LOUISVILLE, KY. (WDRB) -- It was a gracious comment, a frank comment, a comment even grounded in common sense and reality, and a soon as I heard University of Kentucky coach Joker Phillips say it, I thought it would come back to bite him.
During Southeastern Conference media days on Wednesday, Joker Phillips was asked whether the longtime perception of Kentucky as a "basketball school," particularly with its NCAA basketball title last season, is an asset or liability to football.
Now, the question itself is no-win territory for any coach. The notion that being a "basketball school" would keep the football program from winning is, at best, dubious. But Phillips tried a truthful answer.
"Everybody has things they want to sell in their program," he said. "I'm selling our basketball program, okay? I would be crazy to try to fight that. I'm trying to sell our basketball program. I think it was unbelievable advertising of our logo. Every time our basketball team went to the next round, playing in the Final Four. How many times did kids see the UK interlocking brand out there? I think that's huge. We want to hitch our wagon to our basketball program."
There's nothing wrong with that answer. It's perfectly reasonable.
The problem is this. Football in the Southeastern Conference is not a reasonable proposition.
Now, I know that no program in the SEC has anything even approaching UK's basketball tradition. But think for a moment and produce for me a coach in the league at any school who would say, "We want to hitch our wagon to (insert your noun here.)"
Unless that wagon is being hitched to a sure-fire, first-round NFL Draft pick, a big-time quarterback or a workhorse running back, I submit that you wouldn't hear it.
Rich Brooks was a great supporter of the UK basketball program. But hitching his wagon? I don't think so. He spent a lot of his time at UK trying to convince people that football was, in fact, pulling the wagon, financially speaking, and did not need to hitch to anything.
Earlier this year, speaking with Joe B. Hall and Denny Crum on their radio show, Brooks said, "We've been known as a basketball school and basketball needs to get what they get and keep getting it, but there is enough money that football brings in that needs to be invested back into the program."
A warning. It's time for some numbers.
Last year was by no means a banner year for UK football. Still, in ticket sales alone it generated $15.43 million in revenue. Men's basketball brought in $12.25 million. Football brought in another $15.37 million in NCAA and conference distributions; men's basketball brought in $5.51 million. Football generated $2.59 million in program sales, concessions, novelty sales and parking; basketball, because of agreements with outside groups, brought in $8,500 (that's not a misprint) in the same category. Football generated $1.45 million in royalties, licensing, advertisements and sponsorships; basketball 65,500.
When UK, and these are the numbers UK gave to the NCAA (and understand, UK did not separate out donations by which sport generated them, a designation that surely would've evened things up considerably), put on the line total operating revenue from each sport, the score was football $34,02 million, men's basketball $18.56 million.
Then consider that the men's basketball head coach made more ($4,878,722) than the entire football coaching staff combined ($4,769,345). Overall operating expenses: Football $14.35 million. Basketball $12.35 million.
So without making any judgement on the prioritization of spending, those are the basic numbers. I have elsewhere praised UK athletic director Mitch Barnhart for his exemplary handling of UK's overall financial game plan, and the responsibility with which the department operates.
But I can just as surely say this. Nobody else in the SEC, except for perhaps Vanderbilt, has a balance sheet even remotely reflecting those percentages.
In June, UK football players took reporters on a tour around the $158,000 worth of remodeling done in the Nutter Training Facility, where the football players spend much of their offseason lives and which is their home base during the season.
Meanwhile, down the road at Rupp Arena, they were commencing a renovation of the men's basketball locker rooms that will cost nearly $3 million, $2.5 million of which hoops coach John Calipari raised privately. They're putting in offices and a team lounge for a locker room the basketball team might use 30 or 40 times a year, depending on how often they get to practice at Rupp and not in the $30 million Joe Craft Center.
Basketball, and more specifically its coach, raised that money. That locker room took nothing away from UK football.
I guess the point is, if you hitch the wagon to basketball, it isn't really going to throw any meaningful cash back your way. What UK needs is to find someone with the same ability to motivate the fan base financially, whether it be Phillips or someone else.
It's no coincidence that from the print media podium, before Phillips stepped up to it, the word "basketball" was uttered only one time, by South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier while discussing the college football postseason. And his message was, and I paraphrase, that when it comes to underdogs, college football is not basketball.
No, it certainly isn't.
Having an outstanding basketball program is no hindrance to Kentucky football. Not at all. Phillips is absolutely right. It's also not the asset it's sometimes made out to be, no matter how much help Calipari gives (and he is generous, and it is a good thing for him to do).
But in the end, SEC football programs really don't need to be hitched to anything. You saw it when UK made its big run several years back, when College GameDay came to campus and the Wildcats were in the thick of the conference race. Particularly when it is rolling, but even when it isn't, UK football pulls its own weight.
There are a great many of its fans, however, who would like to see it throw more of its weight around.
Copyright 2012 WDRB News. All Rights Reserved.
