so to speak.
It could also choose to bank that money and hire someone outside of another university. It could look internally, particularly at executive deputy athletics director Jon Palumbo, who is the CEO of new fundraising arm Spartan Ventures. Or it could tap someone outside of the NCAA realm, such as former athletic director Mark Hollis, who has thrown his name in the ring. He resigned in 2018 after spending a decade as athletic director.
cearegood@detroitnews.com
@ConnorEaregood
