Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 23, 1992 TAG: 9202240223
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C15 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bill Cochran
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
$75 MILLION SUIT SINKS A HOOK INTO B.A.S.S.
The big question at the BASSMASTERS BP Top 100 on the St. Johns River in Florida on Saturday wasn't who won the tournament. Or where the prestigious BASS Masters Classic will be held this year.It was more disturbing: Who owns B.A.S.S.?
Ray Scott, you say, the angler from Alabama who founded the 550,000-member organization in 1967, and changed the course of bass fishing.
Or, maybe, Helen Sevier, who bought it from Scott for an estimated $13 million to $15 million in 1986.
Neither, claims a couple of members from Kansas. At least not legally. The organization belongs to its members, and it is about time for them to benefit from the wealth, say Bradley Murray and Larry Neff of Wichita.
That's the gist of a $75 million lawsuit the pair filed against Scott and other officials Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Wichita, according to the Associated Press. The suit claims that the organization was founded as a non-profit association to promote conservation and fishing, then in 1969, without a vote of the membership, it was switched to a for-profit company. Scott, according to the lawsuit, took 99.8 percent of the stock for himself, an illegal action without a vote.
That was the year B.A.S.S. hit the big time, Scott being the subject of a feature in Sports Illustrated and the membership reaching more than 7,000, with local chapters springing up across the country. Scott told Sports Illustrated, "Nobody believed there were that many fishermen crazy enough to join, but bass fishermen are crawling out from behind every rock and stump in this part of the country."
B.A.S.S., which has one of the finest public relations departments of any organization in the country, has not filed a release airing its position on the suit. But individual officials have used the term "frivolous" to describe the charges.
Here's the issue. When those anglers came "crawling out from behind every rock and stump" to join B.A.S.S., were they becoming part of a B.A.S.S. without the Inc., a society where members were owners? Or were they part of a taxpaying corporation that really didn't owe its members much beyond a monthly magazine?
The 66-page complaint uses words like looting and fraud to describes how Scott and others pocketed dues and magazine advertising revenues that it says totaled millions of dollars. Little money was spent on promised conservation efforts, such as anti-pollution suits, the complaint alleges.
B.A.S.S., which has held two national tournaments on Smith Mountain Lake, and three BASS Masters Classics on Virginia's James River, claims President Bush as a member, as well as hundreds of members in Western Virginia.
Karl Dabbs, finance vice president of B.A.S.S. Inc., told the Associated Press that the organization is a taxpaying corporation and doesn't owe its members any of its profits.
"We've always been incorporated, from day one, and we've always been for-profit, so we don't know where they're coming from."
While B.A.S.S. tournaments have been squeaky clean, a high standard for the sport, the organization has not been void of controversy in the past. The last two years, B.A.S.S. got bad press when it stuck to its male-only tournament policy, finally allowing women contestants for the first time this season.
B.A.S.S. also took heat in its early days when truck loads of dead fish were carted from tournament weigh-ins, including Virginia's Kerr Lake. The organization adopted a weigh-and-release policy that now is honored to the point that many fishermen would no more keep a bass than drown their dog.
No matter how hard the hook of controversy has been set, Scott and B.A.S.S. always have managed to come out looking good, to a large degree because of the loyalty of the members. This time, the attack is from the rank and file, two of its lifetime members.