BASS Announces Alignment of Youth Initiatives with BASS Federation Nation

[bassNspear]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 18, 2007

BASS Announces Alignment of Youth Initiatives with BASS Federation Nation

BASS announced today enhancements to its youth program, putting its youth competition circuits on a track similar to the BASS Federation Nation tournament structure. As part of the announcement, BASS will move the 2008 Junior Bassmaster World Championship to coincide with the final 2008 Bassmaster Elite Series event, scheduled for Aug. 7-10 in Syracuse, N.Y., in what will serve as a transition year.

At the 2008 championship event, youth anglers will be guaranteed to fish with an Elite pro and will weigh in on the Elite stage. All previously invited contenders will compete in the age division in which they qualified as ages will be frozen. The competition waters are yet to be determined. In subsequent years, BASS will hold the premier youth championship at the Federation Nation Championship, as previously announced.

While the format of the JWC will stay intact, BASS will augment the experience for the youth participants. Elite pros will conduct seminars for all competitors and BASS will work with sponsors to provide JWC qualifiers with fishing equipment.

“We understand the difficulties for those involved in a time of transition and we appreciate their patience,” said Don Corkran, director of the BASS Federation Nation. “We recognize that our youth membership is vital to growing the sport of bass fishing.”

Central to the enhancements is the exposure of youth anglers to all levels of Federation Nation competition. Youth competitors will be mentored by Federation Nation anglers and will learn the elements that are central to the passionate Federation Nation membership.

The qualifying ladders for the JWC and the Bassmaster CastingKids program, which will mirror the Federation Nation structure, will provide youth with a firsthand look at competition venues they can pursue when they reach competition age. The junior competitor who emerges as the top-performing angler in his or her state will advance to one of six Federation Nation divisionals, based on geographic criteria.

The integration will begin with the first BASS Federation Nation divisional in 2008 set for April on South Carolina’s Santee Cooper Reservoir. Junior competitors will remain paired into two age groups, 11-14 and 15-18.

The top-performing anglers from each of six divisionals will then qualify for the JWC Championship, to be held in conjunction with the BASS Federation Nation Championship. The championship contenders will continue to fish for $23,000 in scholarship money, with the winners earning the distinction as the top youth anglers in the sport in their respective division.

In addition to the seminars, BASS will encourage its Elite Series pros to serve in varying capacities at both youth competitions, including the CastingKids, at the Federation Nation Championship.

The CastingKids competitions will be staged in a similar fashion to the JWC path. The top CastingKids competitors in their state will qualify from the Federation Nation Divisionals and the anglers who emerge as the top performers in their Divisionals will move on to their season-ending event, also staged at the FNC Championship.

“We received feedback from all of our constituencies and feel that these enhancements are in the best interest of all concerned,” said Corkran. “We are excited about the direction of all of our youth programs and the chance for our youth competitors to grow into successful Federation Nation anglers.”

For more information, contact BASS Communications at (407) 566-2208 or visit http://www.Bassmaster.com. Visit http://www.espnmediazone.com for ESPN's latest releases, schedules and other news, plus photos, video and audio clips and more.

About BASS:

BASS is the worldwide authority on bass fishing, sanctioning more than 20,000 events through the BASS Federation Nation annually. Guided by its mission to serve all fishing fans, BASS sets the standard for credibility, professionalism, sportsmanship and conservation, as it has for nearly 40 years.

BASS stages bass fishing tournaments for every skill level and culminates with the Bassmaster Classic. Through its clubs, youth programs, aquatic resource advocacy, magazine publishing and multimedia platforms, BASS offers the industry’s widest array of services and support to its nearly 530,000 members. The organization is headquartered in Celebration, Fla.

[ocf1]

Now thats what I as a junior angler like to see!!!!!!!

[bassNspear]

pretty sweet, thats forsure.

[RK]

Hiya -

This is cool, but to me, it does next to nothing to make up for the colossal black eye BASS and ESPN gave itself pulling the rug out from under the Jrs that had qualified for and were promised a chance to fish at the Classic. It's bad enough when they change the rules in the middle of the game (like requiring advance deposits to 'hold a spot' in the Opens, then letting anyone with a check in their hand in after the date for the require deposit had passed, for example). But this was worse. They changed the rules after the game was already over.

In their press release there was a lot of talk about 'alignment.' In the business world, words like 'realignment' usually come hand in hand with phrases like "focusing on our core business." It's a semantic tap dance that hides the real issue: black numbers on the balance sheet. BASS can say it wasn't about the money, but as an old attorney friend of mine always says, 'when you hear the phrase "It isn't about the money," you can be absolutely certain about one thing: it's about the money.'

Tournament organizations have a fairly long history of treating their anglers like saps, but this is a new low. These aren't veteran pros who know how the game is played, and that sometimes business is business and it isn't always pretty - or even close to fair. These were kids they threw under the bus. Kids who'd been told that if they worked hard (and their families sacrificed with them), and won their state championship, they'd get to share in the atmosphere of the Classic. To come in after the fact and say "Nope, sorry kids...we're going to 'align you' differently' is about as mean spirited as you can get. It's also a blunder of biblical proportions. Just when you thought the mess of the Federation civil war was starting to fade in the rear view mirror, another gory self-inflicted wound.

At a time when youth interest in angling and the outdoors is declining, and the industry is doing everything it can to recruit new anglers, this is how the organization that presents itself as the pinnacle of the competitive aspect of the sport treats what are probably their most dedicated young fans? Maybe their thinking is that these kids need to learn young what they can expect if they want to be a professional angler. The fish aren't the only ones to get jerked around on the tournament trail.

Aligning the Jrs with the Elite series may work out in the end. But it really feels like not much more than a damage control engine in high gear. It seems that in the upper levels of tournament angling organizations these days (not just bass events, but walleye events as well) the damage control engine is the only one running on all cylinders.

I'm not an avid tournament fan (I couldn't tell you which angler fishes what tour to save my life), but I do follow the fishing industry as a whole very closely, and stuff like this hurts us all. As public relations moves go, there's stupid, and there's stupid, and then there's this.

Cheers,

Rob Kimm

[MNBassGuy]

Well stated. I'm not familiar with all of the ins and outs of this debacle, but I have heard enough of it to feel terrible for those kids, and I think BASS should feel terrible as well.

I think this whole mess can be summed up with four letters:

1.E

2.S

3.P

4.N

I've been a member of BASS as long as I can remember, and I've had a long running subscription to Bassmaster magazine dating back to when I was a kid. I've also subscibed to BASS Times on and off for some time.

The impact that ESPN has had on BASS is clearly seen in the quality of articles and the publications overall. I swear I'm reading the same magazine almost every month. Same basic info about how to work a laydown or a creek bed in a river channel, etc. Surely they have to know how many anglers out there fish natural lakes. Or, sadly, maybe ESPN doesn't realize that Bass live in badies of water that don't have a locke, or are man made. I honestly remember one article in the past year that made any mention of fishing milfoil or other heavy bottom-rooted weed structure (which actually mentioned Tonka).

The next type of artilce is the kind where an advertiser in the magazine gets to have their products mentioned as the new exciting thing to get. I have spoken with people who have tried to get their products mentioned but have been told that if they didn't advertise with the magazine there was no way that their product would be mentioned. Nothing like unbiased reporting!

Then to top it all off, both Bassmaster and BASS Times run about 2 months behind the actual events and they bascially cover the same thing regarding those events.

I don't know, I dont' mean to get off on a rant here, but I have always thought that the Bassmaster trail was the cream-of-the-crop (and still do), and I have always enjoyed and looked forward to reading BASS's publications, but I have definitely noticed a decline in the quality of articles and also noticed how things seem to be done for monetary reasons more than ever.

I hope it gets better.

[NBR]

B.A.S.S. may not have cornered the market on "STUPID" but they surely have a large holding. It appears to be so simple if the scheduling of the junior with the classic was not to their liking announce that next year it would change.

The whole thing smacks of a senior level manager not meeting performance goals and going to panic city.

I dropped my membership a few years back as the magazine seemed to be sagging badly in content and I have no intention of rejoining.