CP And Kreiger Bow Out, Turn From Team-Deal Road

(Editor's note: This is part 1 of a 2-part story.)

When you think about core FLW Tour pros, several names come to mind – David Dudley, Darrell Robertson, Clark Wendlandt, Dave Lefebre. The list goes on. And certainly, somewhere on that list, are the names Craig Powers and Koby Kreiger – both career FLW Tour pros who're widely regarded as unsurpassed in their areas of specialty.

Both are versatile, yes, but Kreiger could easily be called the best sight-fisherman on either tour, and CP's certainly one of the most, if not the most, accurate casters in the sport – deadly with a topwater and crank.

In fact, CP's also a highly coveted hardbait maker and painter who does custom jobs for several top tour pros.

Each has fished for an FLW sponsor team over roughly the past 4 years, but BassFan recently learned stunning news – both have withdrawn from the FLW Tour. But it's not entirely for the reasons one would immediately assume.

Yes, finances are a factor, but both anglers stated the main reason they've withdrawn from the Tour is the way they've been treated this fall by FLW Outdoors officials.

They both realize that by speaking their minds they've likely given up any future opportunity to join an FLW sponsor team, but their resolve is such that the truth, as they see it, must be told.

And in their statements, for the first time, fans can glimpse the shadowy, inner workings of FLW Outdoors team deals. For example, it might come as a surprise that both anglers were prohibited from talking to their corporate sponsor. They're only allowed to talk to the FLW Outdoors official who's in charge of the FLW team deals.

The whole experience has left both pros wondering if they made the right choice many years ago to accept a team deal, and if their career interests would have been better served fishing as independent pros, or with BASS.

Background

Powers and Kreiger are tight on and off they water – they're buddies and running partners who enjoy one of the best-known friendships on tour.

They both came up the hard way – BFLS to Strens to the Tour.

Kreiger's fished nearly 200 FLW events – Powers more than 150.

Kreiger also fished 32 BASS events – Invitationals plus the 2003 Classic – and cashed a check in 19 of them. He's easily been one of the most active fishermen in the sport over the past 15-odd years. (Powers has fished four BASS events.)

Their patience finally paid off about 4 years ago when they both landed FLW team deals with Proctor & Gamble. Kreiger started with Gain, then moved to Prilosec, then last year fished for Iams. Powers started with Bounty, moved to Prilosec, then last year fished for Fabreze.

But starting in August of this year, shortly after the Forrest Wood Cup, their relationships with FLW Outdoors turned cold. That's when significant questions surfaced about the sponsorship future of the league, and one by one sponsors began to cut back or pull out – Walmart, Land O'Lakes, Pure Fishing, BP, Kellogg's.

That of course led to questions about the status of a Proctor & Gamble team, which was already down to roughly half the size it had been a few years prior.

But according to Kreiger and Powers, neither could get as much as a heads-up about their sponsor status for 2010.

Pay First, Then Wait

"Through the years I've supported FLW in every way possible," Powers told BassFan. "There's no way I'd ever have been able to earn $1 million bass fishing if not for them. That's the good part. The bad part is, to this day, they still have yet to call any of us and tell us whether or not we have team deals. Or that they're working on it. We've heard nothing and they've basically hung us out to dry. At the very worst, I think we deserve a courtesy call."

What especially irks Powers is he called to inquire about the status of his P&G sponsorship and got what he felt was a cold reply.

"Last year at this time, every night when I laid down to bed, I was sitting there worrying. I'd already put in my $10,000 deposits. What if I didn't get a team deal? I'd need another $4,000 per tournament. That's all I could think about before bed. So back in August I said I wasn't going to worry about it anymore. What they told us (during fall) was, 'We need to support their trail' and pay our entry fees, then see if we get a team deal.

"Well you know what? I've supported their trail for 13 years," Powers added. "I know ballpark what the sponsors are paying and somebody has made a lot of money off their trail. Congratulations to them, but I'm done bending over backwards to please them. I'm just not doing it anymore."

Kreiger feels much the same way.

"Fishing is my life – it's my career," Kreiger told BassFan. "It's how I pay my bills and support my wife and pay for our house. And when myself and several other guys contact FLW, and basically get blank stares, or an 'I don't know what's going on' type of answer, it's pretty hard to plan your future. We never get any answers, no calls – none of us. FLW could simply call and say, 'Hey, we just want to update you sponsor-wise. It's not looking too good and you may want to search out and see if you can find any sponsors.'

"We don't get any of those phone calls," Kreiger added. "What we get is, 'If you don't have your entry fees paid, you cannot be considered for a sponsorship deal.' That's what we get. And when you can't get any answers to plan your livelihood, it makes you sort of have a sour taste in your stomach."

The Sponsor Team Dilemma

Powers is also a little miffed that he was told by an FLW Outdoors official that he "needed to do a better job of promoting himself," to gain additional sponsors, he said. But of course, as an FLW team member, he's restricted to largely promoting that sponsor, and under the FLW Outdoors logo policy, he can't display non-FLW sponsors when it matters most – on TV days.

He understands too that it was his choice to head down the sponsor-team road, but it's also his choice to remove himself from that stressful road right now and rebuild stability on his own.

Kreiger likewise has had enough of the waiting and worrying. He again referenced the phone conversations he had with FLW officials as an example of the precarious nature of accepting an FLW team deal. At once you've got a deal worth $35,000 or more with paid entry fees, but at the same time, your future lies entirely in the hands of a single league official or two.

"I had another discussion later with another FLW official and told him I was leaning toward not fishing unless they gave me a sponsor deal," Kreiger said. "I was told to call another official to find out what was going on sponsorship-wise. I made that call and the first thing I was told was, if my deposits weren't paid, there's no way they can consider me. And I was told that with the economy and the state of the fishing industry, this was a time I needed to step up and support FLW because they've supported me in the past.

"I told the official that if you go back and check records, I've fished FLW and paid my own way a whole lot longer than FLW has supported or sponsored me, and in my opinion, with the economy being so bad and me being one of the elite anglers on the Tour, maybe it's time they step up and support me more than they've done in the past.

"They didn't like that comment."

Notable

> Neither Kreiger nor Powers know if P&G will return as an FLW Outdoors sponsor in 2010, although late confirmation of a sponsor renewal wouldn't be a surprise. Kreiger got his first deal with Gain in April, and it was a 2-year contract. Last year he didn't get a thumbs-up for Prilosec until mid-January.

> FLW Outdoors team deals are reportedly run through Aaron Hall – an FLW Outdoors employee charged with angler management who has his office at Ranger headquarters in Flippin, Ark.

> Both pros have begun new, private businesses as they draw down their fishing activity. More on that, and more on the inner workings of team deals, in part 2.

– End of part 1 (of 2) –