The UK AD sheds light on the major change to Kentucky Athletics.
Profit sharing is now official in college athletics, kicking off a major change to the landscape around Kentucky Athletics.
Created back in the spring, UK Athletics transitioned to an LLC and has rebranded in this new era of college sports as Champions Blue. An innovative idea as we head into the new world, there has been very little light shed on the future of how this works in Lexington.
In a recent conversation with John Talty of CBS Sports, UK AD Mitch Barnhart shed some light on the change and some future potential opportunities to create revenue for Kentucky, especially for how wild the start of this era will be as they lead the charge in this area.
“Early on it’s going to be like drinking out of a fire hose on some of this stuff as we try to do it, but I don’t want to sit on the sidelines and say we’ll get to it sooner or later,” Barnhart said. “I’d rather go ahead and tackle it, and let’s go, let’s try to figure it out.”
Fans will also appreciate reading this comment from Barnhart:
“We’re not just going to our fanbase and saying, ‘Hey, our expenses went up and we need more money. That’s not fair to them all the time, and frankly, it’s not going to be viable in our state. Our opportunities because of our population (are) not as many.”
That’s music to many ears, I would guess.
The biggest opportunity around Kentucky Athletics that we have learned recently is surrounding a potential entertainment district coming around Kroger Field.
A concept that has been adopted by several professional sports teams, including the Atlanta Braves, the Chicago Cubs, and the Milwaukee Bucks, it is starting to tip-toe into college athletics with Tennessee being one of the major headliners.
Could UK be next? Barnhart wants to try to create those partnerships in Lexington.
“The public-private partnerships are really important in mixed use facilities,” Barnhart said. “Taking the area around our football stadium and there are opportunities in that land space around there for us to do some things that may create a relationship with local businesses that want to be a part of us. Opportunities to incorporate some of those in our football stadium itself, which would be really important. There are opportunities for possible hotel/motel lodging on our campus where maybe we could be a partner to that would make some sense.”
There is a lot happening around Uk Athletics and college sports. Going to be a wild few months to see how it all settles in.