ESPN Will Give New Angle To Fish Story

(From The USA Today -- By Michael Hiestand)

TV sports needn't involve sweat.

THE NFL DRAFT and NCAA COLLEGE MEN's BASKETBALL SELECTION SHOW are big-time TV draws, even though the only body parts that get much exercise are TV announcers' jaw muscles.

Not surprisingly, the success of those shows has spawned descendants. Like this one, which ESPN announced Thursday -- BASS MADNESS: THE 2006 SITE SELECTION SPECIAL.

June 19th, the show will unveil the locations of the pro fishing circuit's events next year. And those sites, ESPN analyst BYRON VELVICK says, are key (try to keep up here) -- "It can give anglers a home-field advantage. Say you're really good at flipping bushes, where your boat position is close to the target for the short, underhanded flip (casts) in a tight presentation. So it'd help to get to a lake with a notorious flip bite."

But you knew that. What may surprise is that ESPN figures standard TV formulas, like a selection show, can work for fishing. Says ESPN spokesman MIKE SOLTYS, "This is similar to when we first aired THE NFL DRAFT and NCAA SELECTION SHOW."

But there are big differences. ESPN actually owns BASS, paying $40 million for the circuit in 2001. It competes with the FLW OUTDOORS FSHING CIRCUIT, which airs on FOX SPORTS NET.

In the first, but surely not the last, SPORTSCENTER spinoff, ESPN this year created BASSCENTER, giving itself a weekly news show on ESPN2 to cover a sport it owns. ESPN2 also has LOUDMOUTH BASS, a spinoff of the many ESPN yak-fests focused on land-based sports.

DISNEY's ENTERTAINMENT DIVISION pitched in to give BASSCENTER a ready-made star. ABC, ESPN's corporate cousin, last year cast Velvick in its prime-time reality show, THE BACHELOR, where 27 women tried to reel him in. (He ended up engaged to one, MARY DELGADO, and says their wedding next year might be televised.)

Velvick, who'd won BASS FISHING's U.S. OPEN twice, says THE BACHELOR constituted "a total immersion course in television." It was a true 21st-century training ground --"For seven weeks, there were always cameras in your face. You could say one sentence off-air. They couldn't let you fall in love off-camera."

But Velvick, 40, says his sponsors didn't want him to give up fishing for TV, especially since "I have 25 more good years left" -- so he still competes in BASS events, even as he analyzes the circuit.

Willing sponsors are key. Fishing is like so-called action sports -- which get another boost this weekend as NBC premieres its DEW ACTION SPORTS TOUR -- in that it showcases products with mass-market appeal. Velvick says top BASS anglers can make $150,000-$400,000 on sponsorship "retainers" for showing up at competitions -- "We always talk about this among ourselves. We'll say, 'What are you going to make if you don't catch a bass?' That's exactly how we say it."

The value of one's lure sponsorship, of course, can largely depend on its TV exposure. And that's where ESPN, which sometimes styles itself as a "news-gathering organization" -- as when it recently appointed an ombudsman -- can come in darn handy.