Big Blue Nation Again on Display in Nashville
Posted by David Changas on March 14th, 2015Jennifer Hay took the 240-mile drive from her hometown of Brookville, Kentucky, to be in Nashville for this week’s SEC Tournament. She spent $200 on upper level seats for Saturday’s semifinal matchup against a woefully undermanned Auburn team. If she is willing to spend that kind of money for a game the Wildcats had virtually no chance of losing, she sure wouldn’t balk at going a bit higher for a ticket to Sunday’s championship game. “I’d go to $350 for that,” she said outside Bridgestone Arena before Kentucky’s 91-67 annihilation of the SEC Tournament’s Cinderella. When asked why she would spend so much of her resources on the prelude to the main event, the NCAA Tournament, she was quick with a response. “Oh, we’ll go to that, too.” Hay’s story is no different than that of most diehard Big Blue fans. They will do anything and everything it takes to see their beloved Wildcats play. And while it might be easier for them to pinch pennies elsewhere to make sure it happens as the Wildcats march toward history, they’d be here even if their team wasn’t headed to the NCAA Tournament as a prohibitive favorite. They proved that fact two years ago when they took over Music City to watch an NIT team lose its quarterfinal game to Vanderbilt.
Kentucky Fans Have Filled Bridgestone Arena As Usual (USA Today Images)
This week, though, is a little different than most years, even by the high standards of Kentucky fans. Tickets are harder to come by, as evidenced by the many empty-handed scalpers standing outside the arena 30 minutes before tipoff. Benny Paige, a Memphian who works for the broker Ticket Resource, said that there was very little to come by and he wasn’t even willing to stick around to see what kind of business he could do in advance of Sunday’s final. “Kentucky fans buy [the tickets] up at $250, so you can’t make enough money on that,” Paige said. According to StubHub.com, a pair of premium lower-level tickets for the championship game was selling for as much as $466 apiece as of Saturday afternoon. That game, in which the Wildcats will take on a team destined for the NCAA Tournament, figures to be far more competitive than today’s semifinal against the Tigers, whose presence may have led to the cost of admission being a bit lower than normal. Still, it’s clear that Wildcats fans will spend generously even for a game that their team is going to handily win and will not impact their position as the #1 overall seed in the upcoming Big Dance.
In that way, Kentucky basketball fans are the exception to the SEC rule. It’s a league that often endures ridicule for perceived apathy at places like Alabama, Georgia, and, prior to its hiring of Pearl, Auburn. Throughout the week, and even before took the team took the court for the first time in Friday afternoon’s opener, there was more blue in Bridgestone Arena than any other color. While Arkansas, Tennessee and Vanderbilt, and to a slightly lesser extent, Ole Miss, have drawn good crowds for their games, nothing compares with the blue mist of Big Blue Nation. The Wildcats’ popularity leads to a media following that is more than three times greater than the contingent for any other SEC school. In a league in which the three most popular sports often are – somewhat humorously – thought to be football, football recruiting, and spring practice, Kentucky is the renegade. Yes, football matters too in the Commonwealth, but for most, its arrival is little more than a sign that basketball is just around the corner.
Much is made of Kentucky head coach John Calipari’s ability to attract so many outstanding players to Lexington. And given that he has performed that feat better than anyone who has preceded him, nothing should be taken away from his recruiting prowess. Calipari knows that it doesn’t hurt to sell recruits on playing in front of the masses, even when they’re away from Rupp Arena. And it not easy for teams that have to face Kentucky in these “neutral” site games. Auburn fans accounted for a minuscule percentage of Saturday’s semifinal crowd, and to their players, this was no different than a trip to Rupp Arena. “It was pretty much a home game for them,” Auburn senior KT Harrell said.
Kentucky superfan Ashley Judd was in attendance Saturday (politico.com)
Kentucky basketball is a phenomenon like no other, not only in the SEC but nationally. Sure, college basketball has several other blueblood programs, and fans from places like North Carolina, Indiana and Kansas might argue that the Wildcats are no more prominent than those of the Tar Heels, Hoosiers or Jayhawks. Perhaps some of the perception is because of the way the Wildcats have dominated the SEC without the foil of consistent intra-conference competition; but anyone who has been around the program for any extended amount of time knows that Big Blue Nation is something different. Calling it “a way of life” may sound cliched, but for Kentucky basketball, it is an entirely appropriate description.
