Tom Ricks On Majors, Boats, And BASS's Future

After a search of nearly 6 months, BASS announced in late January of this year that it had named Tom Ricks to the general manager position. He replaced Don Rucks, who departed the company in August 2006.

BassFan published an interview with Ricks a month after his hire.

At that time, he was still learning where the water coolers and refrigerators were at BASS headquarters in Celebration, Fla.

A lot's transpired in the time since his hire, not the least of which was a significant change in the Bassmaster Elite Series format for next season. But overall, BassFans have heard little from the new BASS boss.

After numerous requests, BASS did grant BassFan another interview with Ricks. Initially, BASS officials asked to limit the interview to 15 minutes. BassFan requested an extension and the interview below clocked in at just over a half-hour.

Several questions were thus left off the table. What questions BassFan was able to ask appear in the following Q&A.

BassFan: It's been a while since the fishermen have heard from you. First, how have things been since you hired on? Was the position everything you thought it would be?

Ricks: Everything and more I thought it would be. How has it been? Busy, to say the least – busy in terms of building the relationships with our anglers, with our sponsors, with our members, and with our fans.

(There's been) a lot of work to do in building the plan for a successful foundation moving forward.

In the time you've been with BASS, what was the one thing that most surprised you?

Coming in, (with) all the things I read in various parts of the media, I thought we were going to have to make significant changes to the tournament side of our business. What's been a big surprise is I've come to realize that the Elite Series platform is the right platform for the business and to grow the sport.

And the surprise for me was just coming to an understanding of that fact, and then wrapping my head around being able to leverage off of that, and create value in other parts of the business, and continue to elevate the Elite Series as a focus for us going forward on the tournament side.

Anglers all know the Ray Scott BASS, the Helen Sevier BASS, and the first two iterations of ESPN's BASS. What do you see the future of BASS looking like?

I'll say that during the Ray Scott time and the Helen Sevier time, BASS was founded on a set of principles that were closely aligned with a membership organization. You will see BASS return more to the roots – reinforcing itself as a membership organization across the various parts of our business.

Whether we look at the tournament side, the publication side, or any other relevant piece of our business, you'll see us put more focus on ensuring that each piece of that business is serving the members – our membership base – as best it can.

The point I would make there is, when I say members, (I mean) our anglers who fish all of our events are included in my bucket or statement of 'members' – whether it be Open events or Elite events, or the WBT (Women's Bassmaster Tour).

BASS has seemed to fare best under a charismatic leader. Are you that person? If so, how can fans expect to get to know you?

They'll get to know me from my involvement in things that are happening with BASS, whether that be through interviews such as I'm doing right now, or through other communication vehicles through our publications, or at our events. I spend a lot of time going to our events, and I plan to do more of that in the future as I've gotten my feet on stable ground here in the building.

And I would also add that I'm going to become more involved, not to a very high degree, but more involved in our Federation (Nation) and conservation efforts.

About the news announcement last week, can you elaborate on the Majors cancellation? Was this purely a financial decision?

No, for the most part, what we found is it didn't resonate with fans. (The Majors) didn't have a very clear-cut reason for being, relative to our overall business strategy, or how we've redefined that since I've come onboard.

And as I noted earlier, one of the big surprises for me was really the Bassmaster Elite Series within itself – how it's aligned around consistent performance – and realizing that's the primary property of where we need to focus our efforts and energy (in) growing our business.

In an earlier interview with BassFan, you had said that with all of that focus and attention on the Elite Series, BASS hasn't had enough focus in other areas of the business. Now you're saying that wasn't true?

Going back and looking at it, yes, we've put a lot of focus on the tournament side of our business. But again, we diluted, or we spread, that focus to multiple things – (like the) Majors.

In making my initial statement of 'Hey, we put too much focus on the tournaments or the Elite Series," what I would say is we put too much focus on the tournament side of our business, and we forgot about what we're in business for. And that's our members – being a membership organization. And it's how we spread our resources, and how we focus our efforts on serving our members and our fans in a better way.

Meaning that, as we look into the future, and we've identified the Elite Series as a focus platform, I'd also tell you that we're pleased with and happy with the Opens, – the Opens are doing well. The WBT has been a success for us. We want to continue to drive those platforms, but better integrate the other parts of our business around those properties so that we're delivering the most value possible through those vehicles to our members.

You mention the Majors didn't resonate with fans. But when you go back to the original Elite 50s, with their primetime weigh-ins, they had tremendous fan support. Could you have just tweaked the model with the Majors and went to later weigh-ins and gotten the fans more involved?

There was the possibility we could have tweaked the Majors and have them be more accepted by fans. But in talking with anglers and getting feedback from anglers – and that's what I spent doing my first month on the job, was listening to all of our constituents – things I continued to hear over and over were: Larger fields were desired as part of the Elite Series, and the 11 original (regular-season) Elite events, because they're more inclusive of the total field of anglers.

Therefore, from my perspective, that was a pretty easy decision in terms of listening to the anglers.

And part of my strategy here is taking the Elite Series and really elevating the whole Angler of the Year (AOY) piece of that. In doing so, the Majors didn't fit within that strategy, because they really have no bearing on the AOY points.

The other thing I continued to hear from the guys as I listened was that AOY was the most important kind of success that they could attain. They continued to talk about athletes, and this being a real sport. So my feedback was, in order for this to be a real sport, we need to better align things with consistent performance. So therein lies the strategy, from my perspective, of really elevating the AOY and turning that into something more significant than what it is today.

There was $1.8 million in Majors prize money that disappeared. Yes, $400,000 in additional money was put into the AOY race, but there's still $1.4 million in prize money that's no longer accessible to the anglers. Did you consider either reducing entry fees or boosting payout in other Elite Series events using that money?

I'm going to give you the same response I gave to the anglers on the telephone. BASS made a pretty serious concession in providing them the opportunity, with their boats, to build their individual careers.

So what you're saying is that's equal to the $1.4 million, or more, for the anglers?

Depending on the angler. It could be worth more than that to the individual angler.

What precipitated that new boat policy? Was it an expected change in the Mercury and Triton contracts – meaning, you knew there wasn't going to be an exclusive boat sponsor in 2008, so that was something you could give to the anglers? Or did you approach Triton and Mercury with that prospect?

It all comes from my first few days on the ground – listening and talking to the anglers. One of the questions I asked the anglers was, in fishing with BASS, what was the most important thing to them in their angling careers?

And every time that question was answered, it was, "I'd like to have my own boat on all days of competition."

So from my perspective, that was a pretty clear-cut decision that we needed to make, aside from whatever sponsorship relationship we had.

So will BASS encourage sponsorships from other boat and motor companies for 2008?

Yes. We will be going out and talking to a multiple number of boat and motor companies.

With the Majors cancellation, and the lack of Western events in 2008, how much does BASS and ESPN save with the 2008 schedule?

I'm not going to discuss the financial implications of any of those changes.

The Majors cancellation, the lack of California events, and other moves like outsourcing the Weekend Series to ABA – was this to meet an immediate budget shortfall, or does it simply help BASS improve its bottom line?

Again, we don't discuss our financial implications. I'll tell you that many of the decisions we made, whether it was California, or the Majors themselves, were made based on discussions we had and feedback we'd gotten from our constituents as part of our tournament side of the business, and that would be the anglers.

And I'll tell you that we have a number of locations across the country, typically in California, that we'll consider for future tournaments.

Is there a chance for California to become a semi-regular tour stop? And what about the prospects of a California Bassmaster Classic?

I'd say yes to both of those questions.

It's apparent to some observers that BASS has to control its costs moving forward, yet also grow. That's one reason some people thought the GM job would be so tough. How do you reconcile those two objectives?

Encourage our people to think and operate more efficiently. Understand how we're spending our money, and then spend it wisely. And really get focused on new streams of revenue, and how we grow the business. And not so much grow the business, but grow the sport itself in the eyes of endemic and non-endemic customers.

We know you declined to answer specific financial questions, but we've seen the Weekend Series outsourced to ABA, the cancellation of Bassmaster University, the cancellation of the Majors, the consolidation to two (instead of three) Bassmaster Open divisions, the loss of considerable Federation membership, a reported Bassmaster circulation below 500,000, and the departure of two major sponsors in Citgo and Anheuser Busch. What's the financial status of BASS – is it a company in trouble?

Again, I'm going to tell you we don't discuss the financials of the business.

I don't want to cut you off, but I'll tell you that on all the financial questions, I'll give you the same answer: It's ESPN's policy not to discuss financials. But with that said, just as I've told the anglers and I've told other constituents in the market, ESPN is in full support of BASS.

I have the full support of the highest levels of ESPN to drive the business forward.

To help quantify what you gave the pros with the new boat policy, do you have figures for TV ratings beyond the often-quoted reach of ESPN? Say on the Bassmaster Tournament Trail TV show?

Doug (Grassian, ESPN communications official) can provide you with whatever he can provide you, but I'm going to add that I'm going to steer the organization in approaching the sport from a more holistic cross-media platform perspective. Meaning, we can't just look at the ratings.

Given our relationship with ESPN, we have a number of other vehicles that we need to better leverage, whether that be dot-com, or other ESPN media properties, to create impressions, or to create exposure, for the sport and then the individual anglers.

(Editor's note: According to a BASS official, thus far through the 2007 Elite Series season, The Bassmasters on ESPN has averaged a .29 hh rating in its 9:00 a.m. time slot on Saturdays. Translated into real numbers, that means an average of about 269,766 households watch the show.)

Over the years, Bassmaster.com has been tweaked here and there, but it's never been a major distribution point for BASS media. Do you have plans to expand on-line?

Yes. We are developing a strategy around how to better leverage our on-line resources relative to BASS and the outdoors.

A lot of major networks, just over the past 4 or 5 months, have started shifting over toward an on-line model for distribution for top TV shows, exclusive shows, and things like that. We're just wondering, is there going to be more on-line from BASS, whether on ESPN.com proper, or Bassmaster.com, as another way to increase exposure for the sport?

The answer to the question is yes. You're going to see us take a much more aggressive approach to the on-line world for the sport itself. ESPN360 is an on-line service that provides content across multiple sport platforms with a 24-hour broad distribution of various sports content.

To shift gears away from the Elite Series, BASS recently hired Don Corkran back as Federation Nation director. Besides experience in the role, what does he bring to the table that perhaps the organization has been missing for the past several years?

He brings, as you said, experience. He also brings relationships, and he brings the passion for what he's doing that I think has certainly been missing over the past several years.

What's the goal for the Federation Nation right now, other than to continue to build numbers?

First and foremost, as you said, to build numbers or grow the Federation, and to better understand how we leverage our other parts of the business on a broader base with other parts of the business – meaning conservation and youth, which I'm kind of bucketing in the Federation Nation.

Leverage those other parts of the business (with) what we're doing on the tournament side of our business.

What do you see as your biggest challenge over the next 6 months, and over the next 2 years?

The biggest challenge over the next 6 months is that I want to get the organization ahead of itself. I'd like to announce a kind of strategy and/or plan for the tournament side of our business – a 2-year timeline so that we've got things announced and we're talking and tackling in the near-terms. And continuing to drive the direction of the Bassmaster Elite Series.

If you could say one final thing to BASS anglers, BASS members, and fans of pro bass fishing, what would it be?

Going forward, we're going to create a more stable BASS than what we've seen in the recent past. BASS is here to stay. We're going to put focus in the areas of – elevate and drive our Elite Series, and create value for our membership. And value spans things along the lines of conservation and youth.