The Univ. of Kentucky "approached ESPN, not the other way around, with the idea of televising" last week's on-campus NBA scouting combine for UK men's basketball players, according to Jerry Tipton of the LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER. ESPN Senior Dir for College Sports Programming Dan Margulis said, "They were working on a special practice and asked if we were interested. And we were." Tipton wrote ESPN "found irresistible the lure of a highly regarded Kentucky team packed with nine McDonald's All-Americans and maybe even more NBA prospects." Margulis: "Obviously, it's a pretty special group at Kentucky this year. So it makes sense to do it" (LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER, 10/10). Tipton noted in addition to last week's televised scouting combine, UK "has been the subject of an All-Access show, a Feb. 15, 2012 practice on ESPNU," and six exhibition games in the Bahamas last August "to launch the SEC Network." Margulis "paused when asked if ESPN might be over-publicizing Kentucky at the expense of fairness." He said, "It's a good question. ... Perhaps it's a chicken-and-egg thing. But we're obviously going to provide even more coverage to the teams that are successful. That's just the nature of how we serve the college sports fan" (LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER, 10/12). UK basketball coach John Calipari said of the combine, "This will probably get outlawed. All you coaches that think you're going to start doing this, believe me, since I did it first, it's outlawed" (Louisville COURIER-JOURNAL, 10/11).
NICHE APPEAL: In N.Y., Richard Sandomir wrote the telecast "was not terribly exciting, except for a devoted Kentucky fan or college basketball junkie, which probably means a lot of the ESPNU audience." But it served as "a lesson in marketing, both for Kentucky and for the ESPN college sports machine." UK Associate Dir of Media Relations John Hayden said of the school's arrangement with ESPN, "There was no deal or contract, just access to our practice." Sandomir noted each of the 30 NBA teams "sent somebody" to the practice. The event represented "irresistible programming for ESPNU." The "most disappointing aspect of all, though, was the silence of the scouts" (N.Y. TIMES, 10/11).
