"The Reel Deal"-Corporate America Is Angling For Big Bucks
Wednesday, February 15, 2006View this story in Streaming Video
SUSIE GHARIB: Chances are, if you played sports in high school, it was baseball, football or basketball. You probably never dreamed of becoming a professional bass angler, but that`s one of the hottest pro sports these days. It`s gaining fans who follow its anglers the way other fans follow NASCAR drivers or pro football players. As we continue our series "The Reel Deal," Jeff Yastine looks at how bass fishing`s popularity is luring the marketing dollars of some of America`s largest companies.
JEFF YASTINE, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: It might look like an adult game of bumper boats, but this is the starting point for a professional bass tournament. Hundreds of vessels wait their turn on the lake, but these are not ordinary small craft. Most are floating billboards, advertising everything from Chevrolet to Fuji to BF Goodrich and Tyson. The goal is to put their logos in front of the television and still cameras that carry these contests to cable television and fishing magazines.
KAREN SAVIK: Every year, it seems like there`s more and more people and there`s more and more excitement, more sponsors that want to get on this bandwagon because it`s going and it`s a train that`s going fast and everybody wants on.
YASTINE: No company learned that earlier than Wal-Mart. It hosts many of the off-water events associated with the FLW tour, including what are called family fun zones, where corporate logos abound. Wal-Mart started sponsoring these events in the 1990s. The tour`s chairman taught the retail giant a thing or two about brand loyalty and fans of bass fishing.
IRWIN JACOBS: These people, they buy soft drinks, they buy boats, they buy cars. They buy everything everybody buys. They`re not freaks. These are people in America. Their buying power is enormous, and if they love you, they`re a cult -- a good kind of cult.
YASTINE: That brand loyalty is something craved by the major consumer brands now flocking to the sport.
VICTORIA VARHALMI: Reaching 55 million anglers is one where we get brand exposure pretty much all over the country. We have four Snickers anglers that travel all over the place and have our brand all over their signage of their trucks and their boats and they`re stopping at different rest stops and picking up a Snickers bar and just pretty much getting it out there and talking to people everyday.
YASTINE: No one has seen the changes more clearly than veteran pro anglers like George Cochran after winning a tour championship and a half million dollars last year.
GEORGE COCHRAN: A lot of these big companies, they want to grab hold of some of this excitement because there`s so many fishermen starting at a young age. Let`s say a Kellogg`s. They see a Kellogg`s boat and a Kellogg`s pro. That makes them, when they go to the grocery store, want to buy Kellogg`s. So it`s a lot like NASCAR. You know, the following of the sponsors is real big and it`s getting that way in fishing.
YASTINE: And it`s likely to stay that way, if pro bass anglers keep reeling in fans the way they do fish. Jeff Yastine, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Clewiston, Florida.
