How did we get here?
That is the question every Kentucky fan is asking. We have a football coach who is 9-14 in his last two seasons. We have a basketball program that went years without a Sweet 16 and just dropped two ugly games to start the year. The fan experience at Kroger Field has been stripped of its soul, tailgating spots gone, student sections moved, suites built over seats, all in the name of the almighty dollar.
The common denominator in all of this? Mitch Barnhart.
Barnhart has been the
AD since 2002. He preaches against “microwave culture,” yet he is the one who handed out lifetime contracts to coaches who have since underachieved. But looking deeper, the issues go far beyond bad contracts. They go straight to the boardroom.
The JMI Sports stranglehold
If you want to know who really runs UK Athletics, look at the contract with JMI Sports.
The university recently locked into a massive deal where JMI manages everything: marketing rights, facility naming rights, and crucially, the NIL strategy.
In exchange, UK gets 80% of the net revenue.
On paper, it sounds like good business. In practice, it has been a headache. “BBNIL” is supposed to be the future, but insiders have grumbled about how difficult JMI can be to work with.
Though nothing official has ever been said, there have been complaints.
The Baker conflict that could threaten Kentucky
Here is where it gets terrifying for the future of UK Athletics.
With Barnhart likely nearing the end of his tenure, rumors are swirling about his successor. One name that keeps coming up is Rachel Newman Baker, UK’s current Executive Associate AD.
She is a talented administrator, no doubt. But there is a massive elephant in the room: Her husband, Brandon Baker, is a key executive at… you guessed it, JMI Sports.
Think about that dynamic. If Rachel Baker becomes the AD, the person negotiating with the university’s primary corporate partner would be negotiating with a company where her spouse is a leader.
Is that the “clean” break Kentucky needs? Or is it just another layer of the “Good Ol’ Boys” network that has prioritized corporate synergy over winning games? Because let’s face it, the two major sports for Kentucky have been lackluster for a while now.
And while they will say everything is on the up and up, and it very well could be, the optics do not look great. We aren’t saying it would be bad for sure, just that it would look bad, at the very least.
At worst, it looks like UK Athletics is in the hands of people who are only looking out for themselves.
Money over everything
Barnhart has always been elite at one thing: raising money. He has built suites, signed deals, and kept the budget in the green. But at what cost?
We lost ground in basketball because the NIL infrastructure was late to the party. We are losing football games because the atmosphere and product have grown stale. That threatens the programs that are doing well because football pays for them.
The “business of UK Athletics” is booming. The actual athletics? Not so much, outside of volleyball.
