Without watching the show again, name all the non-emdemic sponsors that you saw.

Best reaction I've heard about the show came from my SIL Saturday. He's an every species fisherman and not really into bass fishing or tournament fishing. After about 30 minutes of watching he turned and ask, " do they ever catch any big ones " ? I could tell he was getting bored watching professional bass fisherman catching a lot of 1-2 lb. fish so I changed channels. Besides, I had no legit answer to his question.

Any word on some big names like Skeeter and Johnson outdoors sending their anglers breach of contract letters and telling them to vacate MLF? Seems some sponsors don't think they are getting a fair shake and represented equally on MLF which is pretty interesting because that's all those guys talked about when starting bpt.

First, That’s kind of like just now watching last years NFL AFC/NFC wild card games. Do you think the advertisers you would see while watching those months ago prerecorded games on TV are sponsors of the NFL and it’s live games?

Second, do you think the anglers are salaried, like just about all other professional sports players, or they are getting any portion of the ad or merchandise revenue that’s generated by them being shown doing their thing tournament fishing on the discovery channel, outdoor channel, etc... using the talent and personality they have to put on a show? I don’t think these guys are getting much outside of individual winnings in tournaments, or some chump change (comparatively) for placement of a logo on a jersey, boat, or truck... while also at same time being obligated to make themselves available to do some other form of sales/marketing tasks, like photo shoots, media interview, working booths in trade shows, etc...

Can you name any other professional sports that have a TV and other significant media presentation that don’t pay their participants accordingly that, if it wasn’t for them, there would be no TV or other media?

The only people who are seemingly are getting paid appropriately in professional fishing are the owners, shareholders, and producers of the media products that are being generated.

I don’t know about that, but it’s been reported that several BPT anglers are losing long time sponsors. And that’s what I could see any number of endemic angler specific sponsors doing, just dropping the angler. One can only speculate as to exact reasons, but it’s not too hard to see a correlation of sponsor loss and lack of visibility or the reported “exclusivity” type conflicts. Until sponsors themselves come out and publicly say they are forgoing sponsorship for any angler in BPT for such and such reason, I suspect the general public won’t get much more than hearsay from those who talk about it in their industry reporting. The industry is too small for anglers to bad mouth or criticize sponsors who vacate anglers, but IMHO it’s not to small for sponsors to publicly criticize tournament organizers. Some industry insiders such as Luke Dunkin have alluded to the simmering issues, but details are vague.

I'm surprised they haven't had a come apart over Ott's show, " The Hunt for Monster Bass". How dare him.

""The only people who are seemingly are getting paid appropriately in professional fishing are the owners, shareholders, and producers of the media products that are being generated.""

I think you just named the primary reason 80 of the top[ pro fishermen decided to leave BASS...they were tired of paying entry fees and fishing for their own money plus apparently no one at BASS or FLW had the foresight to expand the TV coverage and take advantage of the need for outdoor sports programming especially in view of the exploding growth of high school and college bass fishing.....
I think you can go further and say in a few years that today's high school and college fishermen are going to look back and thank Boyd Duckett and several others for expanding and growing the sport that provided them opportunities to have a lucrative fishing career without having to rely on family money to fish professionally....

fishermen have always fished for their own money the reason they jumped to the small fish league they were unhappy about the amount that was taken to operate BASS.

Yeah, that’s pretty funny. ESPN threw money at fishing on TV and realized, it was a waste of money. In a few years, they will still be where they were. Do you remember when FLW had the big non-endemic sponsors??? Nothing has changed, fishing is small time. Quit drinking the kool-aid, there was only 1 reason why Duckett & Klein made a new tour and it wasn’t about bettering the “sport”.

apparently you haven't been on a lake recently where 150-400 boats were competing in a high school or college tournament.....it's happening at every lake in my area and I'm told high school/college growth is exploding in many other states as well.....
not sure how big the connection is but many high schools are either dropping football and numbers of kids on football rosters is shrinking to the point where schools are having difficulty fielding teams....

Easy to see that you’re not from around here...

I sure hope those high school and college guidance counselors, when giving career advice to students are making it clear to the students who are tournament bass fishing, that the likelihood of them making a sustainable living in that line of work is slim to none and points them to alternatives that has much better chance of providing a reasonable income. Perhaps the high schools should start extra curricular programs focusing on being a caddy for a PGA pro... where one could easily make 10x the lifetime income of a tournament bass angler without even having the golfing skills of a pro.

Just say’n - until the income inequity between tournament organizers and the ones who actually put on the show is equalized, there won’t be any noticeable organic growth coming out of the high schools and college leagues. There are to many other easier and less expensive options to choose from.

High School Football Participation Is On A Decade-Long Decline
https://www.forbes.com › sites › bobcook › 2019/08/29 › high-school-foo...

Aug 29, 2019 - Texas is the No. 1 state for participation (of course), but its participation-per-school rate is dropping quickly. In 2016-17 it was 153.3; in 2017-18, 135.3; and in 2018-19, 125.6. Meaning, its growth is coming from more schools offering football, not more boys showing up to play at every school.

Forbes...the official football magazine of Texas. Lol. Plenty of kids on the sidelines at every football game I’ve seen this year. Most high schools don’t have fishing teams but they ALL have football programs. But maybe we just need more non-endemic sponsors! Where is Big Money Boyd when you need him!!

as far as guidance counselors giving career advice, the chance of making a living at fishing are probably no different than football,baseball,basketball etc. the point I'm trying to make is the growing popularity of fishing is going to create more fans and participants of the sport.....
not saying this is a good thing because many of our lakes are crowded enough but