What is Champions Blue?

University of Kentucky athletics is not only important to the University. At UK, diplomas in hands and championship rings on fingers is not simply a saying; it’s a way of doing and being. 

Further, UK Athletics is intertwined with the entire campus. As one of the handful of truly financially self-sustaining programs in the country, UK Athletics has for a long time fully paid for its scholarships, facilities and other expenses, while returning millions of dollars each year for academic scholarships and other campus initiatives. 

UK Athletics today, in fact, funds the bulk of the debt service on the largest academic science building on the campus – the Jacobs Science Building.

But UK athletics is vital to Kentucky, too. 

It is, as UK President Eli Capilouto, what stirs the souls and passions of our people. 

For so many Kentuckians – as well as those who live far outside the state and around the world – UK Athletics has long been thought of as a front porch to the institution. It’s where people first learn of UK and interact with the University. 

But, in many respects, it is the back porch as well. It’s where and how people gather. It’s how they stay connected and committed to UK – now and into the future.

The landscape of college athletics, however, is changing dramatically. That means both incredible challenges and distinctive opportunities.

With the implementation of the federal House settlement, college athletics is fully in the era of compensating student athletes. Programs like UK can and will share revenues with student athletes. At the same time, student athletes also can seek to monetize their brands by marketing and selling their Name, Image and Likeness (NIL). 

The result is millions and millions of additional dollars necessary to run these programs, while also finding ways and approaches to be more efficient and effective with our dollars.

At the University of Kentucky, we don’t intend to simply respond to the sea change taking place. 

We intend to lead. 

That is the idea behind Champions Blue, LLC – a non-profit, public entity that will serve as the holding company for UK Athletics. The model is a similar approach to governance for UK’s two community hospitals – UK King’s Daughters and UK St. Claire in Ashland and Morehead, respectively.

While ultimately still under the governance of the University’s Board of Trustees, the creation of a holding company allows for policy and programmatic differentiation as well as the opportunity to bring in outside expertise from the business and professional sports world to provide advice and long-term strategic counsel for our efforts. It creates an incentive to think about how best to conceptualize and generate new revenues and also think about how best to create even more efficiencies in operations.