Owners Invitational Assessment

Here are the facts: The 2010 Owners Invitational was the smallest event in the last 20 years. The event is working wonderfully at home, and there are a lot of used boats and a few new rigs within the radius of the Mountain Home area. We never want to forget those in North Arkansas or South Missouri who have been really good to us for many years. Though the facts are that we can not survive on Mountain Home and the amount expended there is way too large on a CPU for the one event. Our larger markets are in other areas and we are not able to target those individuals who are financially paying for the Invitational through their purchase of newer BCBs. Granted that many of the MO and AR participants are from St Loius, Texarkana, Ouachita, Little Rock, Springfield anf Lake of the Ozarks also. This is the oldest and original Bass Boat Owners event in the country. It is the largest organized event held as a full blown bass tournament. And it is all Bass Cat Boats. So that complexes things some as we are not in our strongest markets with the Owners Invitational. Thus we have to try and do something to help the next part of this. That part is we have another problem! In the 1990s the tournament drew from all over the country, in the years of 911 (9/11/2001) and early 2000s back to the mid 90s the event was larger and drew further. There were many of you who drove over a thousand miles to attend. That has come to a slower participation level. There was less than 3/4 of a keeper caught per person, per day in 2010. We have to assume that the low catch rate has something to do with it as many of you plan this trip for your get out of the house with spouse or friend weekend. Often the only one of the year. We have a massive amount of data retained on the event. The pie charts below are from 2007, 2008 and 2010. We could do this going way back. And we also have it by model year and by state. So we can tell what states have more new boats, and those in the older categories. Then we can track those registrations that and transfers that are purchased in another state new than they land used. We must re-energize this event or the Strike King Mercury Marine, American Rodsmith, MotorGuide, HumminBird, Vicious and many more sponsors who have loyally supported this event will not be able to justify their expenditure either. Our fear is that the event shrinks to a level that we only have a moderate local field with a small visiting crowd. You all know we are rather meticulous in our outlook on anything we do. And this is not any different. The charts below we have shared with very few people. Though we are sharing them now for you to understand our predicament. So thank you for your support and here is the real situation we face on the participation. These are from 2007, 2008 and the last event 2010. 2007 20082010