Is no entry fees for the 2025 Bassmaster Elite Series the answer for professional bass fishing tournaments? After making a gigantic move to help improve the anglers stance with entry fees, but does it help or hurt the fisherman? With no entry fees and payouts being pushed back, Bassmaster Elite Series anglers must decide if they want entry fees or better and more payouts, that is the question.
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Who ever thought that BASS could remove 4.5m from the pot and still pay out the same as before? Also, I understand they are adding about 200k to their payout contribution. I've seen comments (not just here, but on many other YT sites since the announcement) on BASS's "greed", but the math doesn't back that up. Bottom line is, the real money comes from sponsorship, both individuals' sponsors, and corporate sponsors of the organization. Tournament winnings are not the real incentive for anglers. They are salesmen first and foremost, and this new payout schedule won't change that.
Lastly, it has been mentioned that sponsors who cover anglers entry fees may retract that 45k now that there are no fees. Why? If the angler is providing an ROI to the sponsor, it's still a good investment. In fact, the contracts can now be renegotiated to benefit the angler and the sponsor. Instead of 45k going to BASS, an angler can negotiate to , say, 35k in his own pocket. At any rate, while the new payouts may hurt an angler placing in the middle, overall, every angler benefits from this new arrangement in the long run.
Pretty much if you are not making the Saturday cut you are not getting a BASS check. If you go throughout the year and never fish on Saturday can you really call yourself elite?
Since this has nothing to do with me personally, I was wondering Steve if you know the people who came up with this ideal at BASS and was it several non anglers in a committee who approved this strange situation with the payouts. From what I hear from several elite anglers, they were caught off guard and aren't to happy about this situation!!
Steve, if they want to call themselves a professional sport, then they need to pay all the elite series anglers, not just down to 40th place. The fact that they haven’t grown the sport is a shame. If you look at every major sport the salary for athletes have gone up. Bass fishing has gone down and that is downright rediculous. So out of the 103 field for 2025, BASS is ok with 63 anglers walking away from every tournament with $0. That is absolutely idiotic. Why didn’t BASS reach out to the anglers before making the decision. Steve I hate to even say this, but if the anglers don’t take a stand on this, in 3-5 years there will be no BASS organization. The people running the show absolutely are crazy to think this would work. And, you’re absolutely right. Unfortunately, there will be more drama for 2025. So crazy. Steve, I recommend you go watch Todd Castledines video on this
This is just the Elites and not the Opens, correct? Personally, I would rather pay an entry fee and have a better chance at $10,000 than $500 – or whatever the new winner’s payout will be. You want to at least have a chance at paying for your expenses without having to finish in the top ten.
I think the no fees is a move in the right direction. I also agree that BASS is a business and needs to make money but every move they make must also include a "pay" increase for the business. Based on your numbers you ran, it is pretty obvious the anglers get hurt a little bit at the minimum. Of course bass fishing will never demand the kind of money football or basketball can demand, the fan base is nowhere near as large. But a move like this puts more money in the pocket of BASS, and just isn't enough to move any needles. If I were in a position running BASS I would look more toward the future. BASS has itself to blame for it's competition.BASS has not done anything in a long time to earn the loyalty of the anglers. Maybe if they had come out with numbers that made it so the angler money would be at or above last year they would start to gain loyalty. But to me it just looks the same as every auto dealership I ever worked for. Every so often the pay plan would be changed and it would be made to look attractive but once it really got dissected you found out that the dealership was just using het payplan as a new avenue of profit. Can't make more profit per car, so they pay less profit to those selling them.
The negativity kills me, although not surprising as that seems to be our sport. (I dont mean by you)The video from Kyle Welcher was a great outlook. It may not be where it needs to be, it is a step in the right direction. The anglers need to work to build their brands to make a living. There are a lot of anglers that been making a decent living for a long time on mid pack average finish's or occasional wins. Those anglers work for sponsors and do more than just fish. Most of us go to work every day to make a living, why should they expect any different? Its still a job, they just fish as part of their jobs.
Total joke for these Clowns today! Without Kevin and Rick it is dying 😮
This is how they get it to 50 without technically cutting down to 50
Sadly, professional bass fishing will probably never be popular enough in mainstream society to exist without entry fees. It’s not like the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, etc…. Where you have thousands of paying spectators at each event. You don’t have local governments chipping in millions of dollars to help build venues to showcase weigh-ins. You don’t have every 3rd person walking down the street with a B.A.S.S. jersey on. How many spectators actually show up to professional bass fishing events? 100? 200 on a good day? Except for the Classic. Then, how many would actually show up if you started charging $50 a head to get in? There are probably more spectators at your local little league game than show up to most pro fishing tournaments. If pro anglers want to have any chance to “make a living” at fishing they are going to have to put some of their own money up to make it viable. Only for a few years, when the FLW had Walmart behind them, was there any chance of making good money with no entry fees. And we all saw where that went after a few years. Once most of the big named and non-endemic sponsors realized that the ROI wasn’t there, they pulled out. The unfortunate reality for all of us who love tournament bass fishing is, it will probably never be profitable enough to provide 100 or more pro anglers a good living without entry fees.
You forgot to mention about sponsorship for the angler's who get their entries fees paid by their sponsorship. What if the sponsors say since your not paying entry fees for 2025, we are not going to keep giving you that money. BAM!!! Like you said that Bassmaster is a company and they are in the business to make money, now you know why they lowered the payout for angler's. More money for them, less money for the anglers, and if any angler doesn't like it then drop out so we can move another angler into your spot. Bassmaster is not a sport, it's a pay to play.
The money is not there anymore. The payouts can’t be the same. No way Bass could stay a float for very long. This is just more drama. Starting to be very hard to watch.
Go Steve!💥🎣🤙
If I was bass I would find ways to make more money to pay the anglers. They should have done this 2 years or so from now. The payouts do suck. BASS made too quick of a decision.
I hadn’t even watched your breakdown and I knew, overall, the new no entry fee system sucks! There isn’t $$$ in fishing unless you role with good sponsorships and a top 10 angler. In a way it’s kinda like what the BPT did. Even though BASS didn’t cut the field, it will definitely affect the middle tier anglers the most. It’ll be an Elite 50 before you know it…..
It all depends on whether the sponsors that paid yhe entry fees will still give the anglers the $45,000.
Steve, while you rejoiced about this news. I said it was a shell game. This just proved my point. BASS wanted to reduce the numbers of anglers, but didn't have the brass ones to do it. So it will happen automatically. The sponsors will welcome this, especially those that they have paid for the pro's that no longer win with entry fees. A big savings. Both leagues should go to tournaments that are only teams, like the GT MLF series. The interest and viewership would go up. Also, have a 1.99 subscriber pay per tournament for viewing.
Cut the qualifying field and up the pay schedule.
We pay them in lose of brain cells by watching
Steve youre our family
Remember, the entry fees are known, the expenses are known, the unknown is the sponsorship dollars.
Steve,
I wish you would have put in the $45,000 credit for the entry fees to get the most accurate take on this. Yes, you mentioned it, but you needed to add it to the calculation to come out with the real number if you say, most anglers, make their money on sponsorships , then no entry fees is a big deal and will help tremendously. I’m not sure where you were going with this?
👍🏻
Bass fishing is a gamble you’re not gonna win all the time
The payout is less because there’s no entry fee. How hard is it to understand
I've seen several of these already. Nobody seems happy. As I see it anglers are going to have to get a salary from the fishing industry that covers their yearly living. If you have five sponsors perhaps you can cobble together an 80 to 100K contractual salary. If not the thing will bust. Tackle companies, electronics, boats, motor companies will have to pay up for purses. Winnings will come on top of the salaries. Anglers are going to have to be open as to how they catch fish and what techniques/lures they use and sell these products to us. There isn't likely enough money for a 100 person field. Fishing does not have the visibility that a game like golf has. But perhaps Ford or Ram or Toyota can kick in money. And we may have to go to pay per view for tournament coverage. That would likely kill viewership. So get the truck companies, tire companies and fishing industry to kick in more money. And we should use their products.