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UK Sports

S

spindoctor1

Folks,
With the new coach at UK... does anyone think that selling football will be
easier this year?
I ask because I had an incredibly difficult time getting ANY business in my
area to sponsor a single game, whereas in years past the locals killed themselves
to sign up. It was so bad that we had to drop footbal and bball altogether.
Just curious
 
75 views and I am replying to my OWN post?
That's just sad!
I thought there were real radio people in Kentucky....
was I misled?
Not even one out of 75 could go off a hunch.
I guess if it's not Lexington or Louisville radio doesn't much
matter on this board, right?
 
OK Spindoctor, here's some observations from Western KY...

Bristol Broadcasting continues to dominate the Paducah/Murray region with country 93.3 WKYQ, Top 40 Electric 96-9, and NewsTalk 94.3 WKYX. Withers Broadcasting(106.7 WZZL and 105-5 the CAT) and Forever
Broadcasting(Froggy 103.7) are the other players in the region, but don't have the signal coverage or air talent that BBC has.

As far as Owensboro, maybe RadioRob can fill us in. Anybody from Bowling Green is welcome to throw in their two cents worth.
 
Some observations. Would be interested in others thoughts

1) Radio consolidation has hurt play by play sports...decision sbeing made in corporate offices outside of the local area, and a demand to be paid for air time.

2) Station snot wanting to break format

3) Advertisers looking for an immediate return on their investment

4) Most games on TV

5) Radio not developing a new generation of radio listeners

6) Rights fees being charged to local stations, and even post season rights fees

Armed Forces Radio dropped all play by play sports last year...times are changing with play by play sports
 
Time for me to reply to my own post.. ;D

BBC hasn't had any problems selling sponsorships for UK football and basketball. One of their stations carries U of L and they sell it out, too. Far Western Kentucky is full of rabid UK fans of both football and basketball. So selling it in WKY is no problem.
 
To the few posters that brought logical thought to the board I thank you.
I have been battling the thought of trying to put UK FB back on after what can only be described as a horrid season last year (and I am NOT referring to the way the game was played). We lost our butts and I want to make sure it does not happen again.
Thank you again folks.
 
Greetings from the home of BBQ and Bluegrass!

Owensboro has a weird situation in regards to selling UK. The Owensboro UK affiliate is technically WOMI and has been for years. However, WKTG-FM Madisonville puts a city grade over Daviess County and runs UK. Then to water down the sales potential of UK even further WOMI's sister station WBKR runs UK basketball play by play only (I have no idea how they pulled that off) and sells availas separately. The sales potential was split up further ten years ago when 97X (WXCM), with the blessing of WOMI/WBKR's GM no less, had UK coverage for a couple of seasons. Plus WSON Henderson is a UK affiliate and has a usable signal over most of Daviess County.

WKTG does well selling UK. WSON Henderson has no problem as Henry Lackey keeps the station alive with sports. As I understand a sponsor buys into a yearly package and receives availas in sports programming like UK, St Louis Cardinals, Henderson County Sports, Tennessee Titans and anything else sports related.

UK on WOMI is there for decorative purposes since the frequency has been, with very few exceptions in programming, a throw away since the early eighties (That rumbling ain't the New Madrid fault it's Hugh and Cliffordean Potter rolling in their graves!). Before arriving in Owensboro and WVJS, I worked part time for Host and WVLK. After arriving the folks from Host inquired on occasion if I thought they would be interested in UK, since at the time WVJS was a radio station and not something that just occupies bandwidth like it does today.(Earthquake? No, just Malcolm Greep and Ray Wettstain rolling in their graves!) However, at the time WVJS had a deep relationship with Kentucky Wesleyan College and wasn't interested. KWC, like UK, has an okay football program but a championship basketball program. Speaking of which, a plug to longtime voice of the Basketball Panthers Joel Utley who has called games for Wesleyan since the 1960's.


Everything that NDBA90 said is true regarding the big picture of sports on radio and radio in general.
 
UK isn't carried anywhere else in our area, so far as I know, and yet we still cannot sell it. We lost a ton of money on Football last year and cancelled our affiliation the week before basketball started, because we couldn't find a single sponsor. Compare that to high school, where we stay sold-out. In fact, last year, Spindoctor fussed at me because we were selling "too many" ads during high school football and we didn't have room for them all.

From my perspective as an owner, here are the issues I see:

1. Despite the listeners asking for UK sports, we simply cannot sell it. When we pitch UK, the advertisers virtually always say "no, but we'll run some ads during something else".

2. The rights fees cost a hudred bucks a game for football and $150 for basketball. That isn't a whole lot of money in Lexington, Bowling Green or Louisville, but here in the smaller markets, it's a huge deal. That means we have to work hard and get quite a few sponsors before we even break even.

3. Even more annoying than the rights fees is the amount of time demanded by Host Communications. The pregame starts two days before the game, and post-game lasts for a week. I jest, but in all reality, a "game" including post- and pre-game ends up being a five-hour event, at least. In addition to gameday, we are also required to clear the coach's show and Cats Pause, which takes even more of our regular programming time. I just feel like during football and basketball season, we are "all UK, all the time", and this severely annoys our listeners who are not sports fans. However, we have no choice except to run all this extra "crap", as I call it, just to get the play by play. This makes me very uninclined to even bother with UK sports, even if we COULD sell it.


I think, to coin an old country saying, Host has gotten "too big for their britches". They seemingly do not care about those of us in small towns, and until they show a willingness to work with us and make the produce one we and our listeners can embrace and make money on, we just aren't interested.

Did I sum up our situation well enough, Spindoctor?
 
thebroker said:
I think, to coin an old country saying, Host has gotten "too big for their britches". They seemingly do not care about those of us in small towns, and until they show a willingness to work with us and make the produce one we and our listeners can embrace and make money on, we just aren't interested.
Click to expand...

Have you guys looked into U of L? I have a client down your way who looked at reaffiliating with UK. Like you said, rights fees, clearance, cost of a new Starguide, yada, yada, yada. He turned it down. However Louisville is offering theirs on a strict barter basis. Plus, Louisville teams are playing better than UK right now.
 
kyscott wrote...

"Have you guys looked into U of L? I have a client down your way who looked at reaffiliating with UK. Like you said, rights fees, clearance, cost of a new Starguide, yada, yada, yada. He turned it down. However Louisville is offering theirs on a strict barter basis. Plus, Louisville teams are playing better than UK right now.

BBC in Paducah carries U of L on WKYX and it's very successful.
 
Now there's a great idea I hadn't considered...does anybody know who we need to contact for U of L? Thanks for the idea guys...I'll keep you all posted as to what we decide.
 
thebroker said:
Now there's a great idea I hadn't considered...does anybody know who we need to contact for U of L? Thanks for the idea guys...I'll keep you all posted as to what we decide.
Click to expand...

You can call the Clear Channel offices in Louisville and they will direct you to the right person. Clear Channel produces the broadcasts.

Go Cards!
 
Things are probably going to get harder for stations wanting to carry UK in the next few years, as the SEC has publicly expressed a great deal of interest in starting their own TV network. The Big Ten launches their network August 30.
 
I'm still trying to understand the original question. Why would having a new basketball coach at UK be of any help in selling UK football?
 
Great question!

Last year was an especially difficult year selling UK football because sponsors would pull their ads when the team lost a game. (Same goes for Bball) Personally I thought it was ridiculous.
A new coach would give some confidence I would think, whether FB OR BB.
maybe?
 
spindoctor1 said:
Last year was an especially difficult year selling UK football because sponsors would pull their ads when the team lost a game. (Same goes for Bball) Personally I thought it was ridiculous.
Click to expand...

Clients who pulled their spots after a loss do not understand how it works. Loyal fans, the type they want for their business, don't abandon a team after one loss.
 
spindoctor1 said:
Apparently Southeast Kentucky hasn't discovered your logical train of thought.
Click to expand...

This is ironic after all I have heard is how "loyal" UK fans are. Well, advertising clients don't seem to think so.
 
And the thing that baffles me the most is that anywhere you go in Kentucky, you see UK license tags, bumper stickers, tshirts and everything else. Around here, just about everybody professes to be a UK fan. However, the advertisers just don't see the benefit in advertising during the games.

We never have a problem selling ads, so it isn't as if we are in a "down" advertising market in general. In fact just about the only time we get a flat "no" when we call on clients is when we talk about UK.

It's not exactly what I'd expect.
 
I remember hearing UK basketball on the Corbin (107.3) station a couple of years ago when I was down that way. Is that still the case and is it a factor in your (Broker/Spindoctor)'s area?
 
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