When can we expect some news for next year's GL2S plans? Have you secured any major sponcers? Will amateur's be included in any of it next year?

Right now, we are still busy wrapping up the unfinished business from this season. The Manistee, Holland and Saugatuck videos should all be done this coming week. We are also analyzing all the data we gathered from the various tournaments, talking about what worked and what didn't, and discussing how we might tweak things in 2009.

On our list of things to do for the fall:

Meet with tournament committees to review the 2008 events and discuss what GL2S can do to help them in 2009

Host a Rules meeting

Continue to meet with sponsors, potential sponsors and other interested parties

Produce a one-hour TV special using the footage that we gathered during the 2008 season

Make some tweaks to the online scoring system

Add more functionality and features to the website

As you can see, we have a lot on our plates (not to mention that we also have to work for a living!).

The current state of the economy has put a damper on our fundraising efforts, but we are still working hard on that area. It is likely that much of what we had hoped to accomplish in 2009 will be delayed for a year or two. But we don't want to lose the momentum that we have, so we will work to make GL2S even better next season.

We are continuing to discuss the AMs and what we can do to improve both sides of the tournaments. As always, we will announce developments as they happen, so stay tuned.

Tom

Wow, thanks for the indepth answer Tom. Glad to hear that GL2S is still on track. I found it very exciting and entertaining. I enjoyed watching the CPS points race, and was constantly checking the site for video updates. I sure wish you would find a way to get us ams involved in the competition.

wild at heart wrote:
... I sure wish you would find a way to get us ams involved in the competition.

Do you have any ideas, suggestions?

One idea that I think would be awesome would be to have some kind of Pro/am like the Bing Crosby in golf where an am team somehow gets paired with a Pro team for part of a tournament. Like maybe a Friday pre-fish where am's and pro's get randomly paired, maybe 1 pro on the am boat and 1 am on the pro, and then combine their weights. Don't know if the Pro would want this but I'm sure the am's would go nuts for an opertunity like this and would feel a part of the GL2S.

Otherwise a points series for am's maybe not for big money, but a big trophy and bragin rights. It would seem easy to just take am top 3 offical weights from the same tournaments as the CPS and total them for a winner.

I would think the more boats you have registered as being involved the better the GL2S would look, and every sport there is has some kind of "minor leauges". And certianly there are a lot more am boats in the pool to draw from, and it would promote increased participation. I'm sure am's would come on board to help with this if needed, I would.

Matching up the Pros and Ams is an interesting idea. I agree the team member swap is going to be a hard sell. Tournaments have more Am teams than Pro teams so we would have to be creative with the matching.

A CPS for the AMs has been mentioned before. Will those fishing in the AM ranks fish 3 of the GL2S tournaments? What about the teams that fish some tournaments in the AMs and some in the Pros?

I haven't analyzed the data I have yet on the AM side but I have some ideas of other things to look at

Thanks for the ideas and let us know if you have any more.

Jennifer

An Am CPS would be good. then at the end of the year the top 3 in the Am Cps would move up to pro division the following year. smaller entry fee to get more am boats involved of course(payout would be smaller too.) this way youd get a constant influx of new teams into the pro division, make the pro division larger over time (which is needed cause thats where the money is at and thats how we will get big sponsors) and keep from discouraging some of the Am teams that won't participate because they see the same teams winning all the time.



just my 2 cents.

One rule I really like is the no communications rule. This rule pits angler against angler, and really limits the available information that can help out a team during tournament hours if their game plan isn't panning out. I think this rule should apply to both Pro and Am divisions. After all, it is a team victory, not a team networking one. Networking should be done outside tournament hours.

Other than that, rules need to be in place to advance winning teams to the Pro division. The reason for this is two fold. A team that dominates and repeatedly wins the Am division belongs in the Pro division. This rule should make it mandatory to force these teams to compete where they belong, and also bring up new teams to the top of the Am division. Every Am boats dream is to win an event. Having placed in several events, it cannot compare to winning an event, I think. By making new Pro teams there will be more Pro entries and sponsors. By opening up the Am top spots, there will be new winners to move on to Pro, and bring out more Am boats to battle for the top spot. A win, win for both divisions and the series, and it should be perceived as an honor and a dream to be brought up to the major leagues.

I've heard the no communication rule for both Pro and AM comment at many of the tournaments this year. Unless every boat Pro and AM is required to have an observer how does the no communication rule get enforced?

As far as enforcing the rule, if someone is going to cheat by breaking the communications rule it would leave me to believe they would cheat at to many lines etc. I just don't feel that 4 people on a boat are going to cheat a keep it quiet as the fishing community is very small. No one is forced to fish in any event, and the rules are the same for all that do.