Ray Scott, dubbed the “Father of Modern Bass Fishing” for helping turn a regional leisure sport into an industry with an economic impact of 125 billion per year and related media including magazines, web sites and an iconic TV Show, died in his sleep Sunday night at his home in Alabama, according to an announcement on Bassmaster.com. He was 88.
A child of the Great Depression, Scott worked for a decade as an insurance salesman before his lightbulb moment came.
Rained out on a fishing trip, with basketball the only sports on TV, he thought to himself, “Why doesn’t someone cover fishing on TV? There’s more folks fishing than playing basketball.”
So in 1967, leveraging a great idea and a flair for promotion, Scott launched the first national professional bass-fishing tournament. A year later, he founded what has become the world’s largest fishing organization, the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society — or B.
A child of the Great Depression, Scott worked for a decade as an insurance salesman before his lightbulb moment came.
Rained out on a fishing trip, with basketball the only sports on TV, he thought to himself, “Why doesn’t someone cover fishing on TV? There’s more folks fishing than playing basketball.”
So in 1967, leveraging a great idea and a flair for promotion, Scott launched the first national professional bass-fishing tournament. A year later, he founded what has become the world’s largest fishing organization, the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society — or B.
- 5/11/2022
- by Tom Tapp
- Deadline Film + TV
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