The FLW Cup and its $300,000 top prize will be replaced by an Angler of the Year finale along the lines of the one conducted annually on the Bassmaster Elite Series. The season will consist of seven regular-season events and a championship. The acquisition will trigger significant changes for the 2020 FLW Tour, which will be rebranded as the FLW Pro Circuit and will slot in beneath the BPT in the new hierarchy.
"This acquisition gives us a great opportunity to achieve all of our long-term dreams in one fell swoop,” MLF co-founder Boyd Duckett said in a conference call with BassFan. Now, it’s positioned to serve tournament anglers from the youth level up through the pro ranks.
Launched in 2011 as a made-for-TV competition, MLF expanded its footprint a year ago by unveiling the BPT and attracting 80 of the world's top anglers from the Bassmaster Elite Series and FLW Tour. The move to acquire FLW is another bold step by MLF to fortify its position in the bass fishing tournament business. The acquisition provides MLF a feeder system for its top-level Bass Pro Tour and the infrastructure for grassroots-level competition to utilize the MLF format (all scoreable bass count, real-time standings available to all competitors at all times, catch-weigh-immediate release, etc.).įLW, which was operated by the Jacobs family since its founding in July 1996, has approximately 50,000 fee-paying members from 11 countries and will have sanctioned more than 300 tournaments across seven categories (FLW Tour, FLW Series, Bass Fishing League, College, High School, International and Charity) in 2019 by the time the calendar year is complete.
MLF, which is jointly owned by Kroenke Sports and Entertainment and a group of angler/investors, has purchased the 23-year-old tournament organization that was started by the late Irwin Jacobs and was responsible for a significant infusion of money into the industry in the late 1990s when it rose up as a competitor to the long-established Bass Anglers Sportsman Society (B.A.S.S.).įinancial terms of the deal, which was announced today, were not disclosed. Major League Fishing's acquisition of FLW – a rumor that's made the rounds in the bass fishing industry for most of 2019 – has finally become a reality.
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