Georgia Tech AD officially hired to take over at MSU
[Editor’s Note: Monday morning, MSU made the hiring of J Batt as the new AD official.]
Yesterday, ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported that Georgia Tech athletic director J Batt is expected to become the next AD at Michigan State, with a deal to come together in the near future. This news comes one month after MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz fired Alan Haller and named Jennifer Smith and Tom Izzo as co-interim AD’s.
According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution , Batt was making $979,000 at Georgia Tech. Tony Paul from the Detroit News indicated that MSU may approach the $1.5 million range for its next athletic director.
Let’s take a closer look at Batt and what he may bring to MSU.
First, and also according to the AJC , the “J” appears to be short for “Jason”, which was shortened to “Jay” in elementary school when there were three Jason’s in Batt’s class. Later, he shortened it further to just “J”. Now that we have that important nugget out of the way, let’s look at what Batt has actually done, which seems pretty impressive.
Batt has been the athletic director at Georgia Tech since October 2022. He was promoted to a university vice president, or Institute VP (Georgia Tech is short for the Georgia Institute of Technology) in December 2024.
Since taking over in Atlanta, Batt has hired the school’s two marquee coaches with Brent Key for football and former NBA All-Star Damon Stoudamire for men’s basketball.
Key has gone 7-6 in each of his first two full seasons with the Yellow Jackets, with a win over Central Florida in the 2023 Gasparilla Bowl and a loss to Vanderbilt in the 2024 Birmingham Bowl. Key took over as the interim coach five games into the 2022 season after Geoff Collins was dismissed with a 10-28 record at Georgia Tech.
Stoudamire has gone 14-18 and 17-17 in his first two years leading the Yellow Jackets. Prior to Stoudamire, Georgia Tech last made the NCAA tournament in 2021 but went a combined 27-38 and 11-29 in the ACC over the next two years under Josh Pastner.
According to Georgia Tech Athletics (and TOC reader icd8U), Batt’s fundraising contributions have been impressive including:
- $78.2 million in contributions to the GT athletics fundraising arm in fiscal year 2024 – a 43% increase from the previous high.
- Already raising $300 million of a $500 million goal for infrastructure enhancement across multiple Yellow Jacket athletic facilities
- Entering a multi-decade partnership with Hyundai to provide additional revenue to Georgia Tech athletics.
During Batt’s introductory press conference at Georgia Tech, Institute President Ángel Cabrera stated:
“I am committed to making sure that Georgia Tech has a successful athletics program on par with our very proud standing in research and as an academic institution. This is one step in that direction. We moved quickly to place J because we knew he was absolutely the right person for the job.”
For whatever it’s worth, some on the Georgia Tech Swarm board have expressed disappointment that Batt may be leaving, seems to have a touch with donors, and left GT athletics in a better place than he found it.
Prior to Georgia Tech, Batt was at Alabama from 2017-2022 where he served as a deputy director of athletics, chief revenue officer, and chief operating officer. While in charge of revenue generation at Alabama, Batt oversaw the successful 10-year, $600 million Crimson Standard capital initiative and earned the praise of Nick Saban in the process.
Saban had this to say of Batt when he was hired at Georgia Tech:
“Since arriving at Alabama, J has positively affected our program through the success of the Crimson Standard Initiative while being a trusted advisor to our athletic director, Greg Byrne, and an essential part of our administrative team. We set a vision for the future of Alabama Athletics and Alabama football through the Crimson Standard and J as well as his team delivered with impressive results.”
Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne also spoke very positively about Batt when he took the opportunity at Georgia Tech:
“J has been such a strong leader as part of our executive team at Alabama. He has incredible vision and has done an outstanding job overseeing many areas of the department, beginning with development when he arrived in 2017. He has done a masterful job with the operations of the department. J has been involved in all of our major decisions and has provided constructive insight and feedback to make us better. His experience working directly with our student-athletes, our coaches and Athletics staff, university leadership, and fan base has prepared him well for this moment.”
Batt is also credited with effective fundraising at East Carolina, where he served as a senior associate athletic director and executive director of the Pirate Club from 2013-2017, overseeing a 60% improvement in ECU’s annual fundraising in 2016.
Michigan State will not be Batt’s first experience in the Big Ten. He served as Maryland’s associate AD and executive director of the Terrapin Club from 2011-2013.
Batt has also been an athletics fundraiser at James Madison, William & Mary, and his alma mater, North Carolina, which gives him a connection to President Guskiewicz.
A member of UNC’s 2001 national championship soccer team, Batt earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s in sports administration from North Carolina. Guskiewicz joined UNC’s faculty in 1995 as a neuroscientist and expert in sport-related concussions. He went on to hold several key positions at North Carolina, eventually being appointed Chancellor in 2019.
Batt and his wife Leah have two sons.