Well after being on again off again, it is complete and has been for a week and a half or so. I have listened to some podcasts on it, I have read a few press releases and I have read some general fishing forums. Reaction seems to be all over the place. Many people including myself hate change. I will say I support all the circuits, so if and when I come across leaning on one more than the other etc. It is purely my code of right and wrong and my observations.

FLW has a wonderful program for up and comers. They are active in all grassroots levels and MLF simply needed a feeder system. With the purchase of the FLW they have obtained that feeder system needed to fill out 10 spots on the 2022 tour. The anglers for the BPT/ MLF signed three year deals and at the end of that three seasons the bottom 10 move out and 10 new guys come in from the newly purchased FLW tour. By purchasing the entire series, MLF is now able to get in faster at grassroots levels than they probably wanted at this time, but not over the long haul. It has always been their stated goal to cover it all, this probably just sped things up some with the Costas and all below it. This purchase has many pro’s and cons.

Here are some of my observations. I am big into sportsmanship. You cannot convince me or probably most people that are honest that MLF was not attempting a hit job on BASS a year ago. They offered almost no invites to FLW people , it simply came across as a hit job on BASS to try and put them in a bad spot. I am against that. They could have taken 60 left BASS with some more guys and had a better tour for themselves. If people are perfectly honest there were some invites a year ago that were not the same caliber as some others. Some of these are even the 11 org. owners.
I enjoy the every fish counts format, especially early on, but by the time the season was over I had kind of gotten burned out with it. I am not a big small mouth guy, and they did not do a lot of that, but they did have some events most notably Table Rock that just seemed to be drop shot events. When a guy like Wheeler is just dropping , dropping and dropping it is like watching crappie fishing and for me it is just not exciting. That being said people that watched the Red Crest and saw Edwins stretch with a baitcaster, that was exciting to me. Cast after cast, official cannot keep up, it was good stuff. I also believe this is how most of us fish. If we are not in a tournament we go out to catch fish.

The argument that it is a little fish tournament. While I understand the natural competitor in any guy or gal wants to scream it is not a little fish tournament, the stats say different. I was in a group in January and listened to to top level guys say it was not a little fish tourney. That in previous seasons the made for tv portion was not nec. the best seasons or lakes for that time of the year. They said they still catch big fish, but seeing every fish makes it look as if it is a little fish tour. I gave them season one and it is my conclusion based on stats that it is a little fish tournament trail. I am ok with that, but lets not pretend it is not. While I have studied the numbers some, many fans have studied it in depth and it consistently points to being a little fish tournament trail. It is a diff. game than five fish, it is a numbers game and all stats point to the guy with the most individual fish is going to win. It is not about size, it is simply the angler that catches the most is going to win overwhelmingly . I think the tour even knows it, because a couple of events in, they took off the average fish size stat on the scoretracker. Why would they do that if it was not to protect seeing the average size is hypothetically 1lb 4 oz. ?
For a traditional guy FLW until 2020 had a five fish count and people enjoyed that, it is that way in most circuits across the land. This is a downside to the merger. This will be gone. There is sentiment that they are trying to force their every fish counts on everyone. This is a fair assessment in my opinion.

MLF has come out and said the new 2020 version of the FLW will not be a feeder system. I cry bs on this. The reality is the reality. 10 guys from the FLW tour will be on the MLF tour in 2022 based on what they do this season and next. By definition if you are feeding into another series considered the top level, then you are a AAA affiliate. Also if the FLW is a stand alone and not a feeder circuit then you should have a World Champion. MLF has exchanged this for a AOY type tourney that you qualify for. So bottom line lets not pretend that it is not a feeder circuit. Maybe the most comical thing of this, is I can think of four guys right now that a 110 percent top tier that are now in the minors. Call it what you like but a downside to the merger is Scott Martin, John Cox, David Dudley and Bryan Thrift are now minor leaguers.

To follow up on the MLF already has two world champions. One is from the made for tv side and has had 3 career champions and they qualify for the event and are referred to as World Champion. Then the other from the new tour this season knowns as the Red Crest. Now while I am sure it seems logical to some that one World Champion is made for tv one is not, but the reality is you only need one World Champion from one organization. No diff. than you taking away the FLW Cup, away.

A good side to the FLW tour is the payouts as of now are going out to 75 spots, which is 10 additional spots, and they are being reported from 51-75 will be $10k each. So that is anywhere from a $500 raise to a $1000 raise. For example if you were a 54th guy drawing $9500 for an event in the past, you would get $10,000 this go around. If you were unpaid in spot say 68th, you now get $10,000 so you are getting considerably more ROI. Anyone that has read me knows in life I am a big believer in ROI.

FLW relies on majority of their income from anglers entry fee’s and fishing/ nautical sponsors. Ranger Boats, Bass Pro Shops, bait companies etc. If there is one thing MLF has done, and far and away better than everyone else, is get no endemic sponsorship. Meaning non angling sponsors. Forty Creek Whiskey, Bad Boy Mowers, B and W trailer hitches, beef jerky companies, industries in piping, fueling, plumbing etc. MLF has done a remarkable job joining these non industry sponsors to our sport and they are better for it.

MLF is attempting to grow the sport and while I do not think it is doing as well as they would lead you to believe they are trying and my hats off to them for trying. Part of the reason for this is , if you are trying to target non angling fans, not having fan interactive expos at every event hurts you. It has been stated numerous times, they are a media platform and this is why no expo. They are shady about about this. When I inquired about an expo for Conroe, I got a response, saying There is a post game show but avoiding the part of no fan events. Now I can say if you were an adult or a child and wanted a pic or an autograph,every one of the guys in the top 20 were available to you for that. Exceptionally fan interactive on that end. High School kids gathered around Jordan Lee since he is their Lebron, while guys my age gathered around the Gary Klein’s Mark Davis’s and KVD’s.
The MLF is creating 52 hours of org. programming for FLW in 2020. This is a plus. the downside is MLF will say hey we are on discovery channel and we have this many hits on our live streaming. Those are not entirely accurate. With a goal of growing the sports no one is watching Discovery Channel at 6 am on Saturday and watching and saying ” Wow I need to get into this.” Diehards are recording and watching later, but it is honestly a non factor for drawing new fans. Same with the live stream. While it is in present day the only way to measure , the live stream freezes, so a individual may have to refresh a few times, during a broadcast, and thus driving up numbers that are false. It was one man , watching and trying to continue to refresh. It is kind of like unemployment stats. They do not tell the whole story because after what I believe is 6 moths a person drops off. Since this happens they may be unemployed and unaccounted for. Maybe it is they are lazy, maybe they are asking for too much etc. But it is one of the few metrics you have so it is what it is. Just like with MLF they can only go on hits, it is what they have, so it is what it is.

Here is something rarely mentioned. I said this with golf and now I will with bass fishing. While this does not hurt me as much as a kayak angler, because more often than not I am beating the bank, I am probably never more than 12 feet deep and I am going over my area with a fine tooth comb. The cliche you have to cover water works in a boat, not so much in a kayak or canoe. It like Jeff Kriet once said in a seminar I attended. He was a guy that was going to get every fish in an area, KVD was going to come in, make casts, get the most aggressive fish and move on. He may be back later in the day to refire them but the goal remained the same, he was not out to get everyone. All this being said and to get back on point , food for thought : Why do we want more anglers crowding our ramps, lakes, on our honey holes etc. ? It is comical but it is true. Is that good for the industry in sales ? Hell yes. It is good for Burgerboy ? Hell no. I want less crowds , less traffic and more untouched areas. In my case I want more untouched water and increasing participation is not nec. helping that. Is this selfish ? Yes. Do I encourage young people, especially kids, yes I do, but then they are not out on boats zipping to my brush pile after watching Bryan Thrift’s killer course on Tournament Brush pile fishing.

The new FLW hybrid format. I feel for guys that signed up and now are having this forced on them. The first two days will be traditional. That is a good thing, Day three and four I believe will be MLF as well as days five and 6. I may be a little off but I am writing this on the fly . If you are a guy that fished FLW and enjoyed the five, well guess what it is being forced on to you if you make a cut. The flip side is if you have some skins in the game, you could go to BASS. If you want to retire at the end of this season you may. The 2020 hybrid style will be a good chance to get an idea of how fast MLF is. You move 10 minutes down the lake you could be 3 people behind, it happens that fast. This is something that MLF rookies did not have a chance at this year, they had to learn. Some like say Jared Litner or Jeff Sprague adapted really well. Noted good sticks like Jason Christie, who had some MLF experience struggled to go from a 5 fish to an every fish counts mentality. My prediction is Jason Christie will be much more hungry and focused this year, and the tour is going to pay for it. I suspect BASS will get some guys that want to stick with five fish. Good for both parties. I suspect some guys , had they been offered an invite, are now with the merger sorry they did not take the invite. They are paying $50k to attempt to qualify in two years to a tour that requires no entry fees, and they could be in now. Let’s say a guy pays $50k this and then again next , gets in for the 2022, that is $100K out of pocket for something they could have gotten for free to start 2019. That is unfortunate but that is life.

I would love to see what the P and L statement is for this years MLF. They have deep pocket backers and as mentioned above they have wonderful non fishing sponsors, but the constant streaming that I really enjoy costs big bucks. Their formula can will work as long as they have that money coming in, but as in any business eventually they have to start showing a profit. While I am down on some of the sportsmanship issues, They have accomplished a hell of a lot in one year. We may never know but I am always curious if BASS does not cancel the event in 2018 up in the Virginia area, does the new BPT MLF tour start in 2020 instead of 2019 and is it a little less fly by the seat of their pants ?

All in all, I think if you are a star this merger is not good, though maybe in 2 seasons it is, if you are a mid tier guy this merger is good, you get paid more , and in 2021, we will have to see what happens with how many the rebranded FLW tour takes, entry fee’s etc. I am sorry this is kind of all over the place but I was distracted a lot of the time and may do a rewrite.

UPDATE As of a conf. call this week, the 2020 season on the FLW New Circuit will be four days 5 fish a day , like a traditional tournament. After the 2020 and 2021 season, 10 guys move up to MLF and 10 guys go down to the minors or switch leagues. Also as of now, there has been pay change spots 51-75 will pay a minimum of $5k but no word on what the upper end will be. Either way it is more money if you are spots 66-75 where the old format would give you $0. Food for thought, you are on a free tour now, at the end of three seasons if you are 71-80 you go down to the minors and now have to come up with $50K for entry fees, maybe you have sponsors to cover that, but if not, you are now trying to say I got booted down and need money, that is a not a good thing. The constant change of 10 anglers does make this more of a real sport in the fact the hot hand stays, the cold hand goes, the down side is I have several favorite anglers and I will get no joy when they are unemployed at the highest level after the 2021 season and beyond. Let’s say they stick with 150 anglers in the new FLW, which they may cut back on but who knows. Finishing with a Top 10 for a season is not easy, so if you go to the minors, it will not , under any circumstance be an easy road back to the Majors.