Sports in Kentucky

Despite a recent surge in the quality of the University of Louisville football team, and all UofL sports during the "year of the cardinal" or "Louisville slam", college basketball remains the sport of choice in most of Kentucky. Western Kentucky University's men's basketball program is one of the ten most winning in the history of the NCAA, and has one Final Four appearance (1971). Murray State University is a perennial threat to win the Ohio Valley Conference and appear in the NCAA Tournament, having done so 13 times. However, the question in Kentucky college athletics is most often "Red or Blue?" referring to the primary colors of its two flagship universities – the University of Kentucky (blue) and the University of Louisville (red).

In recent years, the Louisville Cardinals have further proven themselves, not only as one of the state's best organized college athletic programs, but elite on the national stage. The University of Louisville Cardinals are consistently the most profitable college sports franchise in the nation, ranking first in Kentucky with a basketball revenue of $42,434,684 during the 2012 fiscal year. Kentucky came in at 5th on the list making $21,598,681.^[2] The Cardinals' program has been deemed to have the most equitable fanbase of any school in the country, according to a study conducted by Emory Sports Marketing Analytics.^[3] The University of Kentucky is ranked 7th on the list.

The rivalry between the North Carolina Tar Heels and the Duke Blue Devils is perhaps the only in-state basketball rivalry that compares on a national scale to the rivalry between the Kentucky Wildcats and Louisville Cardinals.

A 2006 Lexington Herald-Leader article stated that interest in UofL sports is surging across the state of Kentucky, especially in Hopkinsville and Owensboro.^[4] An October 21, 2006 Louisville Courier-Journal article also stated that the total sales of UofL merchandise has tripled since 2001 and that the school now ranks 32nd nationally in sales, up from 41st in 2001. UofL ranks 2nd in the Big East Conference and the 3rd highest among all urban universities (to Southern California and Miami) in merchandise sales. UK's merchandise sales have steadily remained around 14th in the nation, by far the best in the state. UofL now has more registered collegiate license plates than the University of Kentucky (18,300 to 17,000); a fourfold increase since 2004. In 1995 UK had a 15,000 plate lead on UofL.^[5] It is also important to note that in the last few years the Louisville Cardinals have been the most profitable college sports franchise in the nation and have been deemed to have the most equitable fanbase of any school in the country according to a few studies.

Fuel was added to the fire of this rivalry when Rick Pitino, the UK coach who led the Wildcats to their 1996 National Title before leaving to become coach of the NBA's Boston Celtics, returned to the Bluegrass State to coach the Cardinals in 2001. Many in the state compared the move to the treachery of Benedict Arnold. The situation was exacerbated by the transfer of underachieving Wildcat power forward/center Marvin Stone. Stone's best season with the Cats was his sophomore season, when the former McDonald's All-American averaged 6.0 points and 4.6 rebounds per game.^[6] Under Pitino, however, Stone averaged 10.7 points and 7.3 rebounds for the Cards, including a 16-point, 7-rebound, 2-block performance against the Wildcats in an 81–63 Louisville win on December 28.^[7]

Basketball is the iconic sport in Kentucky today. However, the first organized team on campus is the women's basketball team. Because after the establishment of the sports department, girls often carry out sports activities in response, and female physical educators also take action quickly. Provide professional assistance to any student run sports club. In the past, the relationship between basketball and the Department of physical education was very bad. Florence Stout, director of women's physical education, tried to make this sport a very limited part of her whole teaching plan. There has been no similar project for female students for nearly 20 years. It was not until the end of 1901 that the school council voted to establish a sports department with both men and women.

The origin of basketball is very humble. It took almost 20 years to establish itself as a viable sport and the main element of school.^[8] Basketball was invented in 1891. Its origin is similar to college football. Charles Eliota repeatedly called for the end of football and basketball when he was president of Harvard. And football, like basketball, is short of resources and often can't buy the necessary equipment. The famous coach Adolph Rupp held many positions in the university before basketball was slowly proved. It was many years later that the sports department let him focus on basketball training.^[8] Gradually, the basketball team developed from a trivial sport to a strong passion.

The modern series, which began in 1983, was started with a win by the Louisville Cardinals. However, in recent years the Kentucky Wildcats have dominated the series, winning 5 of the last 7 meetings. At least three college coaching legends have been associated with programs in the state of Kentucky: Adolph Rupp (UK), Denny Crum (UofL), and Rick Pitino (both UK and UofL). Also, several successful NBA players played in the state, including Pat Riley, Wes Unseld, and Dan Issel. Only the UCLA Bruins have won more NCAA championships than the Kentucky Wildcats, with the Wildcats ranking first in almost every other significant measure of a successful program. In addition to UK and UofL, the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers are also a historically successful basketball program.

In 2011, the University of Pikeville won the NAIA Men's Basketball National Championship, followed only days later by Bellarmine University, who won the 2011 NCAA Men's Basketball Division II National Championship in Springfield, Massachusetts. Both teams began their 2011–2012 seasons ranked #1 in the nation in their respective leagues. Bellarmine has since moved its athletic program to Division I, joining the ASUN Conference in 2020.

Team	Kentucky Wildcats	Louisville Cardinals	Western Kentucky Hilltoppers
All-time win–loss record (rank)	2,021-637 (1st)	1,726-874 (12th)	1,622–720 (14th)
All-time winning percentage (rank)	76.0% (1st)	66.1% (8th)	66.5% (7th)
NCAA Tourney appearances	55 (1st)	41 (5th)	21
NCAA Tourney wins (rank)	121 (1st)	75 (6th)	18
NCAA Final Fours	17 (T-2nd)	10 (T-5th)	1
NCAA titles	8 (2nd)	3 (6th)	0

The impressive history of college basketball in Kentucky has been punctuated by a few notable eras of dominance by the two flagship schools.

Under Adolph Rupp, the Kentucky Wildcats were the most dominant team in the early history of the NCAA Tournament. From 1942 to 1958 the Wildcats won four NCAA titles (1948, 1949, 1951, 1958). They also won the 1942 National Invitation Tournament.

The Louisville Cardinals were dubbed "The Team of the 1980s", winning two national titles during that decade (1980 and 1986). (Only the Indiana Hoosiers equaled this number during the 1980s.) Under coach Denny Crum, UofL was the only team to go to four Final Fours during the decade, and had more wins than any other team over that span. Darrell Griffith won the John Wooden Award in 1980 and in 1986 "Never Nervous" Pervis Ellison became the first freshman to ever be named NCAA Final Four MVP, a feat equaled only by Syracuse's Carmelo Anthony.

The Kentucky Wildcats were the most dominant team of the 1990s, winning two national titles (1996 and 1998), with three straight trips to the NCAA Championship game and four total trips to the Final Four. UK's 1996 National Championship team is considered to be the best NCAA team of all time, as evidenced by the nine players on the roster who played in the NBA.^[9]

Apartheid also existed in sports for a long time. From the first season in 1930 to his retirement in 1972, Adolph Rupp signed only one black player throughout his career in Kentucky. It was not until the 1960s that African American athletes began to be recruited in most regions. Even in the south, where apartheid lasted longer, schools such as Louisville signed their first black players in the early 1960s.

College football started late in Kentucky. Sports historian Ronald Smith pointed out that as early as the 1850s, football originated from the bullying and entrance ceremony of Freshmen in some schools in the eastern United States.^[10] Teachers at universities such as Harvard and Yale were so shocked that they voted to ban the ceremony. The sport was born in the late 19th century. In 1924, the University of Kentucky's school newspaper, the Kentucky Kernel, reported that a group of students from the University of Transylvania had football they had seen for the first time in the blue grass area. In 1880, with the efforts of this group of college students, they ordered a football and a rule book and organized an internal game. And in the following ten years, people knew little about these competitions, and sports "had no special management". The first student sports association was established in 1892. Although the team ushered in the first winning season in 1893, it was plagued by various financial problems in the following decades. In the same year, the school council was disturbed by the informal status of sports on the university playground and the violence of football. Raised objections to the existence of the team. In 1900, it was the only team to beat the powerful Louisville sports club. But with success, more and more accusations came out of thin air that a team in Lexington hired professional players to play at festivals. Then, in view of these dark statements, football became a valuable symbol of masculinity in America's best universities. As Buck became president, the uncertain status of college sports has changed. He said that football is a symbol of good qualities such as courage and perseverance.

For all their success in basketball, the Kentucky Wildcats have been unable to remain consistently competitive in football. The last two Kentucky football seasons have resulted in an embarrassing 2–10 record. Playing in the brutally competitive Southeastern Conference, the Wildcats won an SEC title in 1950 under legendary coach Paul "Bear" Bryant and shared SEC titles in 1976 and 1977 under Fran Curci. Bryant left the school in 1953; some attribute the move to a conclusion that the football program's popularity would always remain a distant second to the basketball program, at that time coached by Adolph Rupp, a legend in his own right.

UofL hired legendary coach Howard Schnellenberger in 1984. The team has continued to rise under coaches John L. Smith, Bobby Petrino, and Charlie Strong. On November 2, 2006, the 5th-ranked UofL football team defeated the 3rd-ranked West Virginia Mountaineers in what was dubbed "The Dream Game", the second time in Big East history that two top-5 teams had ever met. The game was ranked as the most-viewed ESPN Thursday night football game ever.^[11] The game marked a new high in a program that had been on the rise for several years.

Only one week later the Cardinals were defeated by a third undefeated Big East team, the upstart and 15th-ranked Rutgers Scarlet Knights, in what was billed as the biggest college football game in the New York City Metro Area in 60 years; with the Empire State Building even being lit with the Rutgers team colors. The game was also one of the highest rated ESPN Thursday Night games ever as a record crowd in Piscataway, New Jersey stormed the field in celebration. The loss ended the Cardinals' national title hopes, but the team did receive a bid to the FedEx Orange Bowl. On January 2 the Cardinals defeated Wake Forest 24–13^[12] in the Orange Bowl to claim the team's first BCS Bowl win.

More recently, the state has been at the forefront of coaching integration in Division I FBS football. Following the 2009 season, all three of the state's FBS programs filled their coaching vacancies with African Americans. The first to do so was Western Kentucky, who hired Willie Taggart to replace the fired David Elson. Louisville followed suit by hiring Charlie Strong to replace the fired Steve Kragthorpe. Finally, Joker Phillips, who had been the designated successor to Rich Brooks at Kentucky, took over after the latter announced his retirement. The first African American head coach at any of the Division I football programs in Kentucky was Ron Cooper, who coached at Louisville between 1995 and 1997.

The Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) Eastern Kentucky Colonels have held a long tradition of football success. Until the 2009–2010 season, the Colonels were tied with Florida State University for the most consecutive winning seasons (32). In that season, EKU finished 5–6. Eastern returned to the FCS Playoffs in the 2011 season, in which it lost to #17 James Madison 20–17 in the opening round. The Colonels have won 20 Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) titles and two FCS (formerly I-AA) National Championships, in 1979 and 1982. Much of Eastern Kentucky's success came during the long tenure of head coach Roy Kidd, who led the team from 1964 through 2002. The program has continued its success under more recent coaches Danny Hope and Dean Hood.

In 2022, sprint football, a variant played under standard NCAA football rules but with a strictly enforced weight limit of 178 pounds (81 kg) (also with a minimum of 5% body fat), came to Kentucky with the establishment of the Midwest Sprint Football League. Two of the six charter MSFL members are the Bellarmine Knights and Midway Eagles.

School	Nickname	Conference
Alice Lloyd College	Eagles	River States Conference
Brescia University	Bearcats	River States Conference
Campbellsville University	Tigers	Mid-South Conference
University of the Cumberlands	Patriots	Mid-South Conference
Georgetown College	Tigers	Mid-South Conference
Lindsey Wilson College	Blue Raiders	Mid-South Conference
Midway University	Eagles	River States Conference
University of Pikeville	Bears	Mid-South Conference
Union Commonwealth University	Bulldogs	Mid-South Conference

School	Nickname	Division
Elizabethtown Community and Technical College	Barons	III
Simmons College of Kentucky	Panthers	I

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (November 2019)

Venues with a minimum capacity of 5,000 are listed here.

Venue	City	Capacity	Type	Tenant(s)	Opened
Kentucky Speedway	Sparta	86,000	Motorsports	No races; previously Quaker State 400	1998
Kroger Field	Lexington	61,000	Football	Kentucky Wildcats	1973
L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium	Louisville	60,800	Football	Louisville Cardinals	1998
Churchill Downs	Louisville	50,000	Horse Racing	Multiple races, most notably Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks	1875[a]
Houchens Industries–L. T. Smith Stadium	Bowling Green	22,113	Football	Western Kentucky Hilltoppers	1968
KFC Yum! Center	Louisville	22,090	Basketball	Louisville Cardinals	2010
Rupp Arena	Lexington	20,545	Basketball	Kentucky Wildcats	1976
Roy Kidd Stadium	Richmond	20,000	Football	Eastern Kentucky Colonels	1969
Freedom Hall	Louisville	18,252	Multi-purpose	No current team; previously Louisville Cardinals and Bellarmine Knights basketball	1956
Roy Stewart Stadium	Murray	16,800	Football	Murray State Racers	1973
Louisville Slugger Field	Louisville	13,131	Baseball	Louisville Bats	2000
Lynn Family Stadium	Louisville	11,700[b]	Soccer	Louisville City FC, Racing Louisville FC	2020
Manual Memorial Stadium	Louisville	11,463[51]	Football (high school)	Manual Crimsons	1954[c]
Jayne Stadium	Morehead	10,000	Football, soccer	Morehead State Eagles	1964
Truist Arena	Highland Heights	9,400	Basketball	Northern Kentucky Norse	2008
CFSB Center	Murray	8,825	Basketball	Murray State Racers	1998
Keeneland	Lexington	8,799	Horse Racing	Multiple races	1936
Memorial Stadium–McRight Field	Paducah	8,500[52]	Football (high school)	Paducah Tilghman Blue Tornado	1956
T. T. Knight Stadium	Louisville	8,500[53]	Football (high school)	Southern Trojans
Maxwell Field	Louisville	8,000[54]	Football (high school)	Male Bulldogs
Lexington SC Stadium	Lexington	7,500	Soccer	Lexington SC (men and women)	2024
Reid Stadium	Owensboro	7,500[55]	Football (high school)	Daviess County Panthers	2019
E. A. Diddle Arena	Bowling Green	7,326	Basketball	Western Kentucky Hilltoppers and Lady Toppers	1963
Clark Field	Somerset	7,000[56]	Football (high school)	Somerset Briar Jumpers
Legends Field	Lexington	6,994[d]	Baseball	Lexington Legends, Wild Health Genomes (2022 only)	2001
Broadbent Arena	Louisville	6,600	Multi-purpose		1956
Baptist Health Arena	Richmond	6,500	Basketball	Eastern Kentucky Colonels	1963
Eastern Field	Middletown[e]	6,500[57]	Football (high school)	Eastern Eagles
Ellis Johnson Arena	Morehead	6,500	Basketball	Morehead State Eagles	1981
Memorial Coliseum	Lexington	6,500	Basketball	Kentucky Wildcats	1950
Brother Thomas More Page Stadium	Louisville	6,200[58][59]	Football	St. Xavier Tigers (high school), Bellarmine Knights sprint football	2007
Harrison County Athletic Complex	Cynthiana	6,000[60]	Football (high school)	Harrison County Thorobreds
Louisville Gardens	Louisville	6,000	Multi-purpose		1905
Reed Conder Memorial Gymnasium	Draffenville[f]	6,000[61]	Basketball (high school)	Marshall County Marshals
Viking Stadium	Morehead	6,000[62]	Football (high school)	Rowan County Vikings
Appalachian Wireless Arena	Pikeville	5,700[g]	Basketball	Pikeville Bears	2005
Alltech Arena	Lexington	5,517	Equestrianism		2009
El Donaldson Stadium	Bowling Green	5,500[63]	Football (high school)	Bowling Green Purples
Putnam Stadium	Ashland	5,500[64]	Football (high school)	Ashland Tomcats
Racer Arena	Murray	5,500	Volleyball[h]	Murray State Racers	1954
Shawnee Alumni Stadium	Louisville	5,500[65]	Football (high school)	Shawnee Golden Eagles
Mason County Fieldhouse	Maysville	5,400[66]	Basketball (high school)	Mason County Royals
Roy L. Winchester Gymnasium	New Castle	5,400[67]	Basketball (high school)	Henry County Wildcats
Dr. Mark & Cindy Lynn Stadium	Louisville	5,300	Soccer	Louisville Cardinals	2014
Eagles' Nest	Mayfield	5,200[68]	Basketball (high school)	Graves County Eagles
Alumni Field	Frankfort	5,000	Football	Kentucky State Thorobreds
Badgett Athletic Complex	Madisonville	5,000[69]	Football (high school)	Madisonville–North Hopkins Maroons
Baker Field	Morganfield	5,000[70]	Football (high school)	Union County Braves
Boyd County Middle School Gymnasium	Summit[i]	5,000[71]	Basketball (high school)	Boyd County Lions (HS)
Bradner Stadium	Middlesboro	5,000[72]	Football (high school)	Middlesboro Yellowjackets
Colonel Stadium	Henderson	5,000[73]	Football (high school)	Henderson County Colonels
Cunningham Stadium	Mount Sterling	5,000[74]	Football (high school)	Montgomery County Indians
Davis Memorial Stadium	Rosspoint[j]	5,000[75]	Football (high school)	Harlan County Black Bears
Dr. Robert J. Bell Stadium	Lexington	5,000[76]	Football (high school)	Henry Clay Blue Devils
Fryar Stadium	Fort Campbell[k]	5,000[77]	Football (high school)	Fort Campbell Falcons[l]
Henry R. Evans/Ivan McGlone Stadium	Flatwoods[m]	5,000[78]	Football (high school)	Russell Red Devils
Jack D. Rose Stadium	Murray	5,000[79]	Football (high school)	Calloway County Lakers
Jon R. Akers Stadium	Lexington	5,000[80]	Football (high school)	Paul Laurence Dunbar Bulldogs
Lions Stadium	Cannonsburg[n]	5,000[71]	Football (high school)	Boyd County Lions
Morton Combs Athletic Complex	Hindman	5,000[81]	Basketball (high school)	Knott County Central Patriots
Owensboro Sportscenter	Owensboro	5,000	Basketball	Kentucky Wesleyan Panthers, Owensboro Thoroughbreds, Owensboro Catholic Aces (HS)	1949
Pat Crawford Stadium	Louisville	5,000[82]	Football (high school)	Ballard Bruins
Pike Central Stadium	Pikeville[o]	5,000[83]	Football (high school)	Pike County Central Hawks
Preston Young Complex	Louisville	5,000[84]	Football (high school)	Western Warriors
Pulaski County High School Gym	Somerset	5,000[85]	Basketball (high school)	Pulaski County Maroons
Stadium of Champions	Hopkinsville	5,000[86][p]	Football (high school)	Christian County Colonels, Hopkinsville Tigers[87]
Toyota Stadium	Georgetown	5,000	Football	Georgetown Tigers, Lexington SC	1997
War Memorial Stadium	Mayfield	5,000[88]	Football (high school)	Mayfield Cardinals

• Sports in Louisville, Kentucky