When did UK games start being televised?

[Estil]

Okay, we all know that major league sports on TV pretty much started as soon as TV began to catch on around 1950ish. But some sports took much longer to catch on as far as mainstream TV coverage goes...and interestingly it was the showcase events of both college basketball and NASCAR in 1979 that truly put both sports on the map so to speak.

But what about UK basketball? Of course we had Cawood Ledford for the radio version, but when did UK games start to be televised?

 

[OHIO COLONEL]

I believe UK games were televised on a delay basis back when I was there by one of the local Lex. stationgs...and that was many years ago. Game would come on after the 11p.m. news. Home games only I think.

 

[TexKat]

I remember some select games in the 60's when we had 2 tv stations in Lex. in 1966 I remember the Tenn game that we lost and of course the title game against TW.

 

[m080470]

My Dad or my grandfather said that at least since the early 60's UK would usually be the game of the week on Saturday on either WHAS or WAVE but no mid-week games until the 70's.

 

[Hangar1]

I remember UK watching UK play Duke and Texas Western in the 1966 Final Four. I was living here in Georgia at the time.

 

[the nail at the foul line]

I remember UK vs Nebraska in 1971. I am not old enough to comment before that.

 

[UKvisitor]

It used to pi$$ this fan off that a UK IU game would bump my cartoons on a Sat morn back in the lower 60's. Big 10 schools had the darkest of gyms to play BB

Local tv originated in Ind

 

[ssorg]

In the late seventy's the network game of the week was about it. In the Miami market where I lived at the time the local affiliate would usually preempt the game with Tarzan movie........talk about
being pissed.

 

[Smashcat]

I remember Joe Dean and John Ferguson doing the SEC game of the week in the 1970s.

 

[Calsarmy]

There in fact was an SEC network in the mid 60s. The announcers were John Ferguson and Joe Dean. Ferguson was the LSU play by play announcer and Dean played at LSU and was the associate AD. If you ever wanted to hear a homer call that was it. They were always on Saturday afternoons. Sometime in that time frame they began showing delayed broadcasts after 11 pm on local stations around the state.

 

[ECCOUGAR]

First game I saw was the 1958 championship game. In 1966 I saw 2 games that year, the lost to Tenn. and the lost to Texas Western. In the mid 70's they started showing delayed broadcasts usually 11 PM.

 

[UKvisitor]

String music.

 

[docholiday51]

I can remember seeing UK on Saturdays in the early 60's every once in a while. I remember seeing Ned Jennings have his best game ever at UK(I think he scored about 20)

 

[UpstateNYCat]

The taped delay had to have started no later than the early 70s. My mother worked at WKYT and I remember sitting in a room there watching the UK/UT game from MC in Joe's 1st season live while it was recorded. UK ended up winning it and the SEC Title in a hard fought game. Bunch of us went to Sir Pizza at Crossroads to celebrate afterwards.

 

[JPScott]

Although this doesn't answer the question, one thing I found interesting when researching the formation of the Southeastern Conference in the early 1930s.

This was that one of the motivations that schools had for breaking away from the Southern Conference and forming a new conference had to do with a desire for the individual schools to broadcast their games over the radio.

Point being that media has played an important role in athletics for a very long time, and probably longer than many people realize.

 

[Smashcat]

Bunch of us went to Sir Pizza at Crossroads to celebrate afterwards.

It's still there. Wonder if they have remodeled the interior in almost 50 years?

 

[Deacon Jim]

I remember some select games in the 60's when we had 2 tv stations in Lex. in 1966 I remember the Tenn game that we lost and of course the title game against TW.

I was 6 when we played Texas Western and remembered my Dad spending hours preparing to watch this game. We lived in a holler in Grant co. and tv reception was weak at best. He would turn and twist and yell and cuss and when he finished it wasn`t good. But the yelling and the cursing really heated up during the game. That was the first game I remember ever watching..After that I was hooked.

 

[funKYcat75]

Bunch of us went to Sir Pizza at Crossroads to celebrate afterwards.

It's still there. Wonder if they have remodeled the interior in almost 50 years?

The only thing that has changed is the prices.

 

[OHIO COLONEL]

It used to pi$$ this fan off that a UK IU game would bump my cartoons on a Sat morn back in the lower 60's. Big 10 schools had the darkest of gyms to play BB

Local tv originated in Ind

I kind of liked those old gyms. No lights (or they were off) for the stands and only the court was lit up. Plus a couple of the schools (can't remember who) had it where the court was above the first few rows of seats. Liked that too, but never played in such a gym. Accident waiting to happen.

Also for the younger crowd, a little off topic, but I remember watching the Houston/UCLA game from the Astrodome I believe. It was the first national prime time college b'ball telecast other than national championship game. 1968 or 69. Now of course there are how many games on a day? Bunches and bunches.

 

[Xception]

Makes me appreciate the electronic age and being able to watch every game .

 

[UpstateNYCat]

Bunch of us went to Sir Pizza at Crossroads to celebrate afterwards.

It's still there. Wonder if they have remodeled the interior in almost 50 years?

Stopped by there for pizza last year when on my to Texas for a wedding. Far from gourmet, but brought back a lot of childhood memories. I lived just down the road from it on Lansdowne. Walked to SP and Crossroads Cinema many times.

 

[Samwise Ganjee]

I remember the Runts game against TWU clearly on TV from College Park on national TV. That was 1966. And the SEC game of the week from a couple of years later ('68-69) on Saturday afternoons while eating grandma's cream candy in front of the TV in the basement

 

[musrat59]

I have no idea when they started televising UK games but I know the first game that I saw was the 1966 championship game.

 

[OHIO COLONEL]

I remember the Runts game against TWU clearly on TV from College Park on national TV. That was 1966. And the SEC game of the week from a couple of years later ('68-69) on Saturday afternoons while eating grandma's cream candy in front of the TV in the basement

Yep, me too, but I never had any of your Grandma's cream candy.

 

[Ben101er]

My Dad or my grandfather said that at least since the early 60's UK would usually be the game of the week on Saturday on either WHAS or WAVE but no mid-week games until the 70's.

I remember UK games on WHAS, in Louisville, back around 1959-60. It may have been televised earlier, but that is the earliest I remember, since I was only 7.

 

[JCTNKAT]

I remember watching the taped delay game early 70's (I graduated HS 1972). I was allowed to stay up and watch the game on Saturday nights. I also remember staying up some week nights when there was no school the next day such as when school was canceled due to snow. Some of my fondest memories, the house was all quiet, snow was falling and there was something comforting about the sausage commercials that sponsored the taped broadcast.

 

[UpstateNYCat]

Denny Trease's "swish" was music to my ears. Dad was a 101 member and Section Leader when they ushered the games, even though we had season tickets, I'd hang out down in his area and eventually took up an unoccupied seat. We'd rush home and watch the replay afterwards.

 

[Dakota25]

It looks like I'm spoiled. I'm 26 and my first game was the 97 championship and my first season was 97-98. So I have always been able to watch most the games. Now a days all the games are on tv.

 

[Bank Cat]

I remember watching most all of the games in the 1970's with Joe Dean and Tom Hammond. "And he's just a soph-o-more, Tom!" (Back when a sophomore wasn't considered a 'disappointment' because his draft stock was iffy.)

I remember those dank SEC gyms - seems like UT always beat us when Don DeVoe was their coach on that ugly tartan rubber floor at Stokely. All of Hall's teams would seemingly have a January or February slump...I could go check on JP Scott's site to see if I'm actually right but that is how I remember it as a 10 year old.

 

[westerncat]

I have no idea when they started televising UK games but I know the first game that I saw was the 1966 championship game.

This was the 1st game I remember watching. I was stationed in New Mexico and was pulling CQ that day. I think I was the only one pulling for UK that day.

 

[docholiday51]

I remember watching most all of the games in the 1970's with Joe Dean and Tom Hammond. "And he's just a soph-o-more, Tom!" (Back when a sophomore wasn't considered a 'disappointment' because his draft stock was iffy.)

I remember those dank SEC gyms - seems like UT always beat us when Don DeVoe was their coach on that ugly tartan rubber floor at Stokely. All of Hall's teams would seemingly have a January or February slump...I could go check on JP Scott's site to see if I'm actually right but that is how I remember it as a 10 year old.

Yep, we had the Jan slump just as sure the new year starting on Jan 1. Hall's team s were as good in Dec as they would be in March. If they had played the NCAAT in Dec Joe B would have had multiple national championships.

 

[UncleVre]

I really can't contribute anything regarding the tape delays or when most of the games started being broadcast. I do remember watching tape delays, I think in the '70s.
What I also remember is when the games were on the radio. Prior to the plethora of games on tv, the SEC schedule was such that the teams would only play on Saturday and Monday nights. One week UK would be at home, the next week they'd travel. They would go to Mississippi and play Ole Miss and State. Then the next week they'd be at home for two games. They'd go to Louisiana and play LSU and Tulane, which was in the conference then. Next week they'd be home; Seems like I remember Georgia Tech being in the SEC because it seems like UK would play Georgia and then Tech. Maybe it was Georgia and then Florida. Can't remember who was grouped with Ky, maybe Vandy. By grouping the games it cut down on their travel. I don't think they traveled by plane back then. Also, without the TV time outs, games lasted 1 1/2 hours unless they went to overtime. Sometimes, if there weren't a lot of fouls, which was about the only thing that stopped the clock, a 20-minute half would be played in 1/2 hour.
Anyway, I don't have the inclination, but if some one wanted to search Jon Scott's excellent website you could probably see when they stopped playing this Sat/Monday schedule. They had to end it for TV, so that's when the games started appearing on TV more. I also remember that the home games could only be telecast on the delayed basis. Live games, which were occasionally broadcast, were always away games. Does anyone else remember it that way?

 

[On-On-UK]

1776

 

[.S&C.]

Although this doesn't answer the question, one thing I found interesting when researching the formation of the Southeastern Conference in the early 1930s.

This was that one of the motivations that schools had for breaking away from the Southern Conference and forming a new conference had to do with a desire for the individual schools to broadcast their games over the radio.

Point being that media has played an important role in athletics for a very long time, and probably longer than many people realize.

Hey Jon maybe you've answered this before and I didn't see it.

1. Do you know if Jeff Sagarin still rates 96 as the greatest team of all time (NCAA)? I used to have the numbers on it but I straight up can't find it anymore.

2. Why did "Jon Scott's big blue history" or whatever get removed from the homepage years ago. Just wondering.

TIA

 

[joeky2]

For me, as I go back a ways, Cawood's calling of the game on WHAS turned a transistor radio speaker into a 70 in HD TV in my mind.

 

[slippery1]

Okay, we all know that major league sports on TV pretty much started as soon as TV began to catch on around 1950ish. But some sports took much longer to catch on as far as mainstream TV coverage goes...and interestingly it was the showcase events of both college basketball and NASCAR in 1979 that truly put both sports on the map so to speak.

But what about UK basketball? Of course we had Cawood Ledford for the radio version, but when did UK games start to be televised?

Okay, we all know that major league sports on TV pretty much started as soon as TV began to catch on around 1950ish. But some sports took much longer to catch on as far as mainstream TV coverage goes...and interestingly it was the showcase events of both college basketball and NASCAR in 1979 that truly put both sports on the map so to speak.

But what about UK basketball? Of course we had Cawood Ledford for the radio version, but when did UK games start to be televised?

 

[slippery1]

In 1949 UofK played ,I believe it was, Mississippi St. The game was televised on one of our 2 local stations WAVE or WHAS. My immediate family had no TV but my Granddad did. It was about 10 or 12 inches and the screen was round. My Dad, brother, Granddad and I watched in
total fascination as our heroes who we had never seen in person sank 2 handed 30 foot set shots right before our eyes.

 

[jr40831]

I used to listen to Cawood, and if it was a home game, a replay would be on at 11:30 PM on WKYT

 

[CloverforkCat]

My 1st rememberance was a UK-UT game televised from knoxville. UK won something like 44-38. We had an old antenna that picked up a Knoxville, Johnson City,Bristol channel and even a station from Ashville NC.
We were in SE Kentucky, about 10 minutes from the Virginia line.

 

[jr40831]

My 1st rememberance was a UK-UT game televised from knoxville. UK won something like 44-38. We had an old antenna that picked up a Knoxville, Johnson City,Bristol channel and even a station from Ashville NC.
We were in SE Kentucky, about 10 minutes from the Virginia line.

I lived about 4 miles from the VA line