On The Water Comments

MINNEAPOLIS (July 22, 2009) - Who will be the next fantasy sports millionaire? Will it be the auto production worker from Kentucky, the utility maintenance worker from Oklahoma or the UPS manager from Tennessee?

Poised to make history again, FLW Fantasy Fishing (FantasyFishing.com), an international, online fantasy fishing game will award $1 million to the player who has accumulated the most points over the course of its 2009 season. Founded in Minneapolis by FLW Outdoors, the company that produces the Walmart FLW Tour and the FLW Outdoors TV program (broadcast in high definition on VERSUS), FLW Fantasy Fishing allows bass fishing fans and fantasy sports enthusiasts of all walks of life to create their own fantasy teams from among bass pros who participate in the Walmart FLW Tour, the world’s richest professional bass fishing tournament series. Last year, FLW Fantasy Fishing was the first to award a guaranteed $1 million in fantasy sports history.

On Saturday, Aug. 1, 2009, the $1 million grand prize winner will be announced before a crowd of more than 10,000 bass fishing fans attending the weigh-in ceremonies at the Forrest Wood Cup, where 77 of America’s best bass pros compete for a $1 million prize themselves. The event will be broadcast live, via satellite over the Internet through FLW Live, available at FLWOutdoors.com.

For this season-ending finale, FLW Fantasy Fishing has invited the top 10 finalists of the 2009 season to the Forrest Wood Cup, where they will touch shoulders with America’s best bass anglers. Each finalist will receive a major prize based on the points they each accumulated during the six-tournament season, which began in February and concluded in July 2009. One of the top 10 finalists will learn that he accumulated more points than any other FLW Fantasy Fishing player in the world to claim the online game’s $1 million grand prize.

The second place finisher will win a new Ranger Z20 boat powered with a 250 hp Evinrude engine, valued at $54,000. The third-place finisher will win a new Ranger Reata boat, powered with an Evinrude engine, valued at $36,265; the fourth place finisher will win a 2009 Chevrolet Malibu sedan, valued at $27,000; and the fifth place finisher will win a $25,000 Walmart gift card.

In its second season, FLW Fantasy Fishing has rocketed to the top of the fantasy sports world, gaining fans from all over the globe attracted to the game’s $10 million in cash and prizes, representing the highest payout of any fantasy sports game in the world. FLW Fantasy Fishing is played in 123 countries and prizes ranging from fishing equipment to gift cards have been awarded to FLW Fantasy Fishing players in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Serbia, Germany, Japan and even the Maldives, an island nation off the western tip of India.

“The intent with FLW Fantasy Fishing was to bring more people to fishing,” said Irwin Jacobs, chairman of FLW Outdoors® and creator of FLW Fantasy Fishing. “By making FLW Fantasy Fishing fun and easy to play, offering great prizes, and connecting them with bass pros who are entertaining to watch and learn from, we’re hooking new anglers on fishing every day in every part of the world.”

The top five finalists for the $1 million FLW Fantasy Fishing grand prize have been determined based on the total number of points accumulated over a six-tournament season. None of the top five finalists will know, until Saturday, Aug. 1, when the $1 million winner will be unveiled, in what place they finished. The top five finalists include:

• Chris Chappel, a utility maintenance manager resident of Oologah, Okla., a suburb of Tulsa;
• Andre Daniel, an athletic trainer from Oak Creek, Wis., a suburb of Milwaukee;
• Terry Moberly, an auto production worker from Berea, Ky., located near Lexington;
• Daniel Richardson, a manager with UPS from Knoxville, Tenn.
• Jeff Short, a cabinet-making instructor from Tompkinsville, Ky., located near Nashville, Tenn.

In addition, FLW Fantasy Fishing will recognize the players who finished in sixth through 10th place for the entire FLW Fantasy Fishing season at the event. These finalists include:

• 6th Place: Gayle Janes, a retired assistant sheriff from Bermuda Dunes, Calif., who won a $15,000 Walmart Gift Card.
• 7th Place: Jason Willbur, a program manager in the automotive supplier field, who won a BRP Can-AM Outlander All-Terrain Vehicle valued at $8,000.
• 8th Place: Terry Allbee, a biologist and business manager from Bismarck, N.D., who won a BRP Can-Am All-Terrain Vehicle valued at $8,000.
• 9th Place: Mark Kinsey, a private high school bookstore manager from Hixson, Tenn., a suburb of Chattanooga, Tenn., who won a BRP Sea-Doo Personal Watercraft valued at $8,000.
• 10th Place: Donald Stanley, a furniture manufacturer production worker from Newton, N.C., who won a BRP Sea-Doo Personal Watercraft valued at $8,000.

FLW Fantasy Fishing is free to play and is open to adults, 18 and older, throughout the world, wherever it is legal to play. Participants log onto FantasyFishing.com and register to enter the game. Players can sign up any time during the season, up until the day before the final tournament of the six-tournament fantasy fishing season.