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My point was that marketing opportunities are available for SOME players, i.e. the marketable ones. Problems with marketing asian males aside, I've heard Tuan Le doesn't want the responsibility of an endorsement deal.

As for Grinder waiting this long to ink a deal, I don't think it was such a bad move considering the size of the deal he eventually secured, which is significant by real-life standards, not just "Hot-girl-signing-on-to-represent-some-unheard-of-online-pokersite" standards.

And while The Takeover hasn't signed onto anything longterm afaik, I'm pretty sure the opportunity is or will be there for him.

I'm just trying to contradict your doom-and-gloom attitude. Of course, there ought to be a natural thinning-out of the ancillary opportunities you love talking about, but it's not like they are disappearing entirely.


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Shane:

The bar for getting a endorsement deal is certainly higher for the "WPT Class of 2005" than for "WPT Class of 2004".

The deal for the "The Grinder" was long overdue, while I don't believe either Michael Gracz or John Phan have deals done yet.

(I can understand why Tuan Le doesn't want to make personal appearances at various events and functions on behalf of a sponsor, which is the primary responsibility of any endorsement deal.)

One would expect that Nick "The Takeover" Schulman, being a member of the "Class of 2006", would face an even higher hurdle than "The Grinder" in getting a sponsorship deal done.

Schulman doesn't have the attitude or the swagger of "The Grinder" that some sponsors look for.

I shudder to think what would have happened if Josh "SDouble" Schlein had beaten Freddy Deeb heads-up in Aruba in 2005.

Schlein, with his mouth, his swagger, and his attitude, would have been right up the alley of a number of online poker rooms.

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Also, any word on ESPN's schedule for WSOP prelims?

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The last I heard from a source was the approval process for the schedule is being bogged down by various "internal" issues at ESPN.

I do know that PokerStars.com definitely jumped the gun when it posted a list of 9 "televised" events last Friday.

That list of 9 events posted by PokerStars.com was based on a list ESPN Original Entertainment (EOE) and Harrah's submitted to ESPN Programming for approval.

None of those 9 events have beeen approved by ESPN Programming as of this week, though the chance of having 1 out of those 9 events approved is fairly good.

(You don't have to a genius to guess which 1 of the 9 events on the list will probably get TV coverage.)