How Healthy is Professional
Bass Fishing?
February 20, 2009
I don't want to rain on anybody's parade, but if you're thinking about going pro, you better go into it with your eyes open.
With the first day of the 2009 Bassmaster Classic under way as I write it seemed a good time to take a look at the health of professional bass fishing. I noticed several new sponsors for the 2009 season while reviewing the Bassmaster/ESPN website, but a bit of investigation of the109 guys out there trying to pay the bills touring indicates that these may not be the best time to try to fish professionally.
As the sport continues to grow the purses get bigger. In theory it should be getting easier to make a living on one of the tours, yet many of my longtime friends that made the decision to make a go as touring pros seem to be struggling. I decided to see just how viable a touring “job” is these days based upon endeavors and expenses. It was eye opening and makes me wonder how most of these guys are able to survive in this economy.
First let’s clarify one thing: VERY few touring pros make a living from cash sponsors. Some get enough to cover entry fees and possibly a little extra to cover expenses. From my inquires among friends currently on (and recently off) the tour there are less than 20 pros on the FLW and BASS circuits combined that exceed $100,000 a year in cash and are receiving boat and motor sponsorships.
I know personally of one two-time Classic qualifying angler who gets two boats and motors a year which he can then sell. Although these list as $50,000 (retail) boats he gets nowhere near that amount for them, netting about $80,000 for the two combined. That’s nothing to sneeze at but his other cash sponsorships total less than $25,000.
For many, $105,000 a year seems like a substantial amount of money, but keep in mind that to fish a tour there is substantial overhead involved. I made some assumptions and looked at what a 2008 angler stepping up to the plate and fishing the Bassmaster Elite Series (10 events scattered across the US) faced when it came to overhead. I further 
assumed that he lived in Dallas, relatively central to the tour, and that he drove to all events but for the ones that were back to back. For events near each other he stayed on location and split a hotel room with another competitor (his cost $50 a night). I further assumed he spent $50 a day on boat gas for all practice and tournament days, and that he lived on a shoe string budget and spent $30 a day for food, tackle, boat oil, maintenance, and all other incidentals during travel, practice and tournament days. I made one other BIG assumption, that during 2008 he was able to buy fuel for his tow vehicle at $2.75 a gallon.
To put dollars and cents to my hypothetical expense estimates I assumed my bass pro drove just over 12,000 miles last year, which I calculated from Dallas to the tournament lakes with a small bit of back and forth between lake and hotel during each week. Two of his largest expenses were entry fees ($55,000) and fuel for the boat and truck - figuring 12 miles a gallon in the truck ($2,750) and $3,850 for boat gas. Both of these figures are likely low, but I had to make some assumptions. He spent $4,280 on hotels (splitting the expense with another angler) and another $1,980 on incidentals. None of my assumed costs included vehicle maintenance, truck payments, health insurance, etc. It cost my hypothetical angler $67,860 just to “show up” last year.
But wait! Big prize money awaited him! Problem is a guy named KVD stood between him and a lot of that prize money. Granted somewhere out there is the next KVD, just like somewhere out there is the next Tiger. Likelihood is, however, that that guy (or girl) is not you. If you don’t know the KVD story this is not the time or place for me to share it. Trust me when I tell you that KVD was set financially and along with his burning desire to kick all of our collective rears he had the incredible leg up of focusing mainly on catching fish, a luxury very few anglers have.
To set the record straight KVD won two of the ten Elite series tournaments last year, cashed checks in all but one of the other nine on his way to winning the AOY title and amassed $338,000 in winnings in 2008 (he won another $40,000 in the ‘08 Classic). But as we mentioned before, you (nor I) are KVD.
So how did the mere mortals do? Well let’s say you finished the year in 10th place in the AOY race. In that case your name was Mike Iaconelli - year total winnings of $131,000, net expenses of $63,140. Mike’s probably (totally guessing here) one of the guys who does have some really solid cash sponsors, like him or not. So “Ike” probably paid all his bills easily, and if you look at the other top eight guys he probably out-earned most of them, so let’s look a little deeper.
Rookie of the Year, Bobby Lane, finished 15th in the AOY standings - total prize winnings for the year $82,500. So you make the big jump to the pro field, win Rookie of the Year by a landslide 569 points, and at the end of the year you net $19,360. Throw in a boat payment, house payment and health insurance and you owe somebody some money at the end of the year. Even making the Classic seems to mean little when it comes to actually paying your bills. Rick Morris qualified from the Elite Series in 39th place because Rick Clunn double qualified. His winnings for the year, $69,100, netted him the tidy profit of $5,960 for 2008.
While it’s obviously do-able as there were 109 guys out there (and about the same on the FLW side) last year, it’s a bleak picture in a bleak economy. I don’t want to rain on anybody’s parade, but if you are considering going pro, go in with your eyes open, a firm grip on your expenses and either a savings account full of money or another source of income that can support you and your family. I can tell you too many stories of guys that tried this on a credit card and wound up with $1,000 a month interest charges all the while trying to re-enter the workforce.
One other note, on February 16th fishing lost a great friend and ambassador, David Wharton. David was a great fisherman and a genuinely nice guy, and he will be missed.