The Kentucky-Louisville football game will be broadcast on both ESPN Classic and on free, over-the-air TV in the Louisville and Lexington markets only. The outlying parts of Kentucky, long considered UK strongholds, aren't likely to be throwing any parades for The Oregon Boys, Mitch and Rich. In its traditional slot as the season opener, the UK-U of L football game had been broadcast live on either ESPN or ESPN2 for five straight seasons.
Moved to the third week for 2007 by Kentucky Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart and football coach Rich Brooks, our state's biggest football rivalry lost its spot on the most-watched (and most-accessible) ESPN channels. The television situation we're left with leaves definite winners and losers inside the state of Kentucky as it regards who will get to see the most anticipated UK-U of L matchup since the days of Couch and Redman. Clear winners are the people inside the Louisville and Lexington markets who do not have cable TV but will get to see the Cats vs.
On paper, the big loser appears to be the far Western Kentucky city of Paducah, where the cable franchise (Comcast) does not offer ESPN Classic on either its standard or digital package. Unless ESPN can be persuaded to allow the game to be carried on a Paducah local-access channel, one of our state's more football-inclined towns will have very limited access (via people with satellite dishes) to UK-U of L. For other highly populated areas that are outside the viewing areas of Lexington and Louisville free TV, the situation is better -- but not as good as it was the five previous years.
In Bowling Green, Hopkinsville, Owensboro and the big three Northern Kentucky counties of Boone, Campbell and Kenton, the local cable companies do not offer ESPN Classic on their standard packages, but do have it available to digital subscribers. How many people is that? Bear with me and we'll get to an educated guess.
Insight Communications is the cable franchisee in the Northern Kentucky counties as well as Bowling Green (and Lexington and Louisville). John Dobken, an Insight spokesman, says it is company policy not to reveal on a market-by-market basis how many subscribers have digital cable and how many have the standard package. However, company-wide over markets in four states, Dobken says roughly 51 percent of Insight customers have digital cable.
(Dobken says that customers in Insight cities can add a digital box with a package that includes ESPN Classic for an additional $17 a month.) So we're left to surmise. To the extent that the 51 percent digital-use number reflects the reality in individual Kentucky markets, it would suggest that the UK-U of L game will be available in 2007 to about half of the households in a Northern Kentucky or a Bowling Green as in the five previous seasons.
Which is why many Kentuckians outside the reach of Lexington and Louisville free TV have every right to feel ill-served by The Oregon Boys. On Sunday, it will be exactly five years since Mitch Barnhart was introduced as the Kentucky athletics director, vowing at the time that UK would "fight to control this state." Deep down, Barnhart wishes he'd never set that standard of evaluation for himself.
Since he did, here is how Barnhart's most visible coaching hires have fared head-to-head against UK's principal in-state rival, the University of Louisville. Rich Brooks (football) is 0-4. Mickie DeMoss (women's basketball) was 1-3.
Only John Cohen (baseball) has walked Barnhart's talk, going 6-2 against Louisville. Looking ahead, Billy Gillispie (men's basketball) inherits a three-game winning streak against U of L from Tubby Smith. But this coming season will see the new UK coach facing the most talented roster Rick Pitino has fielded at Louisville.
Tim Couch has not played in an NFL regular-season game since 2003. The Kentucky-Louisville football game will be broadcast on both ESPN Classic and on free, over-the-air TV in the Louisville and Lexington markets only.
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