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Just bear in mind that every tackle manufacturer is getting thousands of fishermen ... thousands hounding them for sponsorship dollars, gear, and money for records, etc. ... they are truly harrassed beyond belief by striper fishermen, tarpon fishermen, sailfish fishermen, trout fishermen, largemouth bass fishermen, walleye fishermen, pike fishermen, musky fishermen, redfish fishermen, salmon fishermen ... the list goes on.
Their budgets for that kind of thing are pretty slim these days. When I was an editor for The Fisherman magazine - especially down in Florida, the manufacturers would call me all the time because some hack who wanted to right an article was demanding free stuff ... and they couldn't afford everyone who offered to write about their gear ... as I have to believe that their margins are not as large as they were back in the 1970s and 1980s ... even with the improvements in the manufacturing processes that have been brought on by technology, supplies costs are up, taxes are higher than even, human resources expenses are up (even in Asia and other third world countries where stuff is made) ... so their budgets are thin ...
... even a television show on ESPN is not going to net someone all that much money ...obviously a show by Bill Dance, Roland Martin and other leading largemouth bass fisherman has greater rewards than a saltwater fish show because the market is so much larger ... freshwater is 80 percent of the fishing industry in the US ...
... while I cannot beging to guess the incomes generated off the shows, I have to believe that some of the saltwater celebrities such as George Poveromo and Jose Wejebe must make a good living off their television programs, but they also do other things as well and they do it because they love to do it ...
... so there would not be very much money in catching a world record ... again as highlighted above, a ton of world record fish are caught every day by people who are in it for the thrill of the record, not the money ... most of them already have the money because they can afford to fish all the time ...
... and the big money for the television shows doesn't even come from fishing companies or related products, they come from the car manufacturers, beer companies and other big named companies such as that ... because the money required for those small cable programs with a 1.4 gross rating point is tinsy compared to the dollars that are shelled out for professional sports ...
... IMHO, I'd stick to the day job if anyone thought they'd get a fat bank roll from catching a world record fish ...
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