The Good And The Questions

I'm not in the business of apologizing for anyone in bass fishing. That's not any reporter's or news publication's role. And take what follows with however much salt you want since, as you may know, I've been on ESPN2's Loudmouth Bass and other shows this year. Not that that means I'm anyone's lapdog – and if you've watched, I've been critical of BASS on those shows when I felt it was deserved.

Regardless of all of that, I believe some things need saying, and I'm going to say them because no one else is.

Yes, ESPN's BASS has made and continues to make some mistakes (in my opinion) and some very public screw-ups. Some are mistakes it never should have made, and some screw-ups are inevitable because when you stick your neck out, those things happen. But here are what I believe to be the good things ESPN and BASS are doing, which are important.

1. Bass fishing TV under ESPN has never been better.

Let me amend that: Not since the Bob Cobb days at BASS has bass-fishing TV been this good. And you can't really compare the two eras.

ESPN and JM Associates have changed the way bass-fishing events are covered. Some people may not like it, but I guarantee you it's more accessible to the non-angler, which I have to believe they were going for. That's good, as long as they don't leave the core audience out in the cold.

It's also more accessible and more understandable to corporate America, a fact that should not be undervalued. That doesn't mean that corporate dollars are going to start pouring into the sport (in fact, they're already here, especially on the FLW side). But good-quality, accessible TV is a prerequisite for that to happen – though I'm not sure yet if lots of that money coming into the sport is a good or bad thing.

Regardless, I wholeheartedly believe many of the top pros are underpaid, and the whole entry-fee concept goes hand-in-hand with that. So if better TV leads to more corporate dollars coming into the sport, and that in turn leads to lower (or no) entry fees and anglers making more money, great.

I realize that's a big "if." But ifs never become realities without someone trying to make them that way.

At the very least, good TV coverage of events means that a glaring weakness in the sport – which had been there essentially until ESPN got involved – has been shored up. If you're like me and want our sport to be taken seriously on its merits, solid TV coverage is a must.

Outside of event coverage, ESPN also tried some new things on TV this year. BassCenter, a quasi-news show. Loudmouth Bass, a debate show that became bass-fishing entertainment. Bass Tech, a Monster Garage-type show. If someone had told you 5 years ago this was going to happen, would you have believed it?

Wouldn't you have wanted to see it? I would have, and I'm glad I got to see it. (I'm not ignoring the fact that we see the same pros a lot. That's addressed below.)

One thing I thought was great this year was the Bass Madness show. That was where ESPN used its high-definition TV set and facilities to announce the 2006 Bassmaster Tour (now Elite Series) schedule.

Again, if anyone told you 5 years ago you'd see a special show on ESPN2 that announced the BASS schedule, what would you have thought? Once again, I would've wanted to see it, and I'm glad I did. (I was on that show, so toss a few grains of salt in there if you want.)

1a. FLW's TV show is getting good.

Throw away those goofy 15-pound helmet-cam/battery-belt combos FLW Tour pros have to wear, and maybe a few other gimmicks, and FLW Outdoors has a pretty darn good TV show. Do you think FLW would've been motivated to really step up its production and move to Fox Sports Net if it was only competing for viewers with The Outdoor Channel?

Competition is always a good thing. FLW's TV show is better because of ESPN.

2. ESPN and BASS are taking risks.

Sure, some of us who know bass fishing and are fans of the sport have to cringe at some things ESPN and BASS do. But even if you don't agree with those things, they're taking risks – risks designed to move the sport forward, as they define it.

> Will a series of smaller-field events with bigger payouts attract big-pocket corporate sponsors?

> If that happens, will there be a trickle-down effect that benefits more than just ESPN, BASS and the top Elite Series pros? (ESPN and BASS think so.)

> Will ESPN/BASS's strategy positively or negatively affect the industry and participation?

> If ESPN's bets don't work out, then what?

All these questions have yet to be answered, but at least they're shaking the tree – just as Irwin Jacobs did when he created FLW Outdoors in the mid-1990s. That was a risk in a different way, but it still was a risk, one which obviously benefited the sport.

Personally, I'm not into the same ol' same ol'. I like change – while, in the case of bass fishing, respecting tradition.

One thing's for sure: Change always, eventually, results in some good outcomes. Some outcomes might be bad too, but some will be good.

Either way, I'm not worried. Bass fishing – the sport, the fun, the values – will always be there. Kids and families will still be catching our beloved green and brown fish 100 years from now.

3. Small fields need to be tested.

Who knows how many pros will sign up for the Elite Series. I'd say at least 50, but less than 100. And if fewer than 100 sign up, I'd see it as a good thing. Why? In my opinion, 200-boat fields won't move the top level of this sport forward. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd like to find out.

With 200-boat fields, the consistent top performers get buried by the rest of the field. No one who deserves it gets enough airtime, stage time or crowd time.

On the flip-side, let me use the Cabela's Top Gun Championship as an example. We had only 24 competitors – who qualified based on performance – and every fisherman got about 5 minutes on stage each day without fish being weighed. By the end of one day's weigh-in, you knew everyone's personality. It was fun, and the guys deserved it.

That doesn't happen – it can't happen – with 150 or 200 anglers crossing a weigh-in stage.

I've always believed that the top performers deserve the lion's share of coverage. And that should occur with a smaller, elite field, so the concept of a smaller field of pros over multiple events needs testing.

Will BASS's new Elite Series create "stars" in the sport? If so, will that be a good thing? More importantly, will it really create – or lead to the creation of – a truly new, higher level of professional fishing?

Here's the problem we're all aware of: An elite field should be set on performance rather than financial wherewithal. That's a no-brainer.

That aside, I believe we need to see if a consistently small field "works" – if it adds anything to the sport – and it appears we'll find out, via ESPN's BASS.

> A side-effect of smaller fields is that it could allow the pros to fish smaller lakes, which is always a good thing from a fan standpoint.

4. The Elite Series is a good idea.

I thought BASS was nuts when it came out with the idea of an FLW Tour-like Bassmaster Tour for 2006. I don't just mean nuts in terms of 200 boats and strange qualifying. I mean nuts from a business standpoint.

Why was BASS doing a "me-too"? That's a classic business mistake. The FLW Tour has the number-one 200-boat tour in the country, so at best BASS could've been number two.

But then BASS came out with the Elite Series, which in my mind was much more on the money:

> A name to set it apart from the tours, even though FLW did a smart competitive thing and called its new tour the FLW Series
> Smaller fields
> Higher (for BASS) payouts
> An emphasis on the individual (see 5a below)

I still don't like the $5,000 entry fee. And it remains to be seen whether performance, and not just money or the right boat/motor combo, becomes the primary factor in who gets in.

Those important factors aside, it's a good idea.

> To explain the boat/motor thing: BASS is already becoming more Triton/Mercury dominant, and will become even more so. That's for two reasons. First, we all know that tour-level pros tend to fish in concert with whatever boat/motor lines they run. But also, Triton/Mercury (both owned by Brunswick Corp.) will likely spend more money to either acquire top or promising anglers who fish Bassmaster events (like Greg Hackney and Aaron Martens), or better fund their already-sponsored anglers so that those anglers can afford the new tours and Elite Series. There's nothing evil about this – it's just business.

5. More tournaments = good.

Six tournaments a year for the top pros in the sport is not enough. It might have been enough at one time, but not anymore – in my opinion, anyway, and probably in the opinion of most pros, since almost all have fished Opens (and EverStarts) around tour events.

In 2003, BASS had 10 tournaments in the first 6 months of the year. At the time, it seemed like too many, I think because they weren't spaced out enough. But next year will be different. Eleven Elite Series events, three Majors and one Classic. Fifteen events, spaced over 8 months. Great.

More events, more regions, more times of the year. I like it.

Now, with the new FLW Series, FLW Outdoors is in largely the same boat: Twelve tour-level events over most of a year.

The question is now, is it too many events? Maybe 11 events is fine, but 27? Is that too many for the fans and media to follow? Will each win mean that much less or generate that much less insight because once one's done, everyone is on to the next one? Again, time will tell.

As a side-note, the one thing here that I haven't resolved to my own satisfaction is the family issue.

In my opinion, one of the several things that sets pro bass fishing apart from other professional sports is the emphasis on family. I like the fact that pro bass fishermen could spend so much time with their families, at least as compared to other sports. That was with the six-event tour schedule. Now that might not be true anymore.

Is that a big deal, or even a small one? I don't know.

6. ESPN and BASS are changing things to make bass fishing more appealing.

The NHL recently changed its rules to make the game more exciting to fans. Admittedly it was do or die since that sport almost went belly-up. But it wasn't afraid to make some improvements, even at the risk of alienating diehard fans.

Like the NHL, ESPN and BASS are changing the BASS formats, trying to make bass fishing more appealing.

Do I think ESPN changed too much too fast format-wise when it bought BASS? Yes. Do I think ESPN and BASS seem to want to learn the hard way when it comes to making changes? For the most part, so far, yes. But they are changing the sport, and just like Irwin Jacobs changed it, ESPN will seek to make its mark too.

ESPN and BASS are changing their properties to (in their view) make them more exciting. And accessible, both to new TV viewers and corporate America – and maybe to more potential anglers. Will it work? Time will tell.

6a. A couple of good changes.

I wanted to mention these:

> Put the question of moving the Bassmaster Classic to February out of bounds for a minute. After all, no one knows how that will play out, and we probably won't really know for a few years. But moving it to the beginning of the season gives much more weight to the Bassmaster Angler of the Year award. That's great. The top consistent performers deserve more recognition.

> When BASS announced its 2006 schedule, I looked at the tournament names – "Battle on the Border," "Lone Star Shootout" – and the names of groups of tournaments – "The Southern Sprint," "The Final Charge" – and thought they were hokey. But now I think they're great. They lend a little excitement, and are a boatload better than the Alabama Bassmaster, the Georgia Bassmaster, etc.

7. Mike Iaconelli, Skeet Reese, etc. are on TV.

Don't kill me here. I'm not talking about the frequency of them being on ESPN2. I'm talking about the mere fact that they're on.

My point is this: Not too long ago – you can count the years on one hand – you had to look and act a certain way to be a professional bass fisherman. You had to be clean-cut, quiet, humble. There's nothing wrong with that, but the point is you had to look and act that way or you would be shunned.

It was one way or no way.

Now you don't have to do that anymore. You can be yourself. Mike, Skeet, Gerald Swindle – those guys are like that all the time. They ham it up on camera here and there, but most of the time that's who they are. And they can be themselves now. That's a good thing.

What would be bad is if this was taken out too far – if you were "penalized" or didn't get as much airtime because you are clean-cut and quiet, or have a southern accent or whatever. I think the jury's still out on this (see the big questions below).

8. BASS is emphasizing the individual.

BASS talks about boat wraps and angler names on the boats and shirts helping to develop the anglers' personalities. Bingo. If we see a day where pro fishermen are no longer just treated as props on a stage that promote brand X, that will be a good thing. A great thing.

In the beginning, the best bass fishermen made names for themselves. People knew the names, ones like Clunn, Nixon, Green, Brauer and Fritts. That's because there were fewer fishermen, fewer events, fewer everything except angler-fans.

But since professional bass fishing became "corporatized," with more of everything (more fishermen, more events, etc.), anglers increasingly became just vehicles for branding. As in, "Hey, a [insert brand here] guy won that last tournament." Or, "Who just won? I don't know, but he was wearing a [insert brand here] shirt."

Corporations got involved but didn't care who they sponsored because there were no "whos."

I hoped that was just a stepping stone, and it looks like it might be. BASS says it is trying to help the sport get to whos instead of just whats. If true, that's great – but it can't happen with BASS alone. The anglers' sponsors have to get involved too, which might be tough because so far most have missed that boat.

With few exceptions – Citgo comes to mind, which incidentally is where BASS general manager Don Rucks came from – pro bass fishermen have been marketed en masse. The status quo has been five or eight or even 10 or more guys all wearing the same shirt, instead of a few guys wearing the same brand but in distinct ways.

It's been up to the pros to essentially market themselves. And really, the only available path before ESPN was performance. Clunn, Nixon, VanDam, Brauer, Davis – they got famous because they caught them when it counted, more than once.

In my book, that still should count the most. But now you can gain some fame (reach fans) on the BASS side at least in part because of who you are – though hopefully ESPN won't only focus on a select category of whos.

So the sponsors should step up. And there's plenty to do with pros who are good, but maybe haven't won a big one yet:

> Will Scott Suggs', Terry Scroggins', and Jeff Kriet's sponsors play up the fact that those guys are hilarious? (Most pro fishermen are.)

> Will Edwin Evers' sponsors highlight the fact that he just flat-out gets it done while being the guy everyone would want their daughter to marry?

> Will Brian Snowden's sponsors market the fact that he's a quiet guy who sneaks up on everyone in the standings?

> How about workout fiend Mark Tucker being strong enough to lift up your car?

I can come up with a ton of names and personalities like that. Why don't all sponsors try to bring out those personalities? Beyond "this is the way we've always done it," which can be a powerful force in bass fishing, I have no idea.

BassFan does it, FLW does it sometimes. Now BASS wants to do it too. Great. Hopefully the industry will get the message.

9. ESPN is involved in bass fishing.

I don't care how you slice it, the biggest thing ESPN has brought to the bass-fishing party so far is its name. ESPN is the most-respected brand in sports media, and is one of the most-respected brands in all of sports. It's also one of the best-known brands in the world.

So when ESPN gets involved in something or, in the case of bass fishing, gets behind it, it's a huge shot in the arm for the sport as a whole. And it has been for bass fishing.

I think it's fair to say that bass fishing has never been more on the radar of America, and that has to do largely with the clout ESPN brings to it (not to discount Wal-Mart, but I'm writing about ESPN and BASS here).

Whether you feel ESPN is obligated to respect the traditions of B.A.S.S., BASS (no periods), the Bassmaster Tournament Trail, the Federation and the rest of it is your call.

A Few Big Questions

Those are some good, big things ESPN and BASS are doing or trying. As you would expect, with all of those changes, some big questions are hanging out there.

In addition to the questions posed above, here are a few more – none of which take away from the good things ESPN and BASS are doing, but the answers to these questions will determine a lot.

Is ESPN glorifying a few top pros at the expense of the rest?

I've thought about this a lot, and I'm going to vote no – for right now, anyway. Why? Not enough time has gone by. Beyond the event coverage, the new ESPN2 bass-themed shows have been on less than a year. Let's give it some more time.

Also, here are a couple more ways of phrasing that question:

> Are the more TV-friendly pros carrying the water right now for the rest of the pros? Or, are most pros not TV-savvy enough yet? (I don't think so, but it could be looked at that way.)

> Does it even matter? Right now, I'm not sure what the pros who get on TV get out of it other than an ego boost, and a corresponding ego letdown for the other pros. Based on 1) the fact that ESPN and BASS are not trumpeting ratings figures all over the place, 2) the Saturday morning airtimes and 3) the lack of corporate advertisers for BASS, the ESPN BASS shows appear to have low ratings. So how much additional eyeballs are those pros even getting?

Things to think about:

1) ESPN is less than a year into putting pros all over its shows, and there's no guarantee the same shows will be back next year. Even shows that do return might see their formats change. Such is the TV world.

2) Maybe ESPN is just going after the easy interviews right now. Maybe when they understand the sport and more of the pros better, and more pros get better at TV soundbites, other pros will get more non-tournament airtime. We'll have to see.

Brief notes about TV

• TV is an extremely powerful medium, but is also very limited.

• It's about entertainment, not information. It's all about the soundbite. So pros have to master the soundbite to get on TV.

• Mastering the soundbite isn't easy. You can only come across well on TV in a few ways. That's not true of print, or even radio. Most people aren't born with the ability to come across well on TV, even those on TV all the time. That's why politicians spend so much time and money to learn how to do it.

• So 1) It takes time and effort to get good on TV if you're not a natural in front of the camera; and 2) by its nature, TV simply can't convey some things well, like in-depth information.

• One final note: I believe most tour-level pros do come across well on TV.

Will the small-field Elite Series change how fishing-industry companies allocate their sponsorship dollars?

If the Elite Series takes off and ratings go to the moon, could sponsors allocate most of their sponsorship money to Elite Series pros? It would make sense. If those pros are getting the lion's share of coverage and reaching the most people, why not?

Could this happen? And would it be good or bad? It might be bad for people who don't have the skills to make it to that level, but it might be good for those who do – if it becomes about performance, and not just the greenbacks.

Will the emphasis on 'financial qualifying' forever kill the possibility that the Elite Series will field the best anglers?

If fishing-industry companies don't reallocate how they spend money – meaning give the best anglers (the ones with the most chance of winning) the most money – only the most well-off anglers will be able to fish the Elite Series. (Initially, anyway, which probably is the same thing as forever.)

Because once those pros are in, they will be largely in for life – unless things like entry fees, qualification and how sponsors spend their money change down the road. Why? Same as now: Only a relative few will be able to afford it.

Also, if I'm a good fisherman and want to turn pro, I know that entry fees at the top level of BASS (the Elite Series) are about double what they are at the top level of FLW Outdoors (the FLW Tour and FLW Series). So maybe I'll fish FLW instead of BASS. In that way, the high Elite Series entry fees might discourage some good anglers from ever fishing BASS.

But a mitigating factor here is if the Elite Series fields right around 50 boats. If that happens, with the payouts staying the same (as BASS says they will), it's pretty much a guaranteed higher-than-entry-fee check every time you fish.

So if I'm just starting out at the top level and don't have a bunch of money in the bank, theoretically, if BASS would allow it, I could fish tournament to tournament and have a decent chance of coming out ahead.

Jay Kumar is BassFan's CEO.