If you spend any time around Kentucky fans, you hear the same worry over and over: is UK doing enough in NIL to keep up? Mark Pope hears it too, but his view from inside the building is very different.
“I’m telling you… someone needs to do like a super in-depth New Yorker magazine 30-page article on Mitch [Barnhart],” Pope said ahead of Indiana. “His leadership in this space has been incredible.”
Pope said he has athletic directors from “other major universities” reaching out to ask how Kentucky has set things up. The structure, built around a partnership with JMI Sports and UK Athletics, has become something other schools are trying to reverse-engineer.
“I have ADs from other major universities reaching out and trying to figure out how are you doing this and like how did you move ahead this way,” Pope said. “This partnership with JMI… Paul [Archey] is incredible and [Kim Shelton], who we work with day to day, is incredible.”
Why Pope trusts Mitch Barnhart and JMI in a chaotic NIL world
Behind the scenes, Pope described late nights, tight deadlines and a lot of scrambling to get deals and structures in place in a landscape where the rules are changing in real time.
“When we get to write the book, there’s been a lot of late nights, tight deadlines, trying to get to winning spots,” he said. “We have an incredible team in the dynamic times.”
The biggest challenge is that there still is not a clear, universally accepted rulebook. Kentucky’s staff is operating in what Pope called a “dynamic process” where definitions of what is legal shift constantly.
“One of the complicated things right now is that there’s not a clear interpretation of exactly what the rules are,” Pope said. “Literally it’s a dynamic process every single day and we’ll make sure that we always err on the side of doing this legal, which is a guessing game because nobody knows exactly what’s legal right now.”
That “err on the side of doing this legal” phrase is essentially the program’s guiding principle. Kentucky is not going to push as far into the gray as some rivals, but Pope believes the trade-off is worth it for long-term stability and protection. That stems directly from Mitch Barnhart who is notoriously cautious, and in the meantime Mark Pope keeps missing on major recruits.
He also circled back to something that can get lost in the noise: the athletes themselves.
“These student athletes still matter, right? They still matter,” Pope said. “Like that’s still the most important thing that’s going on. And so honoring that’s really, really important.”
The GM conversations, the “closed loop” questions, the state contracts and revenue-sharing mechanics all live in that broader conversation. For Pope, the bottom line is that Kentucky is not behind; in his eyes, it is ahead, with Barnhart and JMI giving him what he called “ridiculous” support.
“In the dynamic times, landing on exactly the right spot is ultimately my job to guess the right spot,” Pope said. “But the support that we’re getting is ridiculous from Mitch and the administration, from JMI.”
One has to ask if these comments are from Mitch himself, since he is feeling pressure on the deal with JMI that no one else in the college athletics spaced has done or if he really means it. Either way the actions need to match the words as right now Kentucky basketball has zero recruits in 2026. And according to reports, they are no longer leading for anyone.