Kentucky Sports Radio

It is fitting that the sports media empire that is KSR was born in a basement. The brainchild of Matt Jones and Rob Gidel, Kentucky Sports Radio launched in November 2005 as a blog and podcast, the latter taped in Andrew “Hubby” Jefferson’s basement. The mission: provide University of Kentucky Basketball, Football, and Recruiting news in the most ridiculous manner possible. Through the site’s evolution and the birth of the wildly popular radio show, that mantra has remained paramount, right down to an app notification of Ryan Lemond laughing creepily and photos of Kentucky fans throwing up three goggles across the world.In the early years, KSR was mostly the musings of college friends who loved the Cats, and in turn, the blog developed a quirky cult following. Fans who wanted something different than traditional sports coverage followed along as Matt and his friends found their footing in the industry. In 2007, the recruitments of Patrick Patterson and Jai Lucas took the site to another level, with a new audience coming on board for daily updates. “Any news on Patterson or Lucas?” became a popular refrain across the state, and KSR’s growing popularity helped the site gain new footholds in the media world.From there, KSR started adding more writers as we all realized this thing was really becoming a thing. In 2008, KSR held its first “Who Wants to be a Blogger” contest for aspiring writers. Tyler Thompson finished third. Two years later, Tyler rejoined the site as a part-time contributor, proof that once you’re part of the KSR family, you never really leave. In August 2009, Drew Franklin came on board as part of a package deal with John Calipari, John Wall, and DeMarcus Cousins. The Calipari Era brought a fresh wave of growth to KSR as fans eagerly consumed all of the content they could about the exciting new changes in Lexington.