“Overproof” Wins 2022 Bermuda Billfish Blast with Final Day Heroics
July 08, 2022 – Hamilton, Bermuda – Team Overproof, a 50-foot Topaz based out of Bermuda led by Captain Peter Rans with mate Morgan Outerbridge, came from behind to win the 2022 Bermuda Billfish Blast. Overproof angler Jason Friedman released one blue marlin on the first day of fishing but the team scored a blank on the second day. The third and final day of competition started well with angler Martin Estis releasing a blue at 9:16am. Team Overproof was tight again at 9:35am with Estis back in the chair. After an hour-long battle, Captain Rans called in the boated fish that ultimately weighed 610 pounds to bring their score to 1,610 points, giving them first place team honors and winning them $38,587.50 and an invitation to the Costa Offshore World Championship. Captain Rans has weighed seven qualifying marlin over the many years he has fished the Bermuda tournaments but this is his first outright win of a BTC series event. Team Overproof leads the Bermuda Triple Crown Billfish Championship with 1,610 points heading into the second leg of the series.
The 35-team field of 197 anglers caught 73 billfish including 44 blues, 26 whites and three spearfish over the three days of fishing. The tournament culminated with the traditional gala awards banquet in the Harbourview Ballroom at the historic Hamilton Princess Hotel. The tournament awarded $303,000 in purse plus prizes.
The Bermuda Billfish Blast is sponsored by many industry leading companies including: Bermuda Tourism Authority, Hamilton Princess, Bacardi, Costa, GPlink, CAT Marine, Gregory Poole CAT, Pantropic Power CAT, Foley CAT, Ring Power CAT, PW Marine, Miles Market, The Waterfront Residence, HAWKINS, Satcom Direct, Garmin, YETI, Lindgren-Pitman, Bodo Muche Studio, Butterfield & Vallis, Spar Yard Marine Solutions, Dassalt Aviation, Viking Yachts, Merritt Boat & Engine Works, Spencer Yachts, Willis Custom Yachts, Blue Water Desalination, Steve Goione Marine Artist, WEDCO, Royal Naval Dockyard, AFTCO, King Sailfish Mounts, Release Marine, Fishing Tease, Island Construction, IWS Scales, PENN, OluKai, AIRMAR, QUICK, Island Glass, Vanmark Jewelery, Coastal Carolina Cutting Boards, Rego-Sotheby’s International Realty, MEATER, City of Hamilton, RUBIS Energy Bermuda, Big T Lures, Marlin, Salt Water Sportsman, Sport Fishing and Out Your Front Door.
About Bonnier: Bonnier is an outdoor adventure company that fuels passion for fishing, boating, sailing, motorsports, hunting and travel. Bonnier has the nation’s leading portfolio of experiential events and iconic media brands in the marine category and an extensive series of nationwide motorsports and hunting events. Bonnier is the publisher of Salt Water Sportsman, Marlin, Sport Fishing, Boating, Yachting, Cruising World and Sailing World, produces the award-winning TV series SFTV, and hosts world-class fishing tournaments, sailing regattas and educational events across the US and in Mexico, Bermuda, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Australia and the Virgin Islands. Bonnier is owned by Sweden-based Bonnier AB, a globally operating conglomerate with more than 200 years in publishing.
Epic Final Day of Blue Marlin Fishing at the Costa Offshore World Championship Presented by Continental
May 06, 2022 – WINTER PARK, FL – The Costa Offshore World Championship presented by Continental, held Sunday, April 24-Friday, April 29, brought 37 teams with 168 anglers from 18 different countries to Quepos, Costa Rica, all with hopes of winning the coveted championship rings. This year’s competition released 673 billfish including 606 sailfish, 65 blue marlin, one black marlin and one striped marlin for an average of 18.19 billfish per team.
The teams spend four days on the water fishing out of Marina Pez Vela aboard a different Costa Rica flagged charter boat each day including the world class Maverick Yachts game boats. The tournament anglers follow International Game Fishing Association (IGFA) angling and tackle rules targeting marlin, sailfish, tuna and dorado using video verification to earn points.
The competitors represent an international group of offshore teams that earned an invitation through OWC qualifying events. The competition has a demanding format that requires angling skill to convert the bites into catches.
Sitting in sixth place heading into the final day, the Kenyan team that qualified via the Watamu Fishing Festival would need all the luck to place in the tournament let alone win the competition. The team managed to release eight blue marlin, setting a daily record for the tournament, ultimately scoring a total of 8,300 points from 14 sailfish and 11 blue marlin releases to pull off the biggest come from behind win in the history of the tournament.
The tournament is also the subject of a three-part TV series that will showcase the many sides of this global event: the fishing competition, qualifying events, team profiles, behind-the-scenes action and more. The series will debut on Discovery on Labor Day Weekend.
The Costa Offshore World Championship presented by Continental is sponsored by Costa, Marina Pez Vela, Continental Tire, YETI, Guy Harvey, Parador Resort & Spa, Garmin, Maverick Yachts, Bodo Muche Studio, AFTCO, Flor de Caña, IGFA, King Sailfish Mounts, Pacifico Travel Services, Outdoor America, Imperial Beer, 2Costa Rica Real Estate, VanMark Jewelry Designers, Marlin, Salt Water Sportsman, Sport Fishing, Big-T Lures, Diesel Premier, Penn, Hilton’s Realtime Navigator, IWS ScaleMaster and Tropic Star Lodge.
About Bonnier: Bonnier is an outdoor adventure company that fuels passion for fishing, boating, sailing, motorsports, hunting and travel. Bonnier has the nation’s leading portfolio of experiential events and iconic media brands in the marine category and an extensive series of nationwide motorsports and hunting events. Publisher of Salt Water Sportsman, Marlin, Sport Fishing, Boating, Yachting, Cruising World and Sailing World, Bonnier produces award-winning SFTV television programming, and hosts world-class fishing tournaments, sailing regattas and educational events across the US and in Mexico, Bermuda, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Australia and the Virgin Islands. Bonnier is owned by Sweden-based Bonnier AB, a globally operating conglomerate with more than 200 years in publishing.
Bonnier Transforms into an Outdoor Adventure Company
April 26, 2022 – WINTER PARK, FL – Bonnier LLC, a media company respected for its iconic publications in the marine category, has restructured its business across all operations to prioritize experiential events as its growth engine for the future. The Florida-based company is harnessing the power of media as a means to accelerate consumer interactions across a wide spectrum of outdoor activities. With its new mission to fuel the passion of outdoor enthusiasts, Bonnier is reshaping itself to become the nation’s leading outdoor adventure company.
“We see ourselves almost back in startup mode,” said Dr. Jens Mueffelmann, Executive Chairman. “We’re taking on the mindset of a new company with a new mission and branding, a new leadership team and investors, a new structure and way of working, and a new future. We are now fully focused on growth. Game time!”
In adopting its new “We Are Outdoor Adventure” branding, Bonnier is doubling down on its core mission: to fuel passion for fishing, boating, sailing, motorsports, hunting and travel. This mission is also reflected in the company’s new corporate website, bonniercorp.com, launched this month, which showcases Bonnier’s integrated brands and category dominance.
“What we needed as a company was a strategy for harnessing our individual efforts into something powerful, something meaningful,” said David Ritchie, CEO. “As we work to align our teams on the mission, we find that we are unlocking significant new opportunities. We see ourselves now on a path to double our revenues within five years.”
Bonnier spent nearly 18 months working with investment bank Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips to divest off-mission brands in categories as diverse as cooking, science and corporate diversity in four transactions, thereby shaping a group with pure focus on outdoor adventure. The new structure also incorporates a legal entity change, in which management has taken equity positions in the business. Bonnier AB, based in Stockholm, Sweden, remains the company’s majority shareholder.
A new five-executive leadership team was put into place, which includes Glenn Sandridge and Jonathan Moore in positions responsible for revenue growth across all properties, as well as Shawn Bean as head of creative, David Butler as lead for all digital initiatives, and Tara Bisciello to oversee financial services.
In making the appointments, Ritchie redefined each member’s traditional line of responsibility. “Where previously senior managers held a specific role for a specific department, in the new organization, executive leaders hold functional responsibility across the entire organization,” Ritchie said. “Our head of creative, as an example, doesn’t just oversee our editorial and design teams, but he also has free purview to help shape our company culture, ideate new event concepts, pitch custom-content packages to clients, and more. His role is not limited by an org chart; it is limited only by his creativity in how he can impact the business.”
Bonnier also transformed its way of working by migrating its workforce to a fully integrated virtual model. Where previously the company had office locations in New York, California, Indiana, Rhode Island and Wisconsin, today a startup-like warehouse in Florida and workshops across the nation serve for brainstorming and team collaboration.
About Bonnier
Bonnier is an outdoor adventure company that fuels passion for fishing, boating, sailing, motorsports, hunting and travel. Bonnier has the nation’s leading portfolio of experiential events and iconic media brands in the marine category, and an extensive series of nationwide motorsports and hunting events. Publisher of Salt Water Sportsman, Marlin, Sport Fishing, Boating, Yachting, Cruising World and Sailing World, Bonnier produces award-winning SFTV television programming, and hosts world-class fishing tournaments, sailing regattas and educational events across the US and in Mexico, Bermuda, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Australia and the Virgin Islands. Bonnier is owned by Sweden-based Bonnier AB, a globally operating conglomerate with more than 200 years in publishing.
- Published in Corporate
New Original TV Series Documents the 2022 Offshore World Championship
April 14, 2022 — WINTER PARK, FL — The Costa Offshore World Championship Presented by Continental will be the subject of a three-part TV series documenting the most globally diverse sport-fishing tournament in the world.
Mixing high-level competition with reality TV, the docu-series will showcase the tournament’s four days of fishing action in Quepos, Costa Rica, and present a 360-degree view of this global spectacle: the 90-plus qualifying events, target species, judges, fans and roughly 40 competing teams with anglers from 20 countries including the U.S., Brazil, Bermuda, Mexico, Croatia, Canada, Panama, Kenya and the Seychelles.
“For more than two decades, the Offshore World Championship has represented the ultimate achievement in big-game fishing. This new series will bring the global story of this tournament to life,” says Dan Jacobs, the event’s longtime tournament director.
The televised Offshore World Championship will reach an international audience of more than 3 million with primary and secondary airings on Discovery, Outdoor America, Bally Sports Sun and Outdoor America’s digital streaming and video-on-demand platforms. It will air in the third and fourth quarters of 2022.
The series is the latest project from the producers of SFTV, the award-winning fishing-travel-adventure series on Discovery that began its 21st season on April 2.
“Developing a national and regional broadcast component for the Offshore World Championship was the right move for the sport and will help grow the audience exponentially,” says John Acosta, Costa Del Mar Vice President of Marketing. “It’s a first-class event and we are proud to have an ownership position that reinforces our brand’s presence in competitive saltwater angling.”
The Costa Offshore World Championship Presented by Continental is one of several international fishing tournaments produced by Bonnier, the outdoor adventure company with a portfolio that also includes Salt Water Sportsman, Sport Fishing, Marlin, Boating, Yachting and SFTV.
For more information on the Costa Offshore World Championship Presented by Continental, visit offshoreworldchampionship.com, and follow @offshoreworldchampionship on Facebook and Instagram. Click here for the TV series’ full creative brief.
Bonnier Events Introduces Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series
February 1, 2022 — Newport, RI — With the 2022 racing season now underway, Bonnier Events continues to build on the rich tradition of the iconic brand of Sailing World magazine and its long-running racing series by introducing the rebranded Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series.
Featuring both a new name and event branding, the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series will kick off its 33rd season in St. Petersburg in February. Formerly called, the National Offshore One-Design Regatta, the format was an immediate success with its unique concept of racing level in larger production boats, its unrivaled post-racing social experiences and its professional race management. The Sailing World Regatta Series grew nationally and remains the most popular weekend racing series in the United States.
The Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series today encompasses more than larger one-design raceboats. Embracing popular fleets at each location, the regatta series now features many different boat types: dinghies, multihulls, and keelboats that race under established handicap systems.
This year’s series will travel to St. Petersburg, Fla., San Diego; Annapolis, Md., Chicago, and Marblehead, Mass., thanks to the premier host yacht clubs located in these renowned sailing venues.
The Helly Hansen Sailing World series will continue the traditions that have made it a sailor-favorite series like its post-racing parties and social events at each yacht club, and awarding one top-finishing team at each regatta a chance to compete in the overall season championship, held in the British Virgin Islands in October.
“The Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series has grown exponentially since its inception and now reaches a very broad audience. It only made sense to evolve with the all-inclusive nature of our events,” said Sarah Renz, Director for Sailing Events, Bonnier Corp. “The sport has evolved dramatically since Sailing World started this series more than 30 years ago, and our goal is to reflect the evolution in our name and branding. It remains a national series, but there’s now much more than just offshore one-designs. With the support of our longtime partner, Helly Hansen, we can’t wait to get the 2022 season underway.”
In 2022, the regatta series will feature races for cruising sailors, long-distance sailors, one-design fleets, handicap keelboat classes, dinghies and even remote-control sailboat racing. Competitors can expect the ever-popular social events with new and exciting additions to the nightly parties.
More information, including registration and race updates for the series can be found
at sailingworld.com/regatta-series/
- Published in Events
Bonnier Corp. Hires Olsewski to Fuel Motorsports Media
January 25, 2022 — WINTER PARK, FL — Bonnier Corp. has hired Steven Olsewski as the editorial lead for its motorsports brands. Olsewski, who has a long history of content creation within the market, will oversee editorial-content creation as Bonnier expands its offerings within key motorsports segments.
“As an event producer and publisher of world-leading content across an array of markets, we have long believed our authoritative voice in motorsports represents a tremendous opportunity to provide value to our engaged audiences,” said Jonathan Moore, Bonnier’s executive vice president of events.
Olsewski previously served as editor of Power Automedia’s leading brands, Off Road Xtreme and Diesel Army, and more recently was the driving force behind Off-Road Assassin.
Beginning with Off-Road Expo and Sand Sports Super Show, Olsewski will develop the editorial plans for motorsports content, work to develop content partnerships with key stakeholders, build out new editorial offerings, and leverage Bonnier’s market-leading events as year-round content engines.
“I am excited to be joining the Bonnier team and have the opportunity to further develop their motorsports business. Having been a lifetime participant and advocate of these markets, this is a tremendous fit for my experience. Creating the content in support of authoritative brands such as Off-Road Expo and Sand Sports Super Show will generate new value for the passionate enthusiasts, sponsors, and exhibitors who support those events, as well as the industry at large,” Olsewski said.
About Bonnier Corp.
Bonnier Corp. is an American outdoor adventures company with a broad portfolio of experiential events, supported by iconic media brands. Notable brands include Boating, Off-Road Expo, Yachting, Sand Sports Super Show and Salt Water Sportsman, among others. Bonnier Corp. is owned by Sweden-based Bonnier AB, a globally operating media conglomerate.
- Published in Corporate
Bonnier Corp. Sells Seramount—the Leading Workplace Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Firm—to EAB
August 18, 2021 — WINTER PARK, FL — Bonnier Corp. has sold its Seramount division to EAB, a leading provider of education research, technology, and marketing and enrollment solutions. Seramount is one of the largest and most comprehensive providers of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) services today, partnering with more than 450 of the world’s biggest and most well-known corporate brands, including half of the Fortune 100. Subha V. Barry will continue to lead the Seramount team as its president.
“Seramount is one of the most successful organic transformations in American publishing. Bonnier Corp. has pivoted Working Mother magazine into what it is today: the nation’s leading DE&I platform guiding corporate America along the path towards equality,” said Bonnier Corp. Executive Chairman Dr. Jens Mueffelmann. “EAB is a highly respected and mission-driven organization where Seramount will thrive further.”
“I look forward to working with Seramount’s leadership to make schools, colleges, and workplaces more inclusive,” said EAB Chief Executive Officer David Felsenthal. “EAB and Seramount both have long histories of sharing insights and solutions that spur action and change. Our combined experience, deep relationships with corporate and education leaders, and complementary expertise and connections will expand our ability to work with our partners to drive societal change.”
EAB has more than 40 years of history in best practice research, including a growing library of research on educational equity and several initiatives that advance DE&I in education and beyond. The company’s Moon Shot for Equity, for example, brings regional cohorts of two-and-four-year schools together to achieve the shared goal of eliminating equity gaps in higher education graduation rates by 2030.
About Seramount
Seramount is a strategic professional services firm dedicated to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. Over four decades, partnering with some of the most iconic companies in the world, we have built a deep data-driven understanding of the employee experience which lays the groundwork for everything we do. Our comprehensive DE&I toolkit includes actionable research and insights, membership, strategic guidance and consulting, and inspiring events, meeting each client’s needs no matter where they are on their journey and guiding them along an ever-changing landscape. Seramount has empowered over 450 organizations to realize the benefits of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Learn more at seramount.com.
- Published in Corporate
World-Renowned Marine Artist Guy Harvey Teams Up with Bonnier Corp. to Produce Guy Harvey’s Underwater World
May 19, 2021 (Winter Park, FL)—Angler, diver, photographer, marine scientist, conservationist and artist Guy Harvey has published his highly anticipated new book, Guy Harvey’s Underwater World, a personal account of his many adventures over the past two decades. The 340-page tome was a partnership between Harvey and Bonnier Corp., which served as the custom publishing house for the book’s production.
In Guy Harvey’s Underwater World, Harvey shares his signature artwork, knock-out photographs, and fascinating stories of his time on and in the waters of the world. From Alaska to Australia to the Galapagos and beyond, Harvey takes us along on the international fishing experiences of a lifetime. The strikingly beautiful, large-format book showcases Guy Harvey’s around-the-world fishing and diving adventures. Drawing from his handwritten journals, deep well of photography and signature artwork, Harvey weaves together fascinating stories, scientific discoveries and insights into the behavior of dozens of gamefish species to give us an up-close picture of his time on and in the water. Chapters highlight expeditions to the Bahamas, Caribbean, Belize, Cuba, the Caymans, Bermuda, the Yucatan and Mexico, Canada, Alaska, Costa Rica, Australia and the Galapagos. The book also reveals that Harvey’s contributions to conservation and scientific research are as recognized as his accomplishments in sport and art. Harvey has lived the life anglers dream of, and this is the book that documents that dream.
Guy Harvey’s Underwater World is published by Stackpole Books, and is available at www.guyharvey.com
- Published in Corporate