Lol that dude look retired or what! As you know, Bruce ran B.A.S.S. for 10 years. After that Chase Anderson changed the lock on his office door and, after he kicked Chris Bowes out of it, took over runnin' the show. 😆 Okay not really what went down, but either way Bruce is now retired and apparently fishes with other retired B.A.S.S. folks.
Before getting into this Q&A, gonna give you my 2c about Bruce who I met back when he started (Chase is the only B.A.S.S. head I haven't spent time with...yet):
- I thought Bruce would fail because he didn't know diddly about bassin' which is almost 100% fatal in this biz, same for any other "enthusiast" biz. Seen it many a time. Other folks were skeptical for the same reason and from general skepticism of the whole "who the heck is Don Logan" team.
- In a couple biz meetings with Bruce early on, he was in charge but didn't try to dominate the meeting – a good sign in my 2c. In other words, didn't seem like he needed to lead by ego.
- Over the years I said hey to him and talked a bit, and he always took time to do it. That says something.
- I never really heard anything bad about him (other than being an Alabama fan lol), and in the bassin' biz that's something. Gossip is off the chain sometimes in this deal....
So overall a good impression and I honestly believe that if he couldn't do it, he wouldn't have lasted 5 years let alone 10. If you disagree well, that's just my 2c based on observin'. So here's 5+ with him:
1. How old were you when you first said to yourself, "I want to run a bass fishing organization when I grow up"? 😁
> "I think I was 53 – I'm 63 now. I had no idea about the bass fishing world when I was growing up...didn't fish til I took the B.A.S.S. job. That was the biggest thing I had to learn...how to fish."
Follow-up Q: Did your family think you were crazy to even consider it??
> "Not really. It's a media company, a sponsorship company, which is what most of my career was built on...at Time Inc for 24 years.
> "I'm an accountant by training and switched over to do direct mail, or 'junk mail', at Time...my mother thought I was crazy at that time. She wondered why spent all that time on an education in accounting and then did junk mail.... That's when my family really thought I was crazy."
2. Did the gig end up being more of a herding cats or kicking tail/taking names kinda deal?
> "I'd say a combination of both. I think herding cats is more my nature than kicking tail and taking names. We just kind of assessed what we had, what we needed to do, laid down a plan to do that, and it turned out to be a good plan.
> "It didn't come without some tough decisions – some personnel and things like that...getting the right people in the right seats.... And we were kind of coming out of the ESPN big-company mindset – we really had to change the mindset to a small company but a very important company in the industry....
> "Then we combined JM [Jerry McKinnis' rebel group in AR] and B.A.S.S. and had to come out with one culture. I think we were pretty successful with that, even with the distance between Little Rock and Birmingham. It certainly helped to have part of the ownership [Jerry] having a vested interest over there, and Mike and the management team there understood what the goals were. I think that made it easier.
> "TV was one of the areas I had to learn. When first interviewed, Jerry was a little skeptical because I didn't have TV experience. I tried to learn what I could and pick up on it....
> "If you get the right people in the right places, things work out pretty well."
3. Looking back on the MLF split, what was the main thing you learned from it?
> "I think what I learned is what we had – we had the brand and we had the fans and the membership, and we just needed to keep doing things the way we were doing it, and not get sidelined by the things that were going on and the claims that were being made. We instilled in our team...we are the leaders in our sport and we should continue to be that...keep doing the things that got us there. That's what we did, and I think we did it really well.
> "Some people [at B.A.S.S.] had gone through a similar thing with FLW...so I got some good counsel from people like Dave Precht...said we'd done it before and we'll do it again. When I started out, our primary competition was FLW, and that was also our mantra then: Don't look in rearview mirror, just keep doing the things we're good at.
> "I won't say it wasn't stressful at times.... I think we continued to act with class and do things the right way...not breaking down anybody.
> "...a lot of good people [pros] had to make their own decisions – what was the right thing for them and their families – and I understood that. And when you look at it on paper, I kind of don't blame a lot of them for doing that. But I was surprised by the mass exodus...[but a] lot of roommates and friends, and people travel together...."
4. You are one of the few people in the history of bass fishing who had an overall positive impact on it even though you were not a fisherman and had zero knowledge of bassin'. Was not being a bass-head an advantage or disadvantage in your role?
> "In hindsight it was probably an advantage. I was not that familiar with what the status quo was, what had been done in the past, so I could look at it with fresh eyes and question and challenge, 'Why do we do it that way?' If the answer made sense, we'd kept doing it that way. If it didn't make sense, we changed it.
> "During the search process...I'd worked with Don [Logan] before. At first he said they were looking for somebody that fished to run the company, and I said, 'Well if you change your mind, let me know.' A few months later he called back and I said, 'What changed your mind?' He said, 'We figured it'd be easier to teach you how to fish than to teach someone else how to run the business.'"
[Bruce worked with Don, a former B.A.S.S. owner who basically recruited Jerry McKinnis back into it, directly or indirectly for about 20 years.]
5. Entry fees – did you guys ever have a goal to substantially decrease or get rid of them?
> "Philosophically we did but we realized over time that practically, it wouldn't work. I realized there were not enough sponsor advertising dollars in the industry. If you don't get in the non-endemics very far...you've got to have a lot of that.
> "That was always one of Jerry's big goals, not to have entry fees. He'd do these big spreadsheets....
> "I always joked I'd be happy to not have entry fees if we don't have payouts. We paid out like $4 million more than we took in, just on the Elite Series."
Bonus Qs
6. Other than Jerry and Steve Bowman 😂 who did you argue with the most?
> [Laughs] "When you're in the seat I was in, there's not a lot of arguing, particularly with Bowman. Jerry and I, we had some differences of opinion from time to time, but I think in the end – you can check it out with Mike [McKinnis] – we came around and made a good team.
> "I think the biggest one was convincing Jerry that I knew something about the business, and after a few years we were on board and good to go."
[If there's any doubt, I FONDLY remembering arguing with Jerry as well as Jerry arguing with other peeps. He was a pro at it, and all good!]
7. What were the biggest surprises for you about bass fishing?
> "I think it was how it wasn't just a standalone business. You couldn't just do what you thought was right for the business. You had to consider the other constituencies, the fans for sure.
> "I was used to that with magazine publishing and even with websites – you had to deliver what the fans wanted to consume. So you had that constituency, but also balancing the professional anglers and the sponsors and the needs of all 3. Really it was a 3-legged stool in magazine publishing: editorial, advertising and circulation. [B.A.S.S.] is 4-legged: the fans, sponsors, the anglers and then the business in there...kind of an event company.
> "I was sort of used to the multi-platform nature of it...but the balancing act – it's almost like the anglers and the sponsors are your partners too. True partners. You have to consider all of them when making decisions.
> "Of course the anglers think all the decisions should go their way, and the sponsors think we should push their products through all our channels, and we needed to make a profit. Balancing all that was an interesting balancing act."
8. Do you think it was fair to require B.A.S.S. staffers to bet against Alabama all those years, and is it true you put an addition on your house with all the winnin's?
> "You must be talking about [B.A.S.S. digital honcho] Jim Sexton. We had a bet when I recruited him at Southern Progress to run the digital business there – the loser [of AL vs TN] had to give something to the other. Gentleman Jack, some nice stuff...one year I got Goo Goo Clusters, then I got a 6-pack of TN-bottled Budweiser – the value got lower and lower every year.
> "He didn't go broke, let me tell you that, and no I didn't build an addition on my house from that. I did win Fantasy Fishing, the office pool, 2-3 times and got a nice big trophy for that...."