By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
OCEAN CITY, Md. — For the 53rd straight summer, this barrier-island town has traded its usual identity as a boardwalk beach destination for something bigger: the self-proclaimed “White Marlin Capital of the World.” The White Marlin Open, the largest and richest billfishing tournament on the planet, is underway through Saturday, with 334 boats and an estimated field of more than 3,000 anglers chasing a projected purse north of $9.9 million.
By Tuesday evening, Day 2 of the six-day tournament was living up to the hype. A 110.5-pound bigeye tuna hauled in by the See Legs boat, caught by angler Anthony Rubino, took over first place in the tuna category late in the afternoon, capping a day that saw a parade of qualifying tuna and the tournament’s first mahi-mahi hit the scales at Harbour Island Marina. Day 1 had been a washout by comparison — rough seas kept all but 17 of the tournament’s boats at the dock — but 255 boats fished on Day 2 as conditions improved, and organizers expect even fuller fleets as the week goes on.
“The world’s richest fishing tournament now attracts more than 3,000 anglers from across the East Coast.”
How a Fishing Tournament Turns Into an Eight-Figure Purse
“A team that buys into every available level can have more than $100,000 riding on the tournament.”
For the uninitiated, the scale of the White Marlin Open’s prize money can be hard to square with the idea of a fishing contest. The mechanism is what’s known in the sportfishing world as an added-entry system — organizers and outside observers alike often compare it to a poker tournament with cascading side pots, or a calcutta.
Every boat pays a base entry fee — $1,500 if registered before June 1, $1,800 after — which covers the whole crew and puts the team in the running for a guaranteed $50,000 purse. From there, teams can buy into any combination of nearly 50 additional prize levels, each essentially its own separate pot, ranging from a few hundred dollars to the priciest winner-take-all category for heaviest white marlin, which alone costs $50,000 to enter. A team that buys into every available level can have more than $100,000 riding on the tournament — while plenty of others compete on the base entry alone and still walk away with serious money.
Because the payouts are built from what anglers collectively wager rather than a fixed prize pool set in advance, the total purse swings from year to year with the number of boats and how aggressively they buy in. It’s also why payouts can balloon unexpectedly: if no fish qualifies in a given category, that category’s money rolls over to the next eligible one. That’s exactly what happened in 2023, when Laytonsville, Maryland’s John Ols boated a 640.5-pound blue marlin aboard Floor Reel and walked away with $6.2 million — still the largest single-fish payout in fishing tournament history.
Anglers compete across six eligible species — white marlin, blue marlin, tuna, wahoo, dolphin (mahi-mahi) and swordfish — each with its own minimum size to qualify for the scale. White marlin must weigh at least 70 pounds and measure 70 inches, stricter than the federal minimum, meaning a legally caught fish can still fail to qualify for tournament money. Boats fish three days of their choosing within the six-day window, from 8 a.m. lines-in to 3:30 p.m. lines-out, with one carve-out: a blue marlin still being fought at the 3:30 deadline can be played to its conclusion. Anglers who win roughly $50,000 or more can be required to pass a polygraph test before organizers cut the check.
“Since 1974, the White Marlin Open has awarded more than $121 million in prize money.”
The tournament’s founder, longtime mate Jim Motsko, started the whole enterprise in 1974 after growing frustrated watching anglers settle informal side bets with no structure behind them. That first year drew 57 boats and paid out $20,000 total. Since then the White Marlin Open has awarded more than $121 million and is now run by Motsko’s daughter, Madelyne Motsko.
The Draw: NBA Royalty and a Fleet That Spans the Coast
“Michael Jordan’s Catch 23 is back chasing another White Marlin Open title.”
The Open has long attracted boats well beyond the Delmarva Peninsula, with entries this year again pulling from Virginia, New Jersey and the Carolinas. Its best-known regular is Michael Jordan, whose boat Catch 23 is fishing the tournament again in 2026. Last year, Jordan’s team finished second in the marquee white marlin category — a 71-pound fish caught by angler Trey “Cricket” McMillan, just a pound behind the winner — worth roughly $389,000. Ocean City’s own Billfisher, which has topped $10 million in career winnings after taking the top white marlin prize in both 2022 and 2025, is also back on the water this year, alongside Floor Reel, still fishing three years after its record-setting blue marlin.
Congressman Andy Harris, whose First District includes Ocean City, was among those at the scales Tuesday, telling Delmarva Now the tournament has become something of a family tradition. “I brought two of my grandchildren last year, and now I’ve got four or five of them going, ‘Hey, I want to go see this!'” Harris said. “This is a great family event, an important economic event. It’s just great. This is what America is all about.”
An Economic Engine for a Beach Town in the Offseason of Summer
Tournament week is, by a wide margin, one of the biggest economic events on Ocean City’s calendar — arriving in the first week of August, when hotels, restaurants and charter operations are already near capacity but get an added surge from the anglers, crews and spectators the Open pulls in.
Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan put a number on it at Tuesday’s weigh-in: roughly $20 million in direct spending tied to the tournament, a figure he said doesn’t capture the full economic ripple. “It’s one of our signature events,” Meehan told Delmarva Now. “It has a tremendous economic impact. … The town looks forward to it, my friends look forward to it, locals look forward to it. They come here Saturday and Sunday, setting up to be a part of it … This is truly one of those events that everybody loves to be involved with.”
“Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan estimates the tournament generates roughly $20 million in direct local spending.”
That spending flows well beyond the docks. Hundreds of boats need slips, fuel and tackle. Thousands of anglers and their families need hotel rooms, restaurant tables and bar stools. Marlin Fest, the tournament’s companion beach festival at the Ocean City Inlet, runs the full six days this year for the first time, with live music, vendors and a big screen simulcasting the daily weigh-ins — pulling in spectators who may never set foot on a boat but still spend a week’s vacation budget in town watching the scales.
The tournament has leaned into conservation in recent years alongside the economic pitch: organizers point out that of 605 billfish caught in 2023, 602 were released, and most fish that are weighed in are ultimately donated to local food banks.
New This Year
Tournament organizers made two notable changes for 2026. Boats now choose their three fishing days from a six-day window rather than the traditional five, a shift Tournament Director Madelyne Motsko said was designed to give crews more flexibility around unpredictable offshore weather — a concern borne out almost immediately when rough seas limited Monday’s opening day to just 17 boats. Organizers also added a non-sonar entry division, giving boats fishing without omnidirectional sonar technology their own competitive lane in both the marlin-release and weighed-fish categories, on top of the Outboard division introduced last year for boats running outboard motors.
Daily weigh-ins continue at Harbour Island Marina on 14th Street through Saturday, typically running 4 p.m. to 9:15 p.m. and free to the public. The tournament’s awards ceremony is scheduled for Sunday, August 9, at the Ocean City Marlin Club.
Sources: This article draws on live tournament reporting from Alec Branch of the Salisbury Daily Times, republished by AOL, including remarks from Congressman Andy Harris and Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan at the Aug. 4 weigh-in; tournament rules, history, entry-fee structure and past results as reported by FishingBooker.com and the White Marlin Open’s official website, whitemarlinopen.com; and background on the 2026 tournament format from OceanCity.com and Oyster Harbors Marine’s event coverage.
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