No prob, I believe that all three of the leagues have come out stronger over the last 18+ months of activity. Anglers who are seeking a professional career are better off today with options and competition. This is pushing things forward even though it’s hard for some to digest.

The marketing and the things MLF and FLW has done for our sport really made it easy for me to make the decision to choose the FLW/ Phoenix BFL Cowboy and Okie Divisions this year in my re-entry to the tournament world after being out for nearly 20 years. I'll be a non boater at first but hope to be Pro soon. I had been dwelling on fishing the Bass Master Opens from both levels up until about a year ago and to me
the Bass Master folks have dropped the ball and need to rethink their approach to bass tournaments, mainly the overall cost to participate. The 5 fish weigh in VS the MLF weigh in that's a whole different argument.

They could possibly be getting ready to leave. Could be by choice or maybe their sponsors are forcing their hands. They could just like to fish both, who knows. I listened to Swindle on BTL and while I don’t doubt that him liking BASS better than BPT as he stated he also said he would lose a lot if he stayed on BPT. Now he didn’t go into what he would lose so it’s subjective to his meaning so it could be interpreted that his sponsors forced his hand. Thing is we will never get the full 411 on decisions like these. Only those in the circle know exactly what happened and why and they probably will never tell.

This has been one of the more interesting data points that I’ve seen lately in the number of re-engaged anglers into the FLW platform from 3-5 years of non participation and even longer. Really crazy stat for sure.

I am no special pleader for any of them. I have read many of the threads but only made a couple of comments, and they are usually trying to be funny. I really don't watch fishing much anymore anyway. I did watch MLF for a while, thought it was entertaining when they were hitting big fish on Roberts. I hated the small fish lakes, but Smallie factories were cool... Ike drove me crazy! Watson's antics were a hoot. There, I have stated my creds.

As to my sentiment on the whole trail. From what I see/read/hear, BPT did do some people extremely wrong, and they don't appear willing to make things right! The biggest thing that rubbed me raw, however was the holier-than-thou attitude that they pushed when they first started. My timeline may be off, but I seem to remember Mark's defense and PR campaign kicked into high-gear about the time people began questioning some of the actions of the anglers that were running the trail. I also got the feeling that a man who ran weigh-ins was insinuating that weigh-ins were evil.... okay, that's harsh... beneath us? It just struck me wrong that they bad-mouthed their competition to gain a foothold and then vehemently defended against any negative criticism.

I could be wrong, but I suspect some people view when someone else exposes the prolific amount of BS thats come from MLF and speaks the truth, that’s being construed as MLF bashing when it’s really not. I haven’t seen much criticism about MLF being just made up out of thin air at all; most of the negative sentiments directed towards MLF is because of MLF’s own actions or in many cases, lack of action. The format itself hasn’t been the core issue, the catalyst for that negativity and the opinions formed were primarily driven by the inept MLF marketing teams message where they terribly miscalculated the fans ability to recognize the total hypocrisy of them coaching the anglers into relentlessly bashing live wells, 5 fish limits and end of day weigh-ins, and fish mortality surrounding same; along with strongly suggesting what they were doing by targeting and then decimating pods of 1lb yearlings was somehow superior to everyone else. It’s almost like all those anglers invited to bail out of BASS and commit to the BPT were also committed to some sort of goodie two shoes re-education camps to have their minds wiped clean of what they did in all those years prior to MLF/BPT.

Compound that with many people knowIng that MLF was created by a small group of unscrupulous people who had a vendetta against BASS where their goal was to either shut BASS down, or acquire them... And when that wasn’t going to work, they subsequently blew up FLW and screwed over a bunch of grass roots anglers in the process.

It also doesn’t help when people actually learn of who the real players are at MLF, and the terrible reputation they have in other sporting business ventures. I am thinking even some of the the co-owner/anglers that got sucked into this deal are now regretting it and are realizing they don’t have nearly the amount of say or influence in the business as they were led to believe they would have. I think I heard a comment recently that referred to it as those anglers jumped into something with blind faith and they’ve since learned they are now no better off than before... Actually, I think they are worse off... they now have huge amounts of egg on their face for being lemmings and not doing their due diligence on who they were going into business with.

Doesn't your son fish the FLW circuit???... Dan

Regarding that guy that did the BTL interview, that was a beating to listen too. I have no doubt that he’s successful, but lord have mercy....”great question, have you been wire tapping our meetings” or “great question“, then repeat the question into another form of the question.

I still don’t know if he ever actually answered any of the questions.

no...other than a couple of charity tournaments with me back in 70's and early 80's he doesn't fish competitively.....I fished redman/bfl for many years but have been retired from tournaments for past 14 years...
anybody want to take bets that Big O either wasn't invited or rejected for membership in MLF....

That’s dude is a pure example of a corporatized bobble head yes man out there trying to sell sh!t sandwiches to the gullible using fancy pitch decks full of massaged and manipulated data to say what they want sell... those types will say anything that actually says nothing. Unfortunately there are many inept c-suite execs not smart enough to challenge them and make them substantiate their claims.

It’s kind of like putting up a list of names for new sponsors and them claiming this is a huge improvement In amount and quality without actually showing you who and how many names were lost so their can be a comprehensive and objective comparison. You can’t just play the numbers game... joes home brew whisky house isn’t in the same league or prominence of advertisers as Yamaha outboard... no matter if they are paying the same or even more for a spot on a jersey or sponsor board listing. Where have I seen someone try to pull that off?

Lol, your head is going to explode with the next few sponsorship announcements that are inbound. Take cover!

Poor Seminole, It’s going to be ok.

Have you ever seen BASS do a press release for sponsors lost? Lol, if anything you are a piece of work.

Kind of hard to substantiate a claim when there is a clear biased for MLF by MJ. However listening to Iaconelli (who really is a somebody), it sounds to me like most of the anglers aren’t getting as big a piece of the pie as they were told. Also, the list of sponsors that were listed as an “upgrade” clearly can’t be seen as such unless it is known which sponsors were lost and why. Also, it seems our esteemed TFF member may have some sort of financial skin in the MLF game, therefor his statements are no more useful than anybody else on here.

LOL Mark owns one of the larger national fishing trails

My outlook......Tournament Market is over booked right now. There are only so many people that have more than a casual interest in it. It like having a room with 30 people and 20 chairs. Something is going to give. Too much spread of the sponsors who stay with the sport. It’s going to continue to change. That’s evolution.

For me the MLF or BPT would be the most susceptible to major change or even going away. They just can’t keep my interest. However they don’t need me. They just need a number of followers.

This is an interesting outlook and one I’ve thought about as well but way before the intro of BPT. I think the growth of the tournament scene would pull back if/when the economy slows for sure. Whether or not that would expose one league over another remains to be seen. MLF certainly strengthened themselves with the FLW acquisition.