BASS, Tournaments, and Sponsorships, What's the Future

[Skipper]

20 years ago when you watched a Nascar Event you expected to see sponsors on the car like Valvoline Motor Oil, MOPAR Parts, and STP.  Sure, there have been non-wrenchead sponsors in the past.  Levi Garrett, Budweiser, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Folgers Coffee come to mind, but on the flip side those are products used by your typical fan.  Now, they have sponsors like The Cartoon Network, That Carrott top Dude and others.  BASS is getting the same way.  Corn Flakes, Timex, Conseco.  Oh, sure we all use those products, Not.  There's not too many self respecting bassers who dream of starting the day with a bowl of Corn Flakes, now a sausage biscuit maybe.  I know what the goal is, I just don't know how its going to get there.  The Goal of ESPN when they bought bass is 1 thing, replace the revenue lost when they lost the Nascar contract.  Otherwords, build a new Nascar, only this time they own it and don't have to bid for TV rights.  Now, fishing and Nascar share some of the same fans, and Bass tournaments have come along way in the broadcasting arena.  In fact it kind of reminds me of Nascar in the early days on ABC's Wide World of Sports.  Do you thing Bassin will ever achieve the marketing stature of Nascar, and if it does, How much do  you think it will change fishing as we know it?

Skipper

[Lawdog]

Skipper,

"Do you thing Bassin will ever achieve the marketing stature of Nascar, and if it does, How much do you think it will change fishing as we know it?"

Excellent question.  Not being a tournament fisherman I can only venture a guess or two.  I believe that bass fishing will become more popular as a sport.  As more people watch it, the more will want to do it.  Another thing it will improve fishing equipment due to the demands that fishermen are going to make for better and easier to use equipment.  Just look at the improvements already made in equipment.  For the tournament fishermen it's going to get more and more expensive.  As with car racing it wasn't that many years ago that a race car all set up, ready for racing, cost around $25,000.  Now the motor cost more than that.  A number of years ago Hank Parker did a show in which he showed the equipment an average tournament fisherman carried.  He also stated what the average cost was for the equipment was.  Be interesting to see what the costs are now as compared to then.  Lawdog