5 hours ago, gim said:

 

So the question before us now is this.

 

Is it about generating in-person fans and revenue from that, or is about showcasing the top fisheries in the country?

 

At Fork, it was the latter.  At Sabine, it was not.

 

It's can be about both and it doesn't have to be at the same time.

 

Also, I want a championship that has the broadest spectrum of venues as possible. This is the way things fish in some places.

 

If we want to see smashfests in every tournament then they might as well compete on private lakes.

1 minute ago, gim said:

 

I still think the big money from a PGA event is with the TV ratings and online viewership.  Not the in-person attendance.

 

For an organization hosting the event, the TV ratings are pretty much irrelevant. They want people getting hotel rooms, buying stuff, filling gas tanks etc..

 

I actually watched on my computer Sunday as I was flying. And I thought it was good TV, particularly Schlapper and the Japanese duo.

10 minutes ago, Pumpkin Lizard said:

 

 

 

$5M might be what Tennessee brings in for ticket sales and concessions.  

Way way more 

5 minutes ago, Pumpkin Lizard said:

For an organization hosting the event, the TV ratings are pretty much irrelevant.

 

The PGA's website says their TV deals with Espn, NBC, and CBS total over $700 million annually.  That doesn't seem irrelevant.

2 minutes ago, gim said:

 

The PGA's website says their TV deals with Espn, NBC, and CBS total over $700 million annually.  That doesn't seem irrelevant.

 

I'm strictly talking about fishing not the PGA there. And yes, a Chamber of Commerce and a Golf Club want a return on investment. The promoters interests are different than that of a sanctioning body.

3 minutes ago, Pumpkin Lizard said:

I'm strictly talking about fishing not the PGA there.

 

Ok.  Misunderstanding.

I watched the entire tournament. I loved the fact that FFS was out of the equation. The river system there is tough for sure and the top 10 surprised me. Those guys earned my respect. 2 Japanese guys were in the top 10, one I’ve never seen do anything but scope and he finished 2nd I believe. It reminded me of fishing the Ohio River out of Louisville, a total grind fest. Tough to view at times but a proper tournament that builds character.. 

34 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

100,000 seats at $200 and up??? Lot more than 5 million dollars on a Saturday in Knoxville. Couple more zeros on the end of that number and that’s just tickets, not counting hotels, airBNB, restaurants, etc

You wouldn’t include tickets/concessions as part of city economic impact. The calculation should be $ earned outside of the venue minus the average $ earned on a normal day. I’m looking for indirect profit for hosting a Bassmaster event. 

16 minutes ago, GReb said:

You wouldn’t include tickets/concessions as part of city economic impact. The calculation should be $ earned outside of the venue minus the average $ earned on a normal day. I’m looking for indirect profit for hosting a Bassmaster event. 

Still way over 5

 

BASS is a business not much different than Wal-Mart or FedEx.

 

Anderson Media Corporation to be exact, which is privately owned. 

 

All boils down to MONEY.

 

They go to where they can make the most.

 

Don't make it anymore difficult.

20 hours ago, gim said:

I’m with @king fisher on this one. The Sabine is not a worthy fishery for an elite event.

 

I can understand trying a venue once as an “experiment” to see how it goes. But they keep revisiting this locality and nothing changes.

 

Pretty sad when my local lake here in MN can best a southern venue by a wide margin.

 

6 hours ago, Catt said:

Why Orange Texas? 

 

Orange, Texas holds the record for Bassmaster Elite Series attendance, with the 2023 event at Sabine River attracting 42,448 people. Previous Elite Series events in Orange have also drawn record-breaking crowds, with a total of over 136,000 fans in four previous visits. In 2013, the season opener in Orange broke the previous attendance record, with 33,650 fans in attendance, and the 2021 event saw 40,107 fans

 

6 hours ago, gim said:

 

So the question before us now is this.

 

Is it about generating in-person fans and revenue from that, or is about showcasing the top fisheries in the country?

 

At Fork, it was the latter.  At Sabine, it was not.

 

50 minutes ago, JHoss said:

One thing I picked up on was that the revenue generated wasn't just from the Elites. But the Elites coming there and showing the world that it's a viable fishery is what generates that money. He mentioned other tournaments coming to town because of it- one was a 500 boat high school event. With 2 kids and a captain for each boat, not to mention potential family coming to support, that's a tremendous amount of revenue coming into your city that otherwise wouldn't have. 

 

41 minutes ago, Pumpkin Lizard said:

They keep going back because the chamber of commerce or promoter is cutting a heck of a deal. 

 

This was talked about on the broadcast a little.  This was the 6th time at the event BECAUSE the local chamber of commerce puts on an event for it.  BASS doesn't pay to do the events.  They bid them out to local CoC to see who will give the best deal.  With the turnout that Orange TX was able to make, it makes for an easy argument from the CoC on how they can justify a big bid to BASS regardless of the waterbody they were on.  They have tens of thousands of people spending money all weekend, they have future events that are inspired by the elites fishing there, and because they know they will do it again they can invest a little more into an event knowing that it will happen again.  

 

BASS has to balance a couple factors when they are setting a schedule.  First and foremost is the CoC bid.  Then it is the weather/time of year, proximity and competitor travel and quality of fishery.  If 3 of 4 are great then you roll with it.  The CoC bid though has to be pretty good.  There are some fisheries that will happen regardless of the rest- St Johns, Kissimiee, Okeechobee- they are early season kickoff tournaments with plenty of big fish and they warm up faster than most everywhere else in the country.  The Tennessee river dams will always play because that's the 'heartland' area for so many competitors and spectators alike.  The St Laurence/GL/Champlain because it gives prime catching later in the year for century belts.  Texas because of the fisheries and the number of spectators.  That allows for a natural flow from Florida to either texas or SE and then back to the other one, then a swing north to the GL and nearby (either champlain, st clair, or mississippi river for instance).  Since they try to do 2 in a given subregion, that makes for 8 tournaments of the 9.  Then you can throw one more in somewhere else, either on the way between places or add it to a region.  This year Oklahoma is not that far from Tx so add that one in.  They did the Susquehanna a few years ago on the way north to Champlain. I'd love to see another Pittsburgh tournament, maybe on the way north or back down.  They used to tack on the upper misssissippi on the back end of the schedule, but I think they stopped because its so far up and the fishing wasn't that great a lot of the time. 

 

A sportswriter I follow has a couple tenets when it comes to sports.   In this case, "when the question is why, the answer is money".

 

I suspect that BASS has a set of parameters a location must meet; lake size, venue for weigh in, cell service for cameras, etc. If they have 20 places that meet those criteria this year, they pick the 9 that net them the most money. 

There just isn't many places that can host an elite series tournament. Pennsylvania, like a lot of states, doesn't have a single lake that could host an event.

 

And you have to schedule 2 tournaments back to back that are close to each other which limits it even more. It's nice to see the elites struggling and it's equally thrilling to see them easily hitting century marks at Fork.

I never thought Knoxville could hold one either but they did, the classics worked way better than the regular elite event. 52-54 anglers is way more manageable than 102, several anglers were late for takeoff during the regular event because the ramp was so backed up 

25 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

I never thought Knoxville could hold one either but they did, the classics worked way better than the regular elite event. 52-54 anglers is way more manageable than 102, several anglers were late for takeoff during the regular event because the ramp was so backed up 

The only Elite events they’ve had here were AOY Championships. I went to both, back in 2015 & 2016. Those events had 50 anglers and it was held at a casino because it’s the only venue near the lake that has enough lodging, parking, food, etc.

 

Plus who doesn’t like a seafood buffet?

Playing down the tiny bass and little sacks, this post event PR ‘spin’ piece from  BM was in the wires this morning: 

 

Bassmaster Elite At Sabine River Delivered More Of What Bass Fans Want

May 19, 2025

By The Fishing Wire 

 

“…Instead, what the Sabine River gave fans was four straight days of intuitive bank-pounding, calculated junk-fishing, and every-ounce-counts power-fishing drama where subtle and seemingly imperceptible differences in presentation and strategy would make all the difference.”

Nashville has the Nashville Sports Council that is a non profit funded by the local tourism industry that brings sporting events to Nashville.   They are responsible for the Music City Bowl,  the SEC Basketball Tournament,  the Rock N Roll Marathon,  and various other sporting events over the years.  They claim that the Music City Bowl has a $24 million economic impact. It’s organizations like this or the local chamber of commerce that provide the incentives to attract these tournaments.  

 

I think the main benefit that local businesses get from these bass tournaments is showcasing their fisheries to attract fishermen who might want to spend a week fishing a world class lake.  
 

I don’t think many people will be booking trips to the Sabine River any time soon.  😌

28 minutes ago, Tennessee Boy said:

I don’t think many people will be booking trips to the Sabine River any time soon.  😌

Agreed, especially since this one made history

as the lowest winning weight ever recorded at a Bassmaster Elite event.

And that's saying something.

☹️

A-Jay

 

I would much rather watch this tournament than a small mouth tournament. Yeah the fish aren’t monsters but it has the biggest feel of what a local derby is like. Sure century belts are cool but man I find those open water drop shot/minnow events dull as all get out. 

16 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

I never thought Knoxville could hold one either but they did, the classics worked way better than the regular elite event. 52-54 anglers is way more manageable than 102, several anglers were late for takeoff during the regular event because the ramp was so backed up 

We barely have any waters big enough that allow unrestricted horsepower for 50 anglers let alone a lake that would accommodate 100. Pa is probably one of the worst destinstion fishing places.

57 minutes ago, DinkDonkey30 said:

I would much rather watch this tournament than a small mouth tournament. Yeah the fish aren’t monsters but it has the biggest feel of what a local derby is like. Sure century belts are cool but man I find those open water drop shot/minnow events dull as all get out. 

I agree - the St Lawrence smallmouth bass fishing is all carbon copy fish and relatively dull techniques to watch. 

6 hours ago, DinkDonkey30 said:

I would much rather watch this tournament than a small mouth tournament. Yeah the fish aren’t monsters but it has the biggest feel of what a local derby is like. Sure century belts are cool but man I find those open water drop shot/minnow events dull as all get out. 

Your impression is slighted by the time of year they hold them! Midsummer is the worst. I don’t even target them that time of year because of the exact reasons you stated.

 

Try fishing for them in the spring or fall. I did just that last week and the fish are up shallow hitting moving lures.

 

BASS makes this scheduling mistake every. Single. Year.

Don’t believe me?  Check out the brown bass that @A-Jay and @Dwight Hottle post every spring. You will notice that they post them every season around the same time period…and it’s not in the middle of summer.

 

34 minutes ago, gim said:

Don’t believe me?  Check out the brown bass that @A-Jay and @Dwight Hottle post every spring. You will notice that they post them every season around the same time period…and it’s not in the middle of summer.

 

Nailed it. 

I stop targeting Brown bass seasonally from June thru All of July.

August is when things start to pick back up for me.

And it's often pretty decent.

A-Jay

No pic?

On 5/19/2025 at 7:19 PM, JediAmoeba said:

There just isn't many places that can host an elite series tournament. Pennsylvania, like a lot of states, doesn't have a single lake that could host an event.

 

And you have to schedule 2 tournaments back to back that are close to each other which limits it even more. It's nice to see the elites struggling and it's equally thrilling to see them easily hitting century marks at Fork.

I agree there isn’t a lake to do it (aside from Erie) but the three rivers in Pittsburgh is plenty big enough. And the beauty of Pittsburgh is that the convention center is right on the river. I can’t remember if it had its own ramp but there is one right across the river so just a quick hop across the bridge. And there are a bunch of hotels downtown for spectators. At the time of the classic, BASS said it was an incredible event for the spectators and as an event. It just was small bags. I think it would be better now as the water has cleaned up a lot, there is more grass in the rivers, and you know…. FFS. 

4 hours ago, VolFan said:

No pic?

Not this time.

I was following your lead on this one.

A-Jay

14 hours ago, gim said:

Your impression is slighted by the time of year they hold them! Midsummer is the worst. I don’t even target them that time of year because of the exact reasons you stated.

 

Try fishing for them in the spring or fall. I did just that last week and the fish are up shallow hitting moving lures.

 

BASS makes this scheduling mistake every. Single. Year.

Don’t believe me?  Check out the brown bass that @A-Jay and @Dwight Hottle post every spring. You will notice that they post them every season around the same time period…and it’s not in the middle of summer.

 

You’re absolutely correct if they held the events at different times of the year it would be more entertaining. However they don’t so give me a Sabine or Albermarle Sound over St Lawrence any day of the week. Mind you I watch probably 90 percent of the coverage and watch a handful of pros tournament recap videos like Livesays. I give the anglers credit. Absolutely no way I could show up and fish that style for one day let alone multiple in a row. It’s like watching paint dry.