It did big time for a while.
My Dad took a financial hit and many friends who were just like you guys that came to work for the company lost their jobs, made it tough for some families.
We had great relationships with coaching staffs both bball and fball, as well as many past and current players.
This was all about money.
The trademark issue was obvious, we did everything we could as far as providing free use to UK, but they fought us in court and we couldnt keep up financially.
Host was paying big money to be the media firm and we were killing their awful coaches show with an ESPN like highlight and recruiting show along with 3 radio shows during the week.
It was all Mitch and Sandy Bell. We were not the first, several businesses have been attacked over the use of the word Blue, which they think they own - like Bigg Blue Martini which used to be Big until UK threatened them years ago, to today with the legal issues of a small distillery using the state name KENTUCKY - as UK says they own that too.
http://dailycaller.com/2015/10/23/u...use-it-has-decided-it-owns-the-word-kentucky/
Folks can love these admin people all they want but the tactics they used against us were awful.
Called opposing schools and said we had been banned before any official release or threat of an actual ban. So when our people arrived to cover away games they were turned away at the gate, kicked Jim Tyreee out of Rupp Area covering a game for our ESPN show.
Told Dougie Allen since his major at UK wasn't journalism he wasn't allowed to be a reporter.
Spread lies everywhere.
The big lesson we learned was that college sports is a business first, 2nd, and 3rd.
We never did anything that would harm the school, except calling out the inequities of the football support back then.
And we were designing a franchising concept with the radio/web/print model partnered with clear channel, espn, fox sports and scout publishing.
We were simply too young and naive to understand the mechanics of big time sports and how the money game worked.
We started off as a band of internet posters, just like you guys, and it took off.
The NCAA never weighed in, we tried to find exactly what rules we had broken, never given any reasoning from them as they never made a ruling, nothing except from UK:
- We were boosters - although no staff had ever contributed to UK but all fans are considered boosters we were told..
- We were internet based and that is not media.
It was a joke.
But we all grew up loving UK and eventually learned to separate the players and coaches from the administration.
Mitch and I attend the same church and kids played in same ball leagues thus the spitefulness has rescinded on my part and to him it was simply a business decision.
I have never requested a lift on the ban and I will not while he is there. The ban is on season tickets and interaction with teams.
I am in a totally different field now and still attend games. Mostly the big bball games out of state in NY or Chicago and NCAA. Or I will go to select football games - UL last year.
Started a book I titled the Bg Blue Screw but never finished, lots of steamy stuff, it was more a release for me.
Everything worked out for me personally, was able to pay my dad back what he had lost and did well for myself and my family.
Jerks like
@gobigblue812 try to throw this in my face ignorantly but just end up looking stupid.
Thanks for asking.