McKinnis’ Role in Business of Outdoor Sports Continues To Grow

As a businessman, Jerry McKinnis has come a long way since he “accidentally” ran into ESPN in 1979. The former float trip guide has made a significant impact in the outdoor sports market.

The Little Rock production company McKinnis founded, JM Associates, works with national networks on a variety of shows. Bass LLC, which he purchased in November and co-owns with two other private investors, is the largest organization of bass anglers, with more than 500,000 members.

Recently, in an effort to improve efficiency, Bass acquired JM Associates, which brings McKinnis’ two companies together. 

McKinnis, born in St. Louis in 1937, found himself in Arkansas as a fishing guide, lured here by Forrest Wood of Ranger Boats fame. By the early 1960s, McKinnis, to boost his fishing guide business, started doing an outdoor television show in Little Rock called “The Fishin’ Hole.”

That show, which aired on KATV-TV, Channel 7, and was, McKinnis said, “for the most part, the first of this type of thing,” grew to become syndicated in more than 125 markets and was the foundation of McKinnis’ production company, JM Associates.

“The beginning [of the company] was right when I started on air there in Little Rock,” he said. “I probably didn’t have but one employee at the time. And as that one show grew, the little production company grew.”

 

Catching ESPN’s Eye

Then, in 1979, McKinnis had his encounter with ESPN, though at the time it was simply called ESP or Entertainment & Sports Programming.

“They had probably about 5 million subscribers,” McKinnis said. “Right now they have about 105 million subscribers and five different networks. I got involved with them and was scheduled to go on air with this show in 1980.

“In 1980, that’s when they changed their name and became ESPN. And, as they say, the rest is history.”

JM Associates began producing shows for ESPN that covered a variety of topics.

“We did all kinds of competitive events and covered all kinds of events, like the dogsled race, the Iditarod. We just created all kinds of stuff,” McKinnis said. “We grew up with ESPN; we grew up as they were growing up. I was very, very fortunate to be a part of that, which was the foundation of my business.”

ESPN was fortunate, too.

“I was important to them,” McKinnis said. “They have made the statement that my little production company is one of the most important production companies that they have ever been involved with to this day.”

As the relationship with ESPN developed, JM Associates began to expand.

“We grew from being in a little bitty office with a secretary and a cameraman on Rodney Parham,” McKinnis said. “I remember our first little office was in a strip mall in west Little Rock. We were there for several years. In the mid-80s was when we moved down into a building that we began renovating down in the Quapaw. And now we’ve got two or three cameramen and an editor and a producer. And then you start putting in editing equipment, and one thing grows into another, and you’ve got a nice little production company.”

JM Associates eventually grew out of its Quapaw office, which in reality was an old home on the corner of 13th and Cumberland streets.

“You couldn’t even park your car around it,” McKinnis said, laughing. “It was about 10 years later that we bought the piece of property we have now on 13th Street and Scott Street.”

In its new home, JM Associates was able to develop into what it is now, which McKinnis calls “a beautiful production facility with probably the finest sound studio between Nashville and Dallas. We’re probably the neatest little place in town that nobody knows about.”

Though it has the capability to do local work, McKinnis thinks his company has stayed under the radar a little bit because it doesn’t actually do a lot of work in Little Rock.

Most of the assignments JM Associates does are for ESPN, with some work also being done for National Geographic, Versus and the Outdoor Channel.

 

Transitions

In the past few years, both McKinnis and his company have gone through some changes. In 2007, JM Associates was acquired by Career Sports & Entertainment, an Atlanta sports marketing firm, though McKinnis stayed on in a consulting capacity. Then, in 2010, McKinnis was one of three private investors to purchase Bass LLC in Celebration, Fla., from ESPN.

“ESPN owned it,” McKinnis said. “They came to me and said, ‘We’ve decided we’re going to sell this but we’d like for you to buy it.’

“They had another gentleman, Don Logan, and they were very connected to him just like they were very connected to me. They came to both of us at about the same time. We spent quite a bit of time together and figured out a way that we could do it and we did and it came to fruition.”

A third investor, Jim Copeland, was also part of the purchase. Copeland is a retired CEO of the international services firm Deloitte, and Logan is a retired Time Inc. executive.

In his new ownership role at Bass, McKinnis said, he quickly realized how valuable JM Associates could be to the business, and in April, Bass acquired JM Associates from CSE.

McKinnis declined to provide dollar figures for any of the purchases, though the purchase of Bass LLC is believed to be a multimillion-dollar deal.

In addition to producing Bass’ flagship television show for ESPN2 and the Outdoor Channel, JM Associates provides coverage of the Bassmaster Elite Series, the Bassmaster Classic and other professional events for the Bass website.

The company oversees the Bassmaster Tournament Trail, through which millions of dollars in winnings are awarded. Bass also publishes several magazines and two websites and produces ESPN2 TV programs.

Through all the changes, McKinnis said, the heart of JM Associates – the production team – never left its Little Rock location. With the recent acquisition of JM Associates by Bass, some of the work that had moved to Atlanta after the CSE merger will be coming back.

“The business end moved to Atlanta,” McKinnis said, “the secretarial work, the accounting.”

A lot of that work and the jobs that go with it will be moving back to Little Rock, McKinnis said, probably toward the end of the year. McKinnis couldn’t say exactly how many jobs, as some of the work may also go to Birmingham, where Logan is primarily based.

McKinnis can hardly believe where his career has taken him, and when asked if he ever pictured himself being where he is today, he responded with a resounding, “Heck no.”

“When I started doing that show [“The Fishin’ Hole”] I thought that I was getting myself in position to do fishing reports for the Little Rock outdoor market,” McKinnis added. “And I was the host of it and I didn’t think that I was any good and I thought I would continue doing it until the right person came along. I ended up doing it for 44 years. And I still don’t think I’m any good at it.”