"Despite a negligible live gate ... and zero live-
television revenue," bass fishing "is attracting enough
corporate sponsorship to make millionaires" out of a handful
of anglers "and to provide a comfortable living to perhaps
another 300 or 400 pros," according to Jack McCallum of SI,
who examines the sport under the header, "Reeling In Dough:
Thanks To Rival Tours And Big-Bucks Sponsorships, Bass-
Fishing Pros Are Becoming Millionaires In A Sport That Could
Turn Into The Next NASCAR." Pro Denny Brauer, for one, made
$600,000-$800,000 in prize money and endorsements for the
year, and will appear on a Wheaties box in October. He has
12 endorsement deals. McCallum writes that bass fishing is
appealing because of "the cultlike devotion it inspires," and
the sport "is getting bigger, in part because there are two
rival tournament-sponsoring entities: B.A.S.S. (the Bass
Anglers Sportsman Society), which holds eight elite
tournaments each year, and Operation Bass, which conducts
seven," through the Wal-Mart FLW Tour. Wal-Mart is the FLW
Tour's title sponsor and other "big-name" sponsors include
Chevrolet, Coca-Cola and Wheaties. The two organizations
"have a tenuous coexistencene," and neither side "has
attempted to pressure anglers into signing exclusive
contracts." But the "idea that there won't be a head-butting
somewhere downriver is naive" (SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, 8/24).
