Fantasy Fishing A Reality
Last updated Tuesday, May 13, 2008 7:31 PM CDT in News
By John Henley Jr.
The Morning News
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ROGERS - If making a lot of money sitting in front of a computer fishing sounds like a fantasy; it is. It's called fantasy fishing.
FLW Outdoors this year started a fantasy fishing tournament, offering the largest amount of prize money for a fantasy sport, according to a news release from FLW.
"We asked ourselves, 'How could we bring people - men and women - into this sport?'" said Irwin Jacobs, chief executive officer of FLW Outdoors.
The FLW's real tour stop this week - the Wal-Mart Open - is at Beaver Lake.
The plan appears to have worked. Jacobs won't say how many people are playing, but said it is a lot, and not just in the United States. People in more than 100 countries are playing, Jacobs said.
No doubt the money has had something to do with the success of FLW's fantasy fishing.
"We wanted to create a shock element," Jacobs said.
There are seven tournaments on the FLW Fantasy Tour and more than $443,000 in guaranteed prizes in cash for each tournament. The top prize is $100,000.
Playing is free and easy, but winning is another story.
Players pick 10 anglers they think will make the finals of a particular tournament. Depending on where those 10 anglers finish determines the amount of points earned. If any of the chosen anglers end up in the 10, extra points are awarded. If a player guesses the final ranking of an angler, even more points are awarded.
The odds of picking all 10 anglers in the correct final order is 1 in 20,000,000,000,000,000, according to Joon Jin Song, an assistant professor in the department of mathematical sciences at the University of Arkansas.
The FLW offers a $5 million cash prize to anyone who can pick the top seven anglers in the correct final order of any tournament.
Reggie Pickett of Greensboro, N.C., won the $100,000 award in the Lewis Smith Lake Tournament, the second FLW tour event.
Pickett, who fishes the FLW Stren Series, said being a fisherman helped, knowing how to interpret the conditions, knowing what fish were spawning and where to find them.
Pickett picked four of the anglers who finished in the top 10. He picked the final standing of three of the anglers.
In the third tournament of the season, which was at Lake Norman, N.C., Pickett again picked four of the top 10 finishers, but not where they finished in the standings. Pickett's picks placed him somewhere in the 300s, far out of the money.
A grand prize of $1 million will be awarded to whoever accumulates the most points through the seven FLW tour events. Pickett is currently 38th in the standings.
Jacobs said the $1 million grand prize is likely to increase.
"My goal is to offer a $10 million grand prize," said Jacobs.
Jacobs said the top prizes for individual fantasy tournaments could be as much as $500,000 in future years.
"My ambition for this is greater than what we've started with," Jacobs said.
For those looking for a competitive edge, the FLW offers the Players Advantage, which costs subscribers a one-time fee of $39.95.
AT A GLANCE
Fantasy Sports
Fishing joined a growing list of sports that have fantasy leagues, including football, baseball, hockey, cricket, soccer, basketball, golf, auto racing and professional wrestling. The first sport to have a fantasy sports league was football, according to Jon Saraceno, a columnist with USA Today. There's also a fantasy congress (www.fantasycongress.com/) where players select members of the U.S. Congress. Points are based on the legislative success, voting attendance, a maverick score - when a member of Congress crosses party lines - and noteworthy news mentions of actual members of the U.S. Congress.
Source: Staff Report
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ironfortified wrote on May 13, 2008 8:09 PM: