comment on MLF conroe thread predicts professional fishing as we know it will be gone in 5 years….if that happens,how will companies in fishing industry introduce, promote or advertise their products? people don’t read magazines or newspapers anymore…
my prediction is just what MLF is doing and that is reduce the number of elite tour level fishermen to a number that the fishing industry will provide sponsorship to …. and fishermen and tournaments will provide the viewership and exposure the industry must have…
I’ve been told that sponsorship provides the income a professional fisherman must have to support his family….tournament winnings are just a bonus..

As much as fishing products cost now a days you'd think they could afford to sponsor a lot of guy's.

Why would something that people are willing to pay for go away? I mean 2 years ago elites were paying 50k a year in tournament fees. Sponsorship dollars, im sure is hard to come by for many

Its not going away, plenty line up to throw their money in the hat. Now the question is are they actually professional fishermen or are they product marketers. I suggest at the end of the day the latter to be mainly true. I do think fields are too large and with 2 main organizations it's too diluted for they to thrive. For most its more of a survive thing. It will continue like that as long as there are people lined up trying to get in. I like foutz but if he doesn't change his approach he won't be there long no matter how good he is. Then you have a guy like Scott Martin who has had limited success since joining the elites, he clean house on flw and is probably a top 10 or so in lifetime winnings, but markets his arse off 24/7. I suspect their bank accounts look a bit different. Foutz wants to just be a professional fisherman, Martin is in the fishing business.

^^^^ This right here, imo.

Yes, and his daughter Hillary is a chip off the ole block. She is going to have a good career in the fishing industry if she chooses.

When someone is on the pro-team...the pro stands for promotional, not professional.

It's not going away. There might be some consolidation at the top level, maybe.....but at the end of the day for every BPT or Elite angler that can't afford, or doesn't see "professional" fishing as a viable career anymore and quits, there's 500 anglers willing to throw their $50k into the ring to take their place.

In reality, do any of us really care if it goes away? Sure, it’s free entertainment and actually exciting to watch once in a blue moon. Only exciting tournaments I can remember in recent years was Livesay catching toads at Fork and Jordan Lee catching toads on his frog in the slop. The rest are , wether they are FFS or not FFS events.

Most of us are fishing when this stuff is playing on tv anyway.

TRUTH!

You need to promote yourself as a brand as well as promote the brand linked to your name. I've learned over the years, that I would rather be in the fishing industry than trying to make a living fishing.

PS: I'm not a pro level fisherman, but I felt at one point I could have made a name fishing.

Livesay drinking all that peach beer is disgusting. I hope they are paying him a bunch to choke that stuff down

There are other ways fishing products makes use to promote product. Very few are tuning into cable to watch MLF or whatever, that’s dying like a newspaper. YouTube and Instagram are real, they aren’t going anywhere, and it’s where many go.

It isn’t coincidence that just about “pro” angler, have you tube channels, it’s what their sponsors want. The bigger the following, the more influential that person is in the industry, the more likely a company is to invest in that person.

I’ve seen it work first hand in the ag industry. Big seed companies have big pots of money to dull out to people that share their farming experiences on instagram. It isn’t just a few free bags of seed they’re getting. More like 50-100k/yr.

I have a simple answer to this, although I never see it going away. Support more grassroots level events. I've never understood how spending 6 figures to be the title sponsor of the expo at The Classic helps to sell lures....it takes a lot of lures sold to recover that type of expenditure. I realize a big part of it is brand recognition, but that type of money could cover a LOT of grassroots trails and support the guys that are actually buying your product. Fishermen are about as loyal of people as I've ever been around, and they'll support the brands that support trails they fish. If you don't believe this, go sit at the gas station close to your lake. I see it all the time on Rayburn. People will drive past 50 convenience stores with lower fuel prices on their way to the lake only to stop at Coleman's in Zavalla to fuel up, buy drinks, snacks & ice. I know guys that will only shop at Rambo Outdoors and Reel Tackle Outdoors because they support local trails around the area.

Skeeter would not be the brand they are today without the support they've put behind BassChamps. That trail has sold a lot of boats for Skeeter. Bill Lewis sells a lot of Rat-L-Traps because they pay a couple different organizations to produce a tournament for them.

I have yet to figure out the fishing industry from the manufacturing business side. Every fishermen at upper level of MLF and BASS (plus a lot of guys competing at lower levels) have a jersey full of logos. Every boat is wrapped with at least one major industry logo on it. Every NFL, NBA, PGA, MLB, etc player doesn't have a sponsor. It's like the fishing industry pays to support itself. The industry is just competing for its own money. Joe is sponsored by Strike King and wins a check. He mails that money to Ranger for his boat note. Ranger then writes a check to Bill to sponsor him so he can win a check in a tournament and he mails that money to Gill, Garmin and Humminbird. The fishermen are just pawns caught up in a never ending cycle while chasing a dream.

I realize many of these guys couldn't afford to gamble at these "elite" tournaments without the sponsors, but I feel the system is broke. There are too many anglers trying to compete at the top. The industy isn't big enough to support two organizations trying to produce a top tier series. About .02% of high school football players get to compete at the NFL level (1 in 5,000). The Elite level needs to be the Elite athletes, and they should be rewarded for it. Everyone else should fall into the minor leagues or lower - where in normal industries, there are nearly zero sponsorships. Then the industry can do 1 of 2 things....(1) Push a lot of money towards that Elite level series and have those anglers actually make an elite living or (2) the industry can support grassroots events to the point where 100% payback is the norm and many of the more successful trails could actually ADD money to their payouts allowing the amateur level to grow by leaps and bounds because real money could be won at that level by true amateurs.

More money at the grassroots level would allow for different formats to come about to reward different levels of tournament anglers. Golf has handicapping to level the playing field and allow more players to win. Team Roping has a numbered format where ropers of like talent compete against each other. Barrel Racing has a 5D format where the fastest horses win, but there are 4 other classes paid out to slower times (1/2 second increments for each class) allowing more barrel racers to get paid at events. If there was more money available to spread out in tournaments, there could be a format created where the top "x" teams are paid in a tournament, then you drop down and pay "x" number of places down lower then drop down again and pay "x" number of places to teams that caught less weight. This format will work if there is enough money to go around. For this type of format to work, you can't expect fishermen to just compete for their own money. There has to be added money. More winners = more happy fishermen = more entries in the future = industry growth.

Outlaw, Well said.

Your 3rd paragraph is spot on. The problem is, there are a lot of anglers that think they are better than they really are when it comes to tournament fishing. Just because a guy can afford to hit the BASS opens every year, doesn't mean they are at the "AAA level" TALENT. It means they are willing to gamble and spend more than someone who is going to compete at local or regional events.

A lot of this is linked to parents who are willing to dump loads of money so that their kids can go fish high school tournaments, and then whatever else after that. Reality never hits with a lot of these kids, that its a HUGE expense. My parents would have laughed at me, if I told them I wanted a 100+K boat/truck at that age. They would have said, go play a real sport, which I did anyway, I would have never asked my parents. No way would I fish high school or college fishing over real sports. There is time to fish the rest of your life.

Pro fishing has become a joke full of people dreaming they will be the next clunn or kvd.
Not to mention ffs has drove a lot of viewers away. YouTube content creators and ffs in tournaments
have had a negative effect on so- called professional anglers.