Ray Scottdubbed the “father of modern bass fishing” for helping turn regional sports into a $ 125 billion-a-year industry with economic influence and related media, including magazines, websites and iconic TV shows, died in a dream Sunday night to his home in Alabama, according to An ad on Basmaster.com He was 88.
A child of the Great Depression, Scott worked as an insurance salesman for ten years before the moment came for his light bulb.
Dropped on fishing, and basketball was the only sport on TV, He thought to himself: “Why doesn’t someone cover fishing on TV? There are more people fishing than basketball. ”
So, in 1967, using a great idea and flair for promotion, Scott launched the first national professional bass fishing tournament. A year later, he founded what became the world’s largest fishing organization, the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society – or BASS – and Bassmaster magazine, which eventually numbered 650,000 subscribers.
The evangelistic fisherman was featured on NBC Todayalphabet Dick Cavet Show and beyond 20/20.
In 1984, he and then-bassist editor Bob Cobb created Basmasters, a TV show that became a hit of The Nashville Network. Today the program goes on the air Fox Sportsmaking it one of the longest running and most popular fishing shows in history.
The tournament, which was born in 1967, became known as the Bassmaster Classic – and is also known as the Bass Fishing Super Cup. Classic along with the Bassmaster Elite Series and related events such as the Classic Outdoor Expo have grown to attract more than 125,000 fishing enthusiasts each year, according to Field and stream. They also provided growth content offer for the Fox Sports TV franchise.
You can watch Scott and Bob Cobb reflect on the 20th anniversary of Bassmaster Classic in 1990.
Scott was a conservationist, introducing the catch-and-release concept into perch fishing, working with BASS to promote clean water, catch watershed contaminants and promote safe sailing on the boat.
Among his supporters were Presidents George W. Bush and George W. Bush, with whom he fished.
Scott sold BASS to an investment group in 1986, but he continued to serve as a leading Classic for several more years.
He is survived by his wife, Hope Susan Scott; four children: Ray Wilson Scott III, Stephen Lea Scott, Jennifer Eunice Eperson, Wilson Freeman Scott; 10 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. He was preceded by two brothers, Daniel and Edward Scott, and his first wife Eunice Hyatt Scott.
https://deadline.com/2022/05/ray-scott-dead-bassmaster-tv-show-tournament-1235020937/
