Mark Pope trusts Mitch Barnhart, Greg Sankey on revenue-sharing, future of college athletics

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has been among the leading voices of college athletics since he took over the most dominant conference at this level in 2015. Kentucky athletics director Mitch Barnhart has done the same at the school level since making his way to Lexington in 2002, trusted as one of only four people to have served on the College Football Playoff and NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Committees while consistently leading the school to top-20 finishes in the NACDA Directors’ Cup.

Since the final approval of the House v. NCAA settlement in early June and just days away from the start of the revenue-sharing era on July 1, both figures have been outspoken in their confidence as it relates to the future of college sports.

Things will be different, but they’ll also be better in the SEC — and Lexington, more specifically.

“The approval of the House settlement agreement represents a significant milestone for the meaningful support of our student-athletes and a pivotal step toward establishing long-term sustainability for college sports, two of the Southeastern Conference’s priorities,” Sankey said.

“This settlement represents a significant step forward for college athletics, providing additional opportunities for student-athletes to benefit from their participation while establishing a framework to maintain competitive integrity — for the sake of student-athletes, institutions and fans alike,” Barnhart added. “As we have done many times before, we will embrace this change and rise to the challenge of remaining competitive in a dynamic landscape. UK Athletics is proud to be a premier program, competing for championships in the nation’s best conference.

“With this new framework, we will continue to do what it takes to remain competitive. We will remain focused on education and competition, putting championship rings on fingers and diplomas in hands. We plan to not only survive but thrive.”

Decisions are being made on Kentucky’s revenue-sharing plans — Barnhart said, “We’re obviously going to participate in every way, shape, or form” and “a lot of it depends how we close down the stretch, with our ability to prepare for July 1” in terms of specific sport distribution. UK Athletics previously confirmed plans will be ‘finalized in the coming weeks’ while recognizing ‘there will be variability from year-to-year depending on the needs of individual programs and the department as a whole.’

We’re approaching that deadline, but Barnhart isn’t worried about the PR dash to confirm details. Instead, he’s desperate to get this thing right so his department is in a healthy spot for years to come.

“We gotta let these waters settle a little bit. I think people rush to the start line and then they take off, and all of a sudden it gets a little choppy because you made decisions in a hurry,” he told BBN Tonight’s Maggie Davis. “People get frustrated sometimes with us because we’re a little more methodical in what we do, but I also say sometimes that the pace allows us to make decisions that most benefitted the Unversity of Kentucky. I’m not concerned with everyone else’s pace.

“What I am concerned with is making sure we get the right fit for Kentucky.”

Mark Pope’s program is in an interesting spot, certainly as it relates to the rest of the SEC. Football will always pay the bills in this league, but Kentucky is a basketball juggernaut and the winningest tradition in the history of the sport with the most passionate fanbase in the country.

How does the head coach feel about the money distribution and his program’s cut of the pie? Kentucky reportedly led the charge against the SEC’s push for spending caps on each sport that would see a 75 percent (football), 15 percent (men’s basketball), 5 percent (women’s basketball) and 5 percent (others) split among all league institutions. Does Pope want more?

He told KSR he trusts both Barnhart and Sankey and their respective visions after meeting with them extensively since the House settlement approval.

“I’ve been really excited over the last (several) weeks,” Pope said in an exclusive one-on-one interview with KSR in Colorado Springs last week. “We had the SEC meetings (in Destin), and I had a lot of time to interact with Greg Sankey and kind of hear his vision of what this is moving forward. Mitch (Barnhart) is — I mean, people don’t understand this. He’s probably the leading voice of all the ADs in the entire country. On us moving forward, he’s carrying such a massive burden. There’s nobody that I would trust more to do it.”

The House settlement is a starting point for future moves, part of Barnhart’s push for year-to-year rev-share flexibility. It’s not perfect and there will be hurdles to clear, but the guardrails were necessary and college athletics are moving in the right direction.

And if there are two people Pope would want on his side during that walk forward, it’s Barnhart and Sankey.

“Right now, it’s all hands on deck trying to make this work the best way that it possibly can. It’s easy to say, ‘What about this and what about that? This is gonna be hard.’ Yeah, there are gonna be a lot of challenges moving forward, but this gives us a framework — at least for now — that we can rally around and do the best we can to see if we can come out of this with some really, really really functional model,” Pope said. “I’m excited about that. I’m really encouraged by having the two best leaders we could possibly have representing our conference and representing the University of Kentucky.

“That’s the way it should be.”