FLW Walleye Leage Format Change

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There are some good ideas being thrown around on the “other” website.

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There’s another website?

In all seriousness, I thought i’d throw my hat in the ring here too. I’ve been fishing as a co in the league for 2 years, and late this season hopped over to the boater side. I had every intention of fishing the boater side next year, but this apparently changes things. Now, I am not sure what I will do, as I am already committed to fishing the MTT with a partner next year…not sure I see myself doing two full schedules in the team format.

I think the pro-am format of the league is really great, amd I think it would be a disservice to the “grassroots” walleye community (that’s FLW’s term for us weekend warriors) to have the league change to a team format. But of course, FLW’s bottom line is NOT what they do for us…rather, their bottom line is tied to the contents of their bank accounts, and if the pro-am league format doesn’t make sense to them from an economic perspective, they will have to change things until it does make sense.

I would rather see entry fees go up with a parallel increase in payouts while retaining the league format. Entry fees are really a small part of the total expense for a tournament weekend, if you account for prefishing, lodging, meals, gas, bait, etc, and it would be nice to not need a top 5 finish to even contemplate breaking even for the weekend.

While all of this is good conversation, you really need to express your feelings to the FLW folks. I already have. If they get enough of us expressing their interests than maybe, just maybe, it may make them swing in the direction we seem to pretty much be leaning to. (Pro/AM)

I will tell you this, some of us had a conversation at the hotel with the FLW team, and they need to make this profitable to maintain any kind of tournament schedule, and right now the PRO/AM format is not filling the field to make this profitable for them.

So please express your thoughts to the individuals that can make the diference. There are a lot of great ideas in this forum

Kerk,
Chirs is going to send this thread to Sonny in a few days.

From Sonny Reynolds:

Good Morning to you all…. I would like to thank you all for taking the time to express your views, comments and concerns regarding the possible change to the Walleye League format. They will be apart of the discussions that will take place today, that I can guarantee! Each email that I have received has been forwarded to Charlie Evans.

Thanks for your support.

Best Regards,

Sonny Reynolds
Director of Walleye Operations,
FLW Outdoors
30 Gamble Lane
Benton, KY 42025
Ph: 270.252.1591 Cell: 270.703.2386 Fax: 270.252.1001
Email: [email protected]

Thanks for sharing Tuck.

Can we read into this that they are going to have a meeting on this today and a possible decision soon?

Sully

I would rather it stay the way it is myself too. I like the idea of meeting new people and learning new techniques. I believe that a Team format will cause some people to not fish that are fishing now. They would also have to figure out a way to lure new teams from other circut’s to help fill which might not be a easy thing to do.I have a hard time seeing 100 team fields in a team format. Maybe they should look at limiting the fields to say 75 and raise the entry fee and payback the top ten with bigger payout’s. The sponsor’s could still kick out the nice contigency money they have been. Maybe try this for a year and then maybe kick the entry fee up higher say in the $500.00 range for a boater so the payouts get a person’s attention. I would be more willing to fish with a $500 entry fee to get a chance at nicer payout’s. This would be a entry fee that is between the local area Tournaments and the Tour Tournaments. The payouts would also be some good exposure for FLW. I could see more media attention involved to help expand the league. Lets see some more coverage in the magazine and the local newspaper. The Championship being aired on TV will help out alot I beleive. Just some of my 2 cents worth. I do believe that what ever does come of this Sonny will do his best to keep the events as good as they have been wether they are team or pro-am.

John Gildersleeve

Leave it the way it is. Raise the entry fee, make all touraments 2 days with all boats fishing both days and have a 3 day super at the end of the year. Raise the prize money also. This format gives new fisher people a chance to learn from some one else. there are enough team tours out there now to fish, we don’t need another one.

One thing I forgot,

I know it’s probably too late, but I think the current format could work with these minor tweaks. Raise the entries, even to $200 for boaters, and have the tournies scheduled on Sundays.

The extra $50 per boater for any full field would be an extra $5000.00. I also think that having tournies on Sunday would give some anglers more flexibility with vacation for pre-fishing. I know of a couple guys who can’t fish the circuit because they can’t take off that many weekdays for each event.

Here’s what the money difference that would’ve been made from 2006 in Wisconsin.

Event Entrants Extra Boater $50 Extra Co $25

Petenwell 86 $4300 $2150

Winneconne 87 $4350 $2175

Winnebago 90 $4500 $2250

Green Bay 80 $4000 $2000

Total $17150 $8575

Those are pretty big numbers for only a $50 increase. Multiply that by the 3 states and you’re looking at a decent #. A $100 increase might be in order as well. This is just an example.

The only problem with the Number of boat’s is Minnesota is never full.

I have fished the boater side for the last 3 years in the league and I have really enjoyed it.

Thing is…..if the league isn’t making $ the way it is being run now something needs to change. Every organization out there that runs big tournaments needs to make money doing it or they are not going to survive.

I applaud the FLW for looking at options to continue something for the weekend angler versus just pulling the plug on the whole thing.

When you look at the current payouts unless you are finishing very high you are going to lose money fishing the league so bumping the entry fees up and having higher payouts looks like a good option.
However, some of you have mentioned costs, how far can they bump the entry fees before they are driving people away with just that aspect of it??

The situation is a tough one…if you increase the entry fees and make the payouts higher the overall cost to the boaters is going to go up as well. If I am paying, for example, $350-500 for an entry fee to get into a tournament where I can win $8-9000 or more, I am going to take more time off to prefish to really give it a solid effort. Not everyone has the vacation time or funds to take 3-4 days off for 4 tournaments and still have vacation time left for a championship and misc family outings. It is also going to draw more of the anglers that fish full time because the payouts are high enough to make it worth their while.

It is a tough situation for them….you have to keep it small enough to keep it a “weekend angler” tournament but they need to make $ doing it. They are not getting full fields very often as it is so is bumping the entry fees going to help or hurt that??

Just some things to think about.

Well, if this truly is a “financial” decision, then FLW needs to take a close inner look at how they fell into dire straights. I give them an A for the quality of the fishing experience they provide, but from a strictly business perspective I’d have to give them an F. I know of no other business that promotes less than the FLW League does and still hopes to succeed. Solid marketing and a good product are the keys to to good business. FLW has half of this covered, now they just need to work on the marketing end. The television coverage alone of the FLW League championship this year should help to do wonders for promoting the league, but aside from that I see almost zero promotion of the League events. Herein lies FLW’s major problem IMHO. The Minnesota League had pretty good turnouts this year with pretty much zero promotion, and I can see full fields next year if they do even a marginal job of promoting and hyping the events. A lot of people suggested raising the entry fees last year to encourage more boaters to jump in and our suggestions were not followed. Hopefully all of the good ideas that have been passed around won’t fall on deaf ears this time….

I think some more user friendly waters would be nice as well. Big Stone, Winnie, Mille Lacs and the Miss are great venues. Cass, Leech and the like have proven to be big losers, and do not draw. IMHO.
I know I would have a really tough time going back to Cass and spending the kind of $$ I did as a boater there.

why wouldn’t you go back to cass.. cause less boater turn out = less payout or cause you haven’t done well fishing tourney’s there… I beg to differ on the quality of fishing on cass versus some of the others you listed.. just curious as to why..?

Im with you Chris I would love to see the Leauge go back to Big Stone!!!

Cass is all about timing – look at the weights (tournament total) for cass vs. other bodies of water where events were held. The last two years Cass has been held right during transition. Hold it 2-3 weeks earlier or later and you would be in better shape.

And yes I have fished the lake several time before and it has a terrific population of fish. It is a challenge to fish, and it’s ususally a fun challenge.

I also think fishing the tougher lakes such as Cass and Leech are good. Those lakes really make a angler earn their weight. Cass and Leech are really good quality lakes. I think new lakes should be looked at too. How about Lake of the Wood’s, Rainy River, Ottertail, Gull and so on. I wish the same lakes they alway’s fish such as Mille Lac’s would get set aside for a year or two. Remember this is a compition and going to Lakes that sport moderate population of Walleye’s is not a bad thing. The good angler will alway’s rise to the occassion and get a good program going.

I would agree to a certain extent..going to Big Stone, Cass and Leech make an angler earn their weight but they can also lead to a lot of very frustrated anglers that aren’t going to want to go back to those bodies of water so the next year you need to try and draw brand new anglers to fill the field.

The weigh-ins are also usually pretty boring with so many people only bringing in 1 or 2 small fish. If you want hype, publicity and people wanting to fish these tournaments….it needs to be exciting it needs to be on a body of water where most of the anglers really believe they have a shot….if they are just “going to get the points by catching 1 fish” on a body of water it takes all the excitement out of it.
JB

I agree with jbob. They are losing money because they undershot the entry fee at conception because they didn’t know how it would go. Raise the entry and keep it a one day event. Theres already too many team events in Minnesota. I can see the point the FLW is trying to make because they always have 70-80 boaters but 150 co-anglers on a waiting list. My point is they need to find out if the co-angler is attracted to fishing with a boater to learn more or would the co-angler have a partner and want to fish a team tourney? You would think if the co-anglers that are on the waiting list every year really want to get in, they would enter as a boater? IMO, your going to lose boaters if they change the format and lose the FLW tradition. Its pretty simple, raise the entry..

I have an idea. What if John came up to weigh in his fish in nothing but his “birthday suit” at each event. This would create all kinds of front page publicity, albeit it somewhat negative, for the League. It would be free press though, barring any lawsuits

Thats A sight I’m pretty sure nobody wants to see…If that happens there wont be any boaters….

Buckshot, I think Chad is talking about you. Chad dont give Buckshot any idea’s if he has a couple of beer’s in him he might just do it. Right Buckshot!

I heard a rumor that the league will NOT be a team format next year . So if its true they (FLW) must have listened to what we had to say.

Mike v

Yah Mike, I talked to Kevin Hunt yesterday. And he said they were 99% sure that the format would stay the same. With raised entry fees on both sides. Putting first place on the boater side somewhere between 7-8K. Also, Rumor is pool#4,Millelacs, and Bemidji. Yep, only a three lake year. And nothing was said about the championship.

Brady

So, how high are they planning on raising the entries? I would like to see $200 to $225 for boaters and half of that for cos. I think that anything over $300 will add up too much by the end of the year.

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I heard a rumor that the league will NOT be a team format next year . So if its true they (FLW) must have listened to what we had to say.

Mike v

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I’d like to think it was my suggestion of having John “G” streak across the stage that won them over

pool 4 huh?!?! here we come hager city you ready sully!!!

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pool 4 huh?!?! here we come hager city you ready sully!!!

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I hope we are welcome back to Hager City.

Sully

OH GOD YES WERE WATED THERE I AM SURE!!!! AS LONG AS BRIANK IS RUNNING THE PLACE AND WE BRING DUSTY THERE WE ARE IN!!!

Hunter I dont think so.But Jbob will he likes to streek.As long as he can where his Mercury hat. I think he would do it.