Mitch Barnhart defends UK's deal with JMI, acknowledges brand protection in NIL deals

The University of Kentucky’s deal with JMI to bring NIL in-house has been a big talking point in Big Blue Nation this week following KSR’s article about how the partnership, among other things, has played a part in the basketball program’s recent struggles on the recruiting trail. In an effort to clear the air, athletic director Mitch Barnhart spoke to Tom Leach on the official pregame show ahead of Kentucky vs. Indiana.

Barnhart started by talking about UK’s long history with JMI, going back to 2014. The partnership was extended through 2040 back in August, a deal valued at $465 million. As part of that agreement, JMI created the BBNIL Suite that serves as Kentucky’s in-house NIL collective. Through it, athletes can broker deals with UK’s 200+ official partners, or try to find their own third-party deals. Barnhart has said before that the latter may be trickier than the former as the school tries to protect the brand and its partners. He doubled down on that tonight.

“We have Kentucky partners and people that have invested in our program, in that money that we get to help fund our program, our travel, all the expenses that we have, the things that we do for our student athletes, that has to come from somewhere. And we’ve got some incredibly strong Kentucky partners in our network, and we do ask that we look at that and say, Hey, is there a space for them to be able to work with our partners first? That’s most important, that we try and do that and stay connected to the people that are supporting us.

“I don’t think there’s a person out there that would disagree with, hey, if I’m working with someone really closely, I want to make sure that we do a good job of protecting them if we can, and if it doesn’t work, and they want to go create some we have got opportunities for them to go on and do their own thing.”

Barnhart used Amari Williams’ NIL deal with Weetabix and Jacob Toppin’s AT&T commercial that ran during March Madness a few years ago as proof that UK student-athletes are free to sign third-party deals, even at a national level. I think it’s important to note that those were done well before UK’s partnership with JMI was extended and the BBNIL Suite was created, which happened after the athletic department moved to Champions Blue LLC.

“JMI came along and said we’d like to restructure a deal to benefit you guys and to help us grow into this new partnership that we’ve got in the Champions Blue LLC, which was really cool. It also gave us the ability to be flexible in terms of the BBNIL as we go forward in that suite of opportunities for our young people.”

“JMI came in and said, Here’s some revenues on top of what we generally create, and these will be specific for our student athletes, to be able to access those in the NIL world. And if that’s not something they want to do, then they can go and do their own thing, as we’ve talked about. They can go do their own thing with their own representatives. They can’t use our marks, maybe in some of those, but they could, and maybe that’s okay.”

Is UK’s deal with JMI unique in college sports? Barnhart said that there are “absolutely” some other schools doing something similar (Leach referenced an article he read about Alabama’s NIL setup), but “there is no one-size-fits-all” approach. He believes the JMI deal gives Kentucky the best chance to succeed moving forward.

“I think that’s what everyone wants to assume, is there’s only one way. There is not only one way. There are multiple ways to do this thing. And we think this is effective for us, and it will, and we think it’s something that we know other people are doing as well.”

“At the end of the day, yeah, we are going to try and have people work with our folks first, if we can, and if that’s something that doesn’t work and they want to go do some other things, they absolutely have the opportunity to do that.

You can hear the entire interview below.

Full interview: Mitch Barnhart discusses NIL strategy and the @UKAthletics partnership with JMI Sports. pic.twitter.com/TfVj4vjRQw

— UK Sports Network (@UKSportsNetwork) December 13, 2025