NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Earlier this year NewsChannel9.com Outdoors shared news of a bass tournament that is being billed as “the world’s richest purse ever offered in competitive fishing, and perhaps sports history.”
World Bass Enterprises (WBE) is bringing 60 of the top BASS and Major League Fishing (MLF) anglers together to compete for a record-setting $3.25 million purse, which includes a $1.25 million payout to the winning angler. Organizer Brian Bird says it will be the largest monetary prize ever awarded to a winner of a bass fishing tournament. Additionally, the second and third place finishers will receive $500,000 and $300,000 payouts.
While other tournaments also claim to be “the Super Bowl” of bass fishing, WBE organizer Brian Bird said this will be the first time ever that the top MLF anglers will be fishing directly against the top BASS anglers. (Image courtesy WBE)
“The Champions” tournament will be a five-day event from Oct. 28 to Nov. 1, with three days of competition, held on Old Hickory Lake at Sanders Ferry Park just outside Nashville, Tenn. The event will be headquartered at the Gaylord Opryland Resort.
In a March interview, NewsChannel9.com Outdoors asked Bird about the business model he is using to fund the $3.25 million dollar purse. At that time Bird was playing his business plan close to the vest, saying, “I won’t go into great details today. It’s our first year, right? So a lot of people are going to be watching to see how we do. But I’m a visionary. I’m an entrepreneur.”
On Wednesday, Bird admitted he wasn’t seeing great hope in garnering traditional sponsors for his event.
“If we were going to allow (regular) sponsors, we wouldn’t have gotten very far,” he said. “For some reason, I don’t know what it is but something is going on out there. Something stinks. I can’t put my fingers on it. Something’s going on internally in the fishing world that, for one reason or another, they’re taking a stance of, “We’ll wait to see how it plays out.”GOING A NEW DIRECTION WITH PAY-TO-VIEW
Bird has taken a different business track from anything the tournament fishing world has ever seen before, revealing that one major funding mechanism will be YOU.
Virtually every aspect of the five-day event will be on an online pay-as-you-go platform for spectators around the world. To watch the anglers on and off the water on your desktop of mobile device, they are offering a live streaming package.
Following in the footsteps of MLF and BASS, Bird says they will offer pay-package viewers live streaming from competitors’ boats from take-off to weigh-in, plus numerous activities off the water. He says there will be 15 cameras in anglers’ boats every day, plus several roving camera boats, drones and land-based cameras.
“It’s a total of 24 cameras operating,” said Bird. “There will be more footage of this event, as it unfolds, than any event ever. And it will be streamed live across the world.”
As an added incentive, WBE conducted a special sweepstakes. Individuals who purchased the pay-per-view package by a certain date had a chance to be selected to actually fish in the tournament as what WBE called “Regular Joes.” Bird said at least 1,800 people bought in before the sweepstake’s deadline.
A week ago came the announcement that “Regular Joes” Eric Giessing (53, Farmington, Mo.) and Kyle Carr (39, Gatesville, Texas) won.
Eric Giessing from Farmington, Mo. (left) and Kyle Carr from Gatesville, Texas (right) won the WBE Sweepstakes, which means they won the opportunity to fish the WBE Champions Tournament as “Regular Joes.” They will be competing for the $1.25 million dollar first place prize right alongside all the BASS and MLF professionals. (Photo courtesy WBE)
With the same chance to win the $1.25 million first-place prize, they will be competing against the biggest names in bass fishing, including Jacob Wheeler, ranked as the number one bass angler in the world right now. Chattanooga-area professional anglers Michael Neal, Wesley Strader, Banks Shaw, Jacob Foutz and Cole Sands will all be competing as well.
The 60 anglers will all fish day one and two but only the top 15 advance to the championship round for the $1.25 million first-place prize. It will be a standard bass tournament format. Each angler targets their five heaviest fish per day for the heaviest cumulative weight.
LIVE STREAMING IS THE NEW CRAZE
MLF started the bass tournament online streaming craze. The difference is that the MLF and BASS streams are free for viewers, on demand. Instead of charging the spectators, the other streams are advertiser-supported so viewers must suffer through occasional commercials to watch the anglers battle it out on the water.
WBE paid viewers presumably won’t have to suffer through commercials to watch their favorite anglers for all 5 days of the tournament activities and fishing. Besides fishing, Bird said he hopes to give pay-per-view fans something extra.
“I want to give the fans an experience to see everything,” he said. “The UFC-style media day press conference, the opening ceremonies, the Pro-Am events and the Champions Dinner. We just wanted the everyday fan to get to see stuff that they don’t ever get to see (at other tournaments).”
THERE’S MORE YOU CAN PAY FOR AT WBE
There are other paid options available for the WBE Champions spectators who actually attend the event. Depending on how much you are willing to pay – ranging from $411 up to $2,732 – you can buy your way in to multiple levels of VIP access to opening ceremonies, the Champions Dinner, concerts, weigh-ins, early access to the All Outdoors Expo, VIP Hospitality areas, parking and WBE merchandise credits. Visit this link for ticket package details.
LOTS OF FREE STUFF
Bird says, however, there will be plenty to see and do for free for those who attend the five-day event in Nashville.
“The Expo at the Opryland Gaylord Resort Hotel, all that’s free to attend,” said Bird. “At Sanders Ferry Park, where everything’s happening – the boat launches every morning, the weigh-ins, bands playing throughout the day, activities for kids like petting zoos, fishing tanks, archery, BB gun ranges, and boat demo rides – all of those activities at Sanders Ferry Park are completely free to attend.”
CAN IT LAST?
Bird is from Eastland, Texas with a background in the electrical construction industry. The founder of WBE said he expects this to be a continuing event, not a one-and-done proposition.
Until now most major bass tournaments circuits had the same business model. The owners charge the tournament competitors hefty entry fees, which cover at least some of the costs of running the events. But most also depend heavily on sponsors and advertisers. In many cases the locations selected for major bass fishing tournaments are not decided based upon how good the fishing is – they are chosen based upon which communities are willing to pay them the most to get the tournament to come to their lake. Those communities in turn expect big-time media exposure to bring more tourism and exposure to their areas.
But for the WBE, it won’t cost the tournament anglers selected to fish a dime. Their entry fees and travel expenses are free. The WBE web page does display some sponsors, but most don’t appear to be what you would expect to be “paying sponsors” – such as TWRA, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Tennessee Dept. of Tourism and others,
Bird is clearly simply planning to make his money to finance the event from spectators willing to pay their way to either watch online or be on-hand participating in the event. He said, “I can assure you that we plan on it to be very sustainable.”
A PROFESSIONAL ANGLER’S PERSPECTIVE
Professional angler Michael Neal from Dayton, Tenn. is excited about having qualified to fish the WBE championship.
“You definitely couldn’t ask for anything better,” said Neal. “This will be the most money I’ve ever fished for. So yeah, it’s definitely a different model and kind of a pilot test run. Hopefully it works out and gets to be a thing for years to come.”
Again, best of all for the anglers, there are ZERO entry fees and their travel expenses are covered.
Jacob Wheeler from Harrison, Tenn., is currently ranked as the number one professional bass angler in the world. In an MLF interview, Wheeler said, “A lot of these guys, we have not fished against each other. … Obviously, it’s the biggest payday; but even if it wasn’t the biggest payday, for me, the pride in representing your own side I think is an important part of it. And that’s something we haven’t had.” (Photo: Richard Simms)
Bird compared the event to football’s Super Bowl.
“I don’t see why the anglers should have to pay to fish in something like that,” he said. “In professional bass fishing it’s like we have an NFC championship and an AFC championship without a Super Bowl. This event will be the biggest thing in bass fishing, I’m quite sure of it”
Neal said, “I feel like this is a format that a bunch of people have asked for and wanted to happen over the years. Pitting the top anglers from the two leagues (BASS and MLF) and seeing who comes out on top.”
Neal said he feels like Bird has surrounded himself with the right people that can help make this unique business model work.
“I think this year (Bird) understands that it’s probably not going to be profitable,” said Neal. “But he’s got the right people behind him. We were on a call the other day and the people producing the show have actually produced Super Bowl halftime shows and things like that. So he’s really done his homework. Once this first event goes off I think it’s going to be a big hit. Then, going down the road, it could definitely stand a chance for it to be profitable and sustainable.”
With 34 days to the event, Bird admitted, “We’re probably a little off (on sales) than what I was hoping. But we’ve still got a whole month to go. And based on other pay-per-view events, I think probably 95 percent of those pay-per-views are bought in the last few days up to the event. We’ll see how it all plays out.”