One pretty sensible external candidate for Michigan State’s open athletic director job currently resides in Kalamazoo.
Western Michigan AD Dan Bartholomae has often been suggested as someone MSU could consider as its next athletic director. There are a few reasons for that.
Bartholomae’s Buyout From WMU
One of the big hurdles for the Spartans, if they were to target Bartholomae, would be his buyout from the Broncos. WMU extended him through June 2031 last August. Bartholomae’s buyout is reportedly $5 million, which would be quite high for an athletic director hire from a Group of Six school.
That shouldn’t be too much of a problem for Michigan State, though. The Spartans are set to get $3.95 million in buyout money from Kentucky after the Wildcats hired J Batt away from MSU.
Batt’s original figure was $5 million, but that figure was set to drop to $2.5 million when president Kevin Guskiewicz originally accepted a job at Clemson. That particular clause never actually came into effect, but the two sides were still able to negotiate towards the middle because of the unusual nature of the situation. Batt probably doesn’t really go searching around if Guskiewicz hadn’t taken the Clemson job in the first place…