Originally Posted by
slaunch
The basic answer to your questions that we have a definite answer to right now
1) You can call the three, FLW, BASS Elites, MLF (BPT Bass Pro Tour is the new tour through MLF) the three "major tours". You could consider the Bassmaster Opens and FLW costa events a "minor league" tour, as well as the BFL's which is division ran by FLW.
2) There are 107 guys fishing the Elites this season but next year will drop to 80 anglers. The new BPT (remember this is basically an expansion of the MLF) will also have 80 anglers. The FLW tour usually has 180 or so anglers in it but after next season they will limit their field to 150 anglers.
3) They are not specifically excluded from one if they fish the other, up until recently some guys fished both FLW and BASS but they started scheduling tournaments where guys couldn't fish both because they were on the same weekends. So the short answer to that is they can only fish one tour.
The story of Duckett starting a new tour is somewhat true as he was one of the founders of MLF but he is not the sole person behind it. There are a group of anglers that started the MLF tournament series/tv show and those anglers have always felt that there was a way that they could make more money fishing so they got with some investors and will be starting this new BPT next season.