The thread has morphed and it turn given Ken some fodder for a future video series!

I dont believe ANYONE is fishing for a sole source income.

That would mean their relying on payouts only...

Yeah I know that they don’t live on payouts only but the pay outs/entry fee Is what the discussion was based on. I just always see how this stuff derails. I normally read the op and not just the last couple comments lol.

Agreed. What I meant in regards to my YT comment was it could be a huge secondary or possibly even primary source of income for the more popular guys. Shoot, even if they aren't popular on tour, they may turn out to be popular on YT.

In regards to Social Blade, I'm very familiar with it. I actually have a small YT channel and my Fiance has a medium size YT channel (20K subs). From everyone we've talked to and from our experience, Social Blade earnings come in at right around half of what the high end estimate is. It can be a significant amount and even more when you talk about sponsored episodes.

With that being said, there seems to be a lot of guessing with numbers in regards to how much corps take to host the tourneys. I'd be very curious how the numbers shake out in regards to how much the cities are paying the hosts to have tournaments there because if I understand correctly, that would be primarily where the winnings come from, correct?

If the big corporations are taking a big chunk and NOT doing as much in their power to grow the sport to make payouts bigger, that's an issue. If they're taking a fair cut but also putting a ton back into the sport to grow it, I can understand that from a business standpoint. From what I've seen it looks both major leagues are doing their best to incorporate Live streaming. It's a good idea but not sure it'll get the exposure to be a huge income generator because I'm not sure how many of us can spend 7 hours in the work week watching a live stream.

At the end of the day there's going to have to be a creative solution because bass fishing just isn't as good of a spectator sport as golf, football, hockey, etc. The action takes place away from 99% of the fans and the 1% that goes to follow their favorite pro isn't out there buying merch, food, beer, soda, etc, and fan/crowd generated revenue is a big deal.

Unfortunately, the way it sits now, I truly do think these pro's have more of an opportunity to use their notoriety on a platform like YT, IG, FB, etc. I get some guys might not like that but like it or not, the opportunity is there.

Oh, one last comment based on B-Lat's comment on Ken's vid. The fact that the pro's do all the meet and greets / expos for free is pretty nuts to me. Again, if the money isn't there for them to get paid for their time I get it, money doesn't just appear. I run a business and I understand.

However, if there is money that can be paid to these guys for their time, it would only make sense. I, personally haven't been to any expo's so I'm not sure how much they charge for entry or if there even is an entry fee but they could use the time they spend at expo's doing a lot of other income generating things. I get their sponsors probably make them go. If so, maybe the sponsorship deal needs to include some sort of stipend for time spent at expos.

I think it depends on the expo. If they are are the FLW Cup expo like I was at that is probably free because it is sponsor obligation. If they are at a boat show in a state like say the big one in Columbus , Ohio, they are probably being paid an appearance fee. The free appearances are part of what you signed up for when you got the money for the truck and boat wraps and big logo on the jersey. Yes the organizations are making a lot of money that is not going to the anglers but they have their own expenses, and in a nutshell that is true of every company in America. Just this summer my CEO was subject to an article that indicated he was significantly overpaid based on sales and common companies in our industry. This video is wonderful food for thought and discussion on here, but nothing is going to change. You have too many anglers going after the same sponsorship. Just because MLF branched off and then in turn you ended up with probably 60 of the 75 in BASS being relatively new to the fishing world does not mean that Yamaha, Lowrance or Lew's increased their sponsorship dollars. It just cut them up thinner. Now while I support MLF I agree it was born out of taking BASS down, but one thing they have done is a tremendous job of bringing non industry sponsorship to the sport. The only way the sport grows, and I agree it is only going to grow so much it is still a southern sport is to bring in more non endemic sponsors.

Also on the comment of a small fee to attend the expo and weigh in at a Classic or a Cup. I would be willing to pay as would other diehards, but will a non diehard come out ? And there is not guarantee that the organization would pay that money out in the prize pool. I think the answer to both of those is NO. Only a small percentage of us would pay money for higher end seminars and this is our sport , so why would we think a non diehard would pay for an expo ? All good food for thought, but unless you get lots of more non endemic sponsors the money in the sport will not grow, and there is no promise the organizations will not keep it anyhow.

Burgerboy maybe I'm the odd man out, but I pay to go to the Dallas Safari Club expo and a couple gun shows a year and I am THE definition of a non-diehard. I haven't bought a gun in maybe 6-7 years, haven't bought a hunting license since maybe 2016, I just like getting out and people watching and I think you still get a lot of those and don't think a $10 fee is gonna stop us (and certainly $9 beers don't).

I have spent my whole career in the industry, fishing for the first 15 and hunting and shooting the past 25. The pros are all paid for working expos. Either by contract obligation to their sponsors or by the day.
Many get paid a daily fee. I don’t know any that work for no pay. And that is the big name pros down to the wanna be big names.

Ken, thanks for the video it was interesting to see the payout comparison. But as far as the anglers getting the short end of the stick, it is their decision to fish the tour. Just like other job, if you don't like the pay then find another job. Obviously the anglers are content with the payouts or they would find other ways to make money. As long as tournament fishing is a pay to play sport the payouts will remain the same. What your video didn't address was the overhead that the organizations have to cover to keep them solvent. That is where most of the excess money is going, I'm sure. CEO and staff don't work for free.

Regret not seriously pursuing Golf in lieu of fishing. Watched a little of the Fedex tournament on yesterday and the winner takes home $15 million...

Ken love the video. I know this was about the pro’s and how hard it is for them to make a living at this, But I wanted to take a closer look at what I might fish next year locally so I did what you did for the BFL’s and Bass Champs. To break down the numbers I took a sample of the BFL tournaments, 4 divisions, 4 tournaments each so far this year.

Arkie division 4 tournaments they had 200 anglers at the first, then 214, 174 and 154 which is typical you get more early in the year and then the fields get smaller. Entry fees are $300 boater and $150 co-angler. So over the 4 tournaments they took in $166,950, over those four tournaments they paid out $66,354. Or 39.7% of their entry fees….but they also got $75 membership fees from everybody, so let’s just say that their largest field was everybody that has fished that division, that’s another $75 x 214 = $16,050, payout drops to 36.2% (and THAT numbers high because you know they took in more than 218 membership fees for the region).
.
Cowboy division, 282, 324, 256, 262, total entry fees $252,900 with a payout of $142,702, payout 56.4% of entry fees (more guys won bonus money for boat or motor). Plus 324 x $75 another $24,300 in membership fees, lowers payout to 51.4%

LBL division, 174, 134, 130 and 108. Entry fee total $123,300 with payout of $69,407, payout percent of 55.9%. Membership fees of 174 x $75 = $13,050, payout 50.9%

Piedmont division, 202, 172, 186, 164. Entry fees $162,900 and payout of $90,833 for payout of 55.7%, another 202 x $75 membership fees = $15,150. Payout 51.0%

Total the four, they took in $706,500 per division (remember this is only 4 of 5 tournaments for each division). Paid out $368,986. So over 16 tournaments they took in on average $44,218 and paid out on average $23,601. They have 24 divisions with 5 tournaments each, that’s 120 BFL tournaments. So taking a pretty educated guess their revenue on the BFL’s is $5,295,375 in entry fees, the four divisions average biggest field is 225 each, 24 divisions, $75 per member, another $405,000 in revenue, total revenue in $5,700,000 with total payout of $2,767,000, 48.5%.

Then they have 6 no entry regional's and the all American. The Regional's last year each paid out $101,000 to the boaters and $62,900 to the co’s at each one. The All American paid out $319,800 to the boaters and $146,600 to the co’s (no getting into the fact that the winners money was merchandise and not all cash so somewhat discounted). Therefore at the regional's and AA they paid out another $1,449.800.

I’d call this really educated (or researched) guess, $5.7mm of entry fee and membership revenue, $4.2mm payout, 73.9% payout. Actually better than I thought it would be.

BassChamps, looked at two events, a really big field Rayburn March 10th 318 teams and a small one, LBJ May 11th, 140 teams. Rayburn took in $101,670 in entry fees and paid out $90,750, 89% payout. LBJ took in $44,800 in entry fees and paid out $40,490 for 90.3% payout. Their membership $35, so again assuming same guys fish all they made a little extra cash there, $22,000 in the East and $9,800 from Central. Spread across the 4 tournaments per region, take East for example, that bumps their take by $5,500 per tournament, now $107,170 revenue for Rayburn with same payout, 84.7% payout.

Last year their championship took in $88,000 in entry fees, paid out $77,000 in cash and a Skeeter FX20 and ZX 225, what’s that another $110,000? So they paid out let’s say $100,000 more at the championship than they took in. Scatter that across 16 “regular” tournaments that increases each payout by about $6,250, I’d fee comfortable saying their payout for the year was right at 91%.

My summary, fish locally…and if you are going to fish the BFL’s the only way the payout is half-grass is if you plan to fish them all and go fish the regional.

I haven't had time to watch the entire video. What's the gist of it? Payouts should be bigger for tourney fisherman?

Gist is that guys at the pro level are only fishing for each other's money, that it doesn't appear any sponsor money is being paid out. Just really fancy fruit jar tournaments!

And that would be 100% incorrect...

First and foremost, congrats on the little one. Good video. Good topic for discussion.