Even former UK basketball players are getting the shakedown in Rupp ticket debacle | Opinion

To steal from a classic, it doesn’t take much to see the problems of wealthy University of Kentucky basketball ticket holders don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.

But the latest debacle over UK tickets, currently in front of Franklin Circuit Court Judge Phillip Shepherd, is instructive in how mercenary our state flagship school has become.

Despite a second hearing on Tuesday, Shepherd has declined to rule, urging the two sides — UK Athletics v. John Meyers and Kathy Walker — to settle, and not undergo the time, money and energy needed to solve a very small hill of beans in court.

For those following along, UK sent out letters to lower arena and courtside tickets on the floor holders in January saying that the Lexington Center was requiring changes to aging risers in the lower arena. They’d be rebuilt with the same number of seats, 536, but the current configuration would have to be changed.

To be fair, UK said, it would allow those ticket holders to pick new seats according to how much money they have given to the K Fund. If you were low on the list, you would have until March 29 to make new donations and move higher up the list.

Only Meyers, Walker and a lot more did not think it was fair. They had gotten their tickets thanks to donations and agreements made years ago and did not think they should have to pay more. They sued, asking for an injunction to stop the March 29 deadline.

I have no idea how Shepherd will rule. But let’s just say what’s really happening here — UK saw the opportunity for a massive shakedown to add even more millions to the K Fund pot so they could keep winning games, whoops, I mean continue paying coaches ungodly sums of money.

After all, if it’s the same number of seats, you could put people more or less where they’ve always sat.

“The most fair thing to do is let everyone stay where they are,” Meyers’ attorney Bethany Baxter said on Tuesday.

What price loyalty?

Here’s another example of UK’s ideas of fairness: Some former UK basketball players had a longstanding deal with the Athletics Department whereby they got two tickets, but only paid for one, and did not have to make the additional donation to the K Fund.

Guess where they end up on the K Fund Priority Ranking list?

Tripp Ramsey is the son of UK legend Frank Ramsey, who helped UK win the 1951 national championship and then played for the Boston Celtics. Tripp Ramsey also played for UK, was a student manager and a graduate assistant coach.

Frank Ramsey had six tickets. In 2010, when required K fund donations went up, he decided not to pay the increase. UK approached him about turning in some tickets but keeping two with the same deal of no K Fund donation. When he died in 2018, Tripp Ramsey, a retired banker in Bowling Green, called UK to make sure he would inherit the same tickets and the same deal because he, too, was a UK letterman. He was assured he would.

(Are there other teams that allow inheritance rights for basketball tickets? If so, please let me know.)

When the January email came, Ramsey contacted Katie Eiserman, the associate athletics director for development, the same person who had assured him his father’s deal would stand. She told him it was no longer valid, and he would have to get in line to get new tickets.

“I have two feelings about it,” Ramsey said. “One is the university is not keeping its word on the deal they gave to Dad and me.

“The other feeling is it’s just all about the money now. They don’t care, I mean, I would never sue the university over something as petty as basketball tickets.”

Ramsey usually gives his tickets to family and friends because he’s not a fan of the “product that’s being put out on the floor,” as he described it.

So despite his long history with UK, he will give back his tickets, which will then be picked up by someone who probably did not ever play for UK but has more money than those who did.

“I understand how it works now,” he said.

“I’m just appreciative of the time I was associated with the basketball team, and the opportunities it offered me.”