How Kentucky's run to Omaha could affect recruiting

The Wildcats have a top-notch facility, play in the best conference in college baseball and now have a Men's College World Series appearance. Will recruiting take off?

Photo by Marissa Gilchrist of UK Athletics.

The 2024 Kentucky baseball season will be remembered, at least to this point in time, as the greatest in school history. It rewrote the record books for what a baseball team achieved at Kentucky, but it also accomplished two important feats that go hand-in-hand in recruiting: It won a lot, and therefore, it was the most seen team Kentucky’s ever had.

“In college baseball, we’re not like college football,” said Jheremy Brown, who’s worked for Perfect Game for the past 12 years. “We’re not sitting down and watching it every Saturday on ESPN. Now that you’re in Omaha, you’re reaching a national audience and I think that really plays into it. ‘Kentucky? Hey, that’s a basketball school.’ No, they’re one of the top eight teams left in the country. I think being able to get in front of more people in a national audience — Kentucky and the SEC are household names already — but actually being able to watch them play on TV and see the Kentucky style of baseball is going to lure a lot more kids than if they hadn’t made it to Omaha.”

According to ESPN PR, the first six games of the 2024 Men’s College World Series averaged 1.2 million viewers. That represented a 5% increase from 2023 and is the best viewership through six games on record. Kentucky’s walk-off win over NC State was Game 3, meaning it might’ve been the most-watched baseball game the Wildcats have ever played in.