Lately we’ve all heard the back-and-forth banter about marketing and promotional contracts within the bass fishing community. FLW loses sponsors, FLW acquires sponsors. Bridgford sees nothing but positive gains as a result of involvement, whole other companies complain of lagging sales regardless.

Who are we to believe?

One recent announcement that literally shocked me was the lessening of participation by BoatUS. Beginning in 2015, it will discontinue its Weigh-to-Win contingency program. When I attempted to dig up information on its overall involvement with B.A.S.S., I received comments ranging from those indicating a complete end to the relationship to “in discussions.”

The reason for my surprise was the apparent success of the program. A case in point: Just a few years ago, I didn’t know anyone with BoatUS marine or towing insurance. Yet, as part of a pre-tournament meeting at a Bassmaster Open even last year, I watched as a vast majority of the tournament entrants raised their hands when asked if they now utilized a BoatUS service.

It seemed like it was running the table.

The towing insurance, complete with an unheard of low cost, was a no-brainer. And I recently switched to BoatUS primary boat insurance, as it offered very competitive rates, and I was proud to support a brand that supported us.

I had to get to the bottom of it, or at least learn more from behind the scenes. An email to BoatUS was promptly answered with a conference call.

Scott Croft and Dustin King are two members of the BoatUS team involved in public affairs regarding these types of programs. They explained to me that, although the company is lessening its involvement within certain organizations and programs, it is, by no means, pulling out of fishing entirely. They further explained a shift in strategy to more of a regional approach.

The primary reasoning behind this direction change was given as a lack of cost-effectiveness. In other words, BoatUS simply didn’t drum up the business it needed to offset the cost of the programs.

I can understand that. It’s quite costly to hand out paychecks at every local, regional and national event, as it was doing with its contingency offerings.

You see, when it came to the membership and corresponding contingency plan, the more anglers who signed up, the more money BoatUS made. Conversely, it had to dish out a lot more prizes.

Further along in my questioning, Croft and King mentioned that they felt the Weigh-to-Win program was executed very well – in other words, B.A.S.S. did its job. In addition, the awareness created for their product was quite compelling.

With many of these variables seemingly pointing to more involvement instead of less, I offered reasons behind their exit.

Is the bass industry just too small for the real world? Perhaps so, according to the BoatUS model.

I was informed that BoatUS currently has over 500,000 members. However, those members come from all walks of life. Some live on a houseboat. Others sail around the globe. Many hit the lake on weekends to ski, tube and maybe wet a line, while a certain percentage are tournament bass anglers.

That percentage, however, is relatively small, from what I surmised. In other words, our niche market just doesn’t pay the bills.

According to my interviewees, in order for its programs to remain effective within professional fishing’s top ranks, BoatUS felt it would need nearly every angler at a Bassmaster Open to sign up.

That, as we all know, is not feasible. And therein lies my problem.

Any company that comes into a sponsorship or endorsement expecting 100-percent return from corresponding customers isn’t being realistic. Not every one of us drives a Chevy, fishes out of a Ranger or even eats Bridgford’s jerky.

In addition, the BoatUS product isn’t one of nuts and bolts that is extremely costly to build. Throughout our conversation, the company representatives repeatedly compared their product to others that have successfully advertised in the pro bass industry, like Toyota and EverStart, and complained that the BoatUS product scale isn’t comparable. In other words, they’re not on the shelf at every Walmart.

But I found that reasoning a bit irrelevant. Those other companies spend millions (or billions) building their products. Insurance products can be “built” over a round of golf or on a cell phone; I’d have to say overhead isn’t quite comparable.

So perhaps the program itself was flawed from the inception. The cynic in me feels that the pull-out is simply not fair, now that BoatUS has so many of us as customers, many of whom simply pay and forget about it. As a result, I think I’ll be checking out the competitors.

In any case, it’s apparent that the high-end bass world isn’t as relevant as we all may feel. Even our case-in-point examples show uncertainty, as EverStart backed out, although we often keep them in conversation. I suppose we all felt that program was stellar, too.

Evidently, the return on investment within the pro fishing community is different from one sponsor to the next. Many companies have come and gone. Some, like Flowmaster, Citgo and Kellogg’s, seemed deeply entrenched prior to their exit. Others, like Dick’s and Busch, seemed to bet big on the first few deals of the deck, and later folded their hands.

The companies that we have seen remain dedicated have, for the most part, been tied closer to fishing. Plano and Mercury come to mind as brands that, without fail, nearly always sponsor some facet of professional bass fishing. And while those companies have vast business interests outside of the bass market, it still remains a large piece of their pie. Perhaps that’s the difference.

Possibly there’s reason to be concerned over corporate America’s lack of interest in our sport. For the life of me, I can’t always put my finger on the reason, despite trying endlessly. At times, we’ve seen tremendous interest in professional sports with far fewer participants (golf), as well as sports unavailable to anyone with less than super-human ability (pro football), those with less action (poker), and even sports with much higher entry costs (stock car racing). So what is it about pro bass that seems to be lacking?

I’m sure we’ll continue that conversation here – possibly forever.

(Joe Balog is the often outspoken owner of Millennium Promotions, Inc., an agency operating in the fishing and hunting industries. A former Bassmaster Open and EverStart Championship winner, he's best known for his big-water innovations and hardcore fishing style. He's a popular seminar speaker, product designer and author, and is considered one of the most influential smallmouth fishermen of modern times.)