Lexington, KY - Many dads shoot video of their kid's high school games. Some may even post the highlights on the Internet. But very few take that fatherly hobby as far as Doc Carpenter and Gregg Harper have.
Carpenter, from London, and Harper, from Knoxville, thought they could start a business around videotaping high school sports and posting them on the Web.
Wazoo Sports Network was born.
"We then started talking to a couple of TV stations that were interested in putting on our coverage. We partnered and put a few baseball games on," said Jeff Sheppard, former UK basketball standout and now Vice President of Business Development for Wazoo Sports Network. "The light bulb went off in our heads to take the next step, that is, launching a local TV network in Kentucky and we did that last fall," said Sheppard.
It is a 24 hour, seven day a week television network all about Kentucky sports. "We're in more than 600,000 cable homes out of a possible 910,000," explained Carpenter. "We have a partnership with WHAS-TV in Louisville and WLEX-TV in Lexington and many cable partners around the state." The company is shooting for 100 percent cable penetration around the state. In 2008, Wazoo says it covered 195 Kentucky teams from 63 counties. Its website has more than 325 high school games available for viewing on-demand. It broadcasts live TV and a live Internet stream simultaneously. It also showed replays of select UK basketball games last season. In 2008
Wazoo Sports does it with about 15 full-time employees, including a sales staff, plus a network of freelance commentators and videographers who cover the high school and small college games. The network will also televise this year's state Little League Championship being played in Hazard. It is hoped the number of employees will grow to 40 in the near future.
Wazoo Sports is funded by Meritus Ventures, a venture capital company out of London with a $36.4 million venture capital fund formed to make equity investments in small, private, expansion-stage companies. It primarily targets rural areas in central and southern Appalachia, according to its website. Carpenter says that the biggest hazard for a business like theirs is "if you don't have enough capital." Finding the right investors with capital in rural America is apparently a great challenge. "That's what makes Meritus so special. It focuses on rural companies," he said.
Carpenter seemed ready to launch a local sports network like Wazoo. Prior to co-founding it he started four telecommunication ventures including SinglePipe Communications, a Voice over IP provider; NorthStar Technology, a PCS provider; KIH Online, an Internet Service Provider and Touchstone Communications, a Kentucky Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC).
Sheppard, a UK guard (1993-98) who played on two national championship teams, loved the idea of a Kentucky sports network and joined the company when it was launched in 2007.
"I travel the state and work with cable operators to get our network on cable systems everywhere. I also sell advertising and work with content partners like the Louisville Bats, Lexington Legends, high schools and small and major colleges, basically, anyone who's interested in having their sporting event covered and put on Wazoo Sports."
Maybe viewers don't stay glued to all of the local high school basketball and football games but they might have been curious about the classic UK hoops games that are shown. One of them is the painful and unforgettable UK-Duke NCAA East Regional Final in 1992, the so-called Christian Laettner game, in which the Duke star hit the winning shot at the buzzer to keep the Cats from the Final Four.
"We thought long and hard whether we should replay that game," Sheppard confessed. "In my opinion, it symbolized a turning point for the University of Kentucky. We were off probation and it showed that we were back. Even though we lost, it's part of UK history."
Wazoo thinks it has some rare and exciting classic UK basketball games coming up in 2010. One is the historic 1966 UK-Texas Western NCAA Championship game which may have helped further integration in college basketball.
"We're also finalizing details to show the 1958 UK-Seattle NCAA Championship game," Sheppard revealed. That game, played at Freedom Hall in Louisville, featured future Hall of Famer Elgin Baylor playing for Seattle. "If it's been seen by anyone it hasn't been seen by many," Sheppard marveled. "We are taking the original film and digitalizing it and adding audio play-by-play from then-UK announcer Claude Sullivan. This is going to be a really unique piece of UK history that fans are going to appreciate."
Once Wazoo Sports feels it has blanketed Kentucky the company may be ready to replicate its high school and college sports model in other states such as Indiana, Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida or Georgia. Carpenter and Sheppard feel the love of local sports in those states is equally as passionate.
"We believe there will be substantial demand for our programming from the operators, advertisers and viewers," Carpenter concluded.