If you win golf’s Masters tournament, you receive the traditional green jacket and $720,000; have the fastest horse at the Kentucky Derby’s annual “Run For The Roses,” and you can expect, well, roses, and a check for $886,200; win tennis’ prestigious US Open, and you’ll bank a cool $750,000; racing around the Daytona 500 in record speed would garner you $300,000; but if you’re the lucky angler who wins the Ranger M1 Millennium bass tournament, November 4- 7, 1999, at Florida’s Cypress Gardens, you could collect a record-shattering $1 million.
Of all the celebrated sporting events held throughout the world each year, the first ever Ranger M1 Millennium bass tournament stands out as one of the most lucrative in any sport, with perhaps the largest first place cash prize of all. With a potential cash payout of $3.6 million, and the winning professional angler collecting a guaranteed $400,000, with the potential of garnering $600,000 more, and a live, 90-minute broadcast of the final day’s fishing action on FOX to an audience of millions, the event, and sport is capturing the attention of even the most discriminating sports fan.
Competitive bass angling, and fishing in general, which boasts more participants (55 million) than golf and tennis combined, is gaining new respect as one of the primary U.S. participant sports enjoying a renaissance just in time for the new millennium. That it is picking up where participation, and television audience, in traditional sports has begun a decline, is a fact not lost on Operation Bass Chairman, Irwin L. Jacobs, or the nontraditional (for fishing) corporate marketers he has brought into the sport. Names like Wal-Mart, US Bank VISA, Coca-Cola, Fujifilm and a host of others.
“The growing interest in fishing, and in fact, many outdoor sports, makes perfect sense,” says Minneapolis-based Jacobs, who once owned a majority stake in the Minnesota Vikings football franchise. “Increasingly, people today are becoming disenfranchised, and frankly, disinterested in traditional team sports because they simply can’t relate to the preposterous salaries and unseemly behavior by the so-called role models participating in those sports. Fishing is different. Not only is it a sport whereby enthusiasts at various skill levels can compete shoulder-to-shoulder with the sport’s biggest stars, but also it is a sport in which anyone can participate and succeed. And the 55 million participants who annually enjoy the sport also represent a significant, virtually untapped consumer group with tremendous purchasing power.”
Marquee events, like the Ranger Millennium, and another Jacobs bass tournament property called the Wal-Mart FLW Tour, are boosting competitive bass angling to new heights and shedding a new light on a sport organized in the late 1960s. Why? According to Jacobs, it’s because there is a hunger among a new band of athletes eager to watch and participate in nontraditional sports. Fishing programs on television are watched by 34% more armchair anglers than they were just four years ago, according to TIME Magazine, in their November 9, 1999, article entitled “A Wider World Of Sports.” And the comparison of the explosion in the sport to that of NASCAR continues to emerge from media monoliths like Sports Illustrated and USA Today.
The format arrived upon for the prestigious bass tournament is analogous to a PGA golf event whereby the full field of competitors, in this case 200 anglers in the professional division and 200 anglers in the co-angler division, compete for two days, Thursday and Friday, with the top scoring 50 anglers from both divisions, based on accumulated pounds, advancing to the second round of competition on Saturday. The 50 anglers from each division begin anew on day three and fish for one day for one of 10 berths in the final, championship round on Sunday. The 10 slots are awarded to the anglers with the heaviest catch weights for the day. The 10 Pro Division finalist start over again on Sunday, with the ultimate winner determined by that day’s catch. FOX cameras will follow each of the final 10 anglers throughout their fishing day, capturing every cast … and catch.
The winner of the Ranger Millennium M1 bass tournament receives the largest cash award ever paid in a fishing tournament – $400,000. If the winning angler has met each of the event’s sponsor bonus cash requirements, the winner receives $1 million.
This is the first opportunity competitive fishing has had to be exposed to a huge national television audience. The historic Ranger Millennium M1 bass tournament will draw the huge NFL audience right into the richest tournament the world has ever seen. The 90- minute broadcast will consist of one-half hour of taped coverage and, for the first time in major network history, one hour of live bass fishing tournament coverage.
Coverage will be spread across nine miles and 14 lakes. Anglers have the option of fishing one or all of the lakes. The LIVE telecast incorporates state-of-the-art production including the utilization of multi-camera mobile production facilities and highly sophisticated radio frequency equipment, plus the industry’s top professionals composing an 80- to 100-person crew.
FOX has tapped NFL Hall of Fame quarterback and co-host of FOX NFL SUNDAY, Joe Buck, and former All-Star catcher and MLB on FOX analyst, Bob Brenly, to provide the on- site calling of the play by play, with bass fishing legend and Ranger Boats founder, Forrest Wood providing expert commentary. Both Bradshaw and Brenly are avid outdoor sports enthusiasts.