Dan Bartholomae is getting a big raise, and Michigan State is getting some big savings.
Bartholomae, who was introduced Wednesday as Michigan State’s new athletic director, will earn a base salary of about $1.3 million on his new, five-year contract, according to a source with knowledge of contract negotiations who was not authorized to speak publicly about the terms.
With additional compensation clauses, the total value of Bartholomae’s contract will start at just over $1.5 million a year, according to the source.
Michigan State hadn’t made Bartholomae’s contract or memo of understanding public as of Wednesday afternoon, when he was introduced at a press conference at Breslin Center in East Lansing.
Bartholomae, 46, was earning more than $750,000 a year as athletic director at Western Michigan under terms of a contract extension he signed in 2025. That extension more than doubled his salary and made him one of the highest-paid ADs in the Mid-American Conference. The extension was signed after he finished runner-up for the Michigan State for the job that eventually went to J Batt.
Batt earned $1.85 million in base pay under the terms of his six-year contract with Michigan State. Batt left after barely a year on the job to become the athletic director at Kentucky, which signed him to a six-year, $12.6-million contract. Michigan State will collect a $3.95 million buyout from Kentucky for hiring Batt. Michigan State will use that to offset the $5.1 million buyout it owes Western Michigan, as part of Bartholomae’s contract extension signed in 2025.
There are no known negotiations between Michigan State and Western Michigan about possibly lowering the buyout.
Bartholomae became athletic director at Western Michigan in January 2022, after stints at Oregon State and Pittsburgh.
Bartholomae oversaw a renaissance in Western Michigan athletics, which more than quadrupled its fundraising under his leadership, and won the Division I national championship in hockey in 2025. In the fall of 2027, Western Michigan’s hockey team and men’s and women’s basketball teams will move into a new, $500-million-plus arena in downtown Kalamazoo. While at Western Michigan, Broncos teams won 37 conference championships, including the football team’s first Mid-American Conference title in nearly a decade.
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This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Here’s how much Michigan State will pay new AD Dan Bartholomae
Reporting by Tony Paul, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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By Tony Paul, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
