Our Featured Angler for August is a Q&A with Virginia Federation president Roger Fitchett on the state of the Federation

by Pete Robbins
(Who is Pete Robbins & what else has he written?)

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It was very productive, especially since a former Federation member won the tournament.

I don’t remember if they mentioned it or not, but I hope so. Good if they did.

First let me say that I’m answering these questions more as a divisional representative than as President of the Virginia Federation, because I’ve been to all of those meetings, so I know what’s going on.

Since ESPN bought BASS almost two years ago, the Federation has wanted to know what kind of direction they were going to take us in. ESPN has flip-flopped on a lot of issues, especially on the issue of mandates. Our Federation members call them mandates, but sometimes ESPN looks at things a little bit differently and doesn’t consider them mandates until we tell them that’s what they are.

At the Federation Championship this year, there were a lot of rumors going around. We heard them from very reliable sources. We felt that we didn’t have a choice but to have a meeting and to tell the Federation Presidents what the rumors were. If we hadn’t told them, and we got to the Classic, and ESPN had implemented those mandates, then we wouldn’t have been doing our job.

We have five divisions in the Federation, and there is one representative who the Presidents elected for each division, and I represent the East Division. Our role is to do what the Presidents want us to do. We have to relay their message to ESPN as the mouthpiece of the presidents.

No, it’s not, never has been. Back when Ray Scott formed the Federation, he thought that every Federation is different. There’s a lot of diversity among the different Federations, and he would rather that the Federations be affiliated with BASS, rather than having BASS own them and give them mandates.

There were rumors going around that BASS was going to come up with a paragraph for every Federation to put in their bylaws that gives them the right to deal with sponsors, and guarantee that all of the Federations will deal with the sponsors. That has never worked and it never will work, not because we don’t want it to work, but just because of the diversity of the Federations.

I’ll just give you an example. Let’s just say Triton Boats is a sponsor, Triton Boats aren’t in every state. You can’t tell people in a state where they can’t buy a Triton boat to support them. They have to involve Ranger, or Skeeter, or someone else.

The program they came up with was a sponsorship program called the Buyer’s Club and it was kind of mandated, and it was basically a take it or leave it deal. If you wanted to take advantage of it, fine, and if you didn’t that’s fine too, but if you did, you were gonna have to stick to the rules whatever they were. As I understand it, was never completed because ESPN found out that the Federations did not like the concept and most of the sponsors did not want it mandated.

We explained all of these rumors to the Presidents and we told them to go back and tell your Board of Directors but don’t start spreading this, because they are rumors, you need to know about them.

The Presidents instructed the reps to form a corporation, and we first incorporated as United Bass Federation, and it consisted of nobody but the five of us, a President, two Vice Presidents, a Secretary and Treasurer, and that’s it. That was mainly to protect us, and also to set it up so that if ESPN pushed us away, we would have somewhere to go. In that case, all of the Federations could join United Bass Federation.

They also instructed us to come up with a plan so that if ESPN pushed us out, we would have something to do, people to work with, like we’ve been doing with BASS. We also did that, as a matter of fact sponsors were approaching us before the Federation Championship was even over offering their support.

We had sponsors coming up to us asking what was going to happen, but basically they wanted to let us know that if for some reason ESPN pushed us away, they were willing to help us. We talked to Triton Boats, FLW, and few others…no need to name them. We did meet personally, all of us met with FLW. It was Irwin Jacobs, and one of our reps met with Earl Bentz because he lives pretty close to him. Everyone just basically wanted to tell us that they did not want to see the Federation go away. We were very well supported.

After we formed the United Bass Federation, the Presidents also told us that whenever we worked out this alternate plan that we needed to be prepared for, that if at all possible we wanted to stay with BASS. We did not want to go away from BASS. And that’s exactly what we did. We had no intentions of pulling out of BASS. We felt that if we disaffiliated with BASS, it would be because they pushed us out, and for no other reason.

What we would like to do, and this is part of our alternate plan, is to work with other non-endemic sponsors. That would help the industry, that would help the Federation, because BASS has never given us money. We’ve been asked to do more and more and more, and we don’t mind doing it, but it takes money to do that. The Federations have never had money. The large Federations – Illinois, Alabama, and even our Federation – we have a lot of members, which means more membership dues that allow us to do a lot more than the smaller states that don’t have a lot of members.

I really want to get across that we absolutely did not want to pull away from BASS. Everything we did included BASS. I’ve been a member since 1972, and most of those guys have been members for fifteen, twenty, thirty years, so we did keep that in mind.

At the Classic, we met Tuesday night with people at ESPN. We met Wednesday morning with one of the ESPN people. That was Steve Puckett, who is the new operations manager at BASS. Right now he is sitting in Al Smith’s place.

Since ESPN found out that we formed a corporation, and called it United Bass Federation, basically they didn’t like it at all. It was kind of a threat to them, because we wanted to work with other non-endemic sponsors. It was a threat that we might try to take some of their sponsors. That wasn’t our intent at all, just the opposite as a matter of fact.

At one of the meetings, we were discussing United Bass Federation. We knew they didn’t like it, they told us in their own words that they didn’t like it because it was a threat. In front of Steve Puckett, we asked him if we dropped the word "United" would that be acceptable, and he said yes. We took a vote right there, with the Presidents to drop "United" and we are now called "Bass Federation," not "United Bass Federation." It’s already been changed in the corporation papers, that was done yesterday.

We had a plan about a membership drive, to help them make some money, and Steve Puckett wanted to talk about that. Later on in the week, we had the big meeting. Ray Scott, a couple of people from his company were there. Dean Kessel ran the meeting. Steve Puckett was there, Michael Rooney from ESPN was there. Mark Quenzel who is Senior VP of production at ESPN was there.  The room was full, to say the least, and a couple of independent writers were there. It was quite a meeting.

Dean Kessel said that he understood that the Federation was very important to BASS and then he went into his list of commitments, which are:

1. We are dedicated to improving the BASS Federation, and recognize that it is the backbone of this organization. We want to work with the Federation to make it stronger. That commitment extends to the highest levels of ESPN.
2. The five spots in the Bassmaster Classic reserved for top anglers from each of the five divisions will not be eliminated. These five anglers will compete for the same titles and prize funds as the pro anglers. Contrary to rumor, that will not change.
3. The very successful Federation Alliance sponsor program has been beneficial to Federations that have chosen to participate. Within the limitations of contracts with participating sponsors, this program will not be eliminated.
4. Rumors that BASS plans to mandate sponsorship agreements involving State Federations are false. There will be no new mandates of any kind, especially including those involving sponsorships and Federation bylaws.
5. A Federation Director will be appointed very soon. This person will be an avid fisherman who understands the Federation's needs and concerns. This person will also have the authority to make decisions and to respond to your questions and concerns in a timely manner.
6. We also plan to appoint two regional managers to assist with state programs.  This will bring our staff supporting the Federation program to a total of eight.
7. Approximately six months from now, we will bring all of the Federation presidents together for a joint strategy session to put together a five-year plan for the BASS Federation. This plan, which is unprecedented in BASS history, will guide BASS and the BASS Federation as we work together toward common goals to benefit the sport, the resource and the Federation.
8. A weekend style tournament trail is still on the drawing boards. We recognize that this might conflict with some Federations in states where there are already too many tournaments being held. However, where this program would benefit Federation anglers, we would seek to offer additional competitions. BASS will work with the Federations to avoid conflicts and provide opportunities for BASS members where we can. In addition, Federation members will still benefit by receiving priority entries in those events, as they do in the Opens.
9. Within the next few months, BASS will roll out new initiatives designed to increase funding for state Federation conservation programs and other activities at the state level.
10. Actions speak louder than words. We ask that Federation leaders continue to work within the present framework over the next six months as BASS proves its dedication to the Federation program and its ability to make great things happen.

and when he got through telling everybody, he asked that we the Presidents give them six months to follow through with these commitments. It was kind of a 50/50 thing but in the end most of the Presidents agreed to go ahead and give them the six months and see if they followed through with the commitments that they made to us.

If they follow through with these commitments, it’s going to be a big start in moving forward. It’s going to be more than we’ve ever gotten since they purchased BASS.

One of the commitments, they’re going to hire a new Federation Director to take Steve’s place, and they’re going to hire two regional representatives. You’ll read in the commitment just what his job is going to be.

I will tell you my opinion, and that of some others. I’m sticking by this because I truly believe it. The bottom line is that ESPN, even though they do not own us and they realize this, they want to control the Federation. We know why: whenever they deal with sponsors and they say you’re going to have 50 states supporting you, with 45,000 or 50,000 members, without having control they can’t tell a sponsor that. But if they could, the financial negotiations would be a lot higher than what they are now.

It’ll be a big step forward if they follow through. They also, besides wanting to control the Federation, they would like to see the "Fab Five" (the five Regional Representatives) go away. If you read the letter you will see a little section in there that they’re willing to work with the Presidents and with the representatives, but if they would rather work with the representatives rather than BASS, they can do that, because the Presidents raised holy hell numerous times about the reps. They weren’t about to let ESPN do away with us. They weren’t about to deal with them without dealing with us. They would like to see the divisional reps go away, they would like to work around the state presidents and work with the clubs and the members. They want to do that so they can have more control. I guarantee you, if they get rid of the reps, they’re pretty much going to have control. They already really have control anyway, because they dismissed Al Smith.

The only thing that I can tell you, that was told to us, is that Al was let go because he was not loyal to ESPN. There is one piece of speculation. ESPN thinks that Al Smith is a board member of United Bass Federation, or now Bass Federation. He never was. All they’ve got to do is pull up the documents in Delaware, where we formed the corporation. It’s open to the public, anybody can read it.

He called Robert Cartlidge. Robert is the President of the Bass Federation. He knows a lot of people, so we have appointed him as our spokesperson. I’m the Vice President. He’s also the tournament director of PVA, Paralyzed Veterans Association, and Ranger helps them out a lot.

Irwin Jacobs requested that we come to his office and meet with him. He just wanted to sit down and talk to us, nothing on paper. We went there a couple of weeks before the Classic.

We didn’t get into any details. He told us first, he couldn’t believe after we explained what the Federation did, he couldn’t believe that we did all of this for nothing, absolutely free. He did understand that the way our federations were structured, there was no way in the world that one thing would work for all fifty states. We could not be mandated. He said that he wanted to help us, if for some reason we had to leave BASS.

He even told us a few things that I can’t tell, that he would do for our Federation, and some of that was a monetary value. He just came right out and offered this and that, things that other sponsors did not. We didn’t even get into negotiating anything. He just told us he didn’t want to see this Federation fall apart. It’ll not ruin the industry, but it will put a big dent in the industry because our members are the ones that buy their products.

Oh gosh. ESPN might have, but I don’t know. I haven’t heard it. I think you’d be really surprised to know what percentage of equipment is bought by Federation members. It’s way up there, I can tell you that. It’s up there far enough that every sponsor of BASS, every tackle dealer and motor dealer know that if the Federation went away it would have a big impact.

We’re not threatening anybody with that. We don’t want to threaten anybody, but we do know our value.

My opinion….well, of course before they did that everybody would know. Rumors are rampant. There are people everywhere that will not keep an issue in a room. You know they would know about that, and my answer is YES. The ESPN telephone would be ringing off the hook if they decided that they wanted us to leave.

But I honestly believe, after this past weekend, and after we met at Ray Scott’s house, that ESPN does not want to get rid of us. That’s one of the things that we thought at first. We had no direction, we didn’t know where ESPN was going to take us, so the longer it went on, the more rumors started, and the more we thought they wanted to get rid of us. That isn’t the case, they just want to control us.

He didn’t, but FLW’s leadership did. We had a meeting in March of this year. We had three meetings, but I let Stuart Wood, our Region 3 director go to the next one because he’s in charge of getting all the help for the tournament.

Yes, our Federation is going to help them, and they’re going to give us booth space to put our raffle boat in. We’re going to be there the entire week helping them, and ESPN knows that. Not that they particularly like it, but they know it. It’s just a business deal. It doesn’t indicate that we’re leaving BASS and going to FLW, we’re just helping them, they’re helping us, and that’s it.

That’s one of the ten commitments, guaranteed, not going away. I’m not saying they’re not going to change it, but it’s not going away.

Copyright 2003 Peter Robbins All Rights Reserved
robbins@vabass.com

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