Jimmy Houston is one of the most successful people in the bass fishing business, with a pro fishing career that continues to this day, his TV show, a boat dealership or two, designing lures and whatever else he finds time to do. But it wasn't always that way.
Like so many of yesteryear's bass fishermen, he came from humble roots – as evidenced by something he said at a photo shoot for Terminator Lures this week: "I wasn't able to fish the very first B.A.S.S. tournament that Ray Scott had because I didn't have the $125 for the entry fee."
That got us thinking: A cool $125 sounds like a bargain right now – but is it?
We tracked down a NASA "Consumer Price Index (CPI) Inflation Calculator" to find out. Turns out that $125 in 1968 dollars equals $678.50 in 2004 dollars (the latest year in the calculator).
So it looks like entry fees are out of control compared to where they used to be, right? Hold on a sec.
That first B.A.S.S. tournament – the All American at Arkansas' Beaver Lake – was won by Nashville, Tenn.'s Stan Sloane, who took home $4,000. In 2004 dollars, that equates to $21,712.
Multiply $678.50 x 6 (or 600%) and you get $4,071, or about the size of a tour-level entry fee. Multiply that $21,712 by the same 600% and you get $130,272 – about the size of a tour-level 1st-place payout.
So it looks like entry fees and payouts have gone up proportionately, right? Not really. A lot more fishermen contribute money to the pot now than they did in the original All American. And then there are event sponsors, of which Ray Scott had none in 1968. Then again, he didn't have a magazine or TV show either.
(Editor's note: We've gone as far down this road as we can with our limited math ability.)
