No surprise: PPT season 2 DELAYED

[BostonMetro]

I always laugh when they announce that players have three-year tour cards. A lot of good that will do them seeing as there will never be another PPT event EVER. That said, each title is without a DOUBT! THE! MOST! PRESTIGIOUS! TITLE! IN! POK! E! R!

[Rottersod]

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I always laugh when they announce that players have three-year tour cards. A lot of good that will do them seeing as there will never be another PPT event EVER. That said, each title is without a DOUBT! THE! MOST! PRESTIGIOUS! TITLE! IN! POK! E! R!

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and the players will fight like they are in a barroom brawl to win it!!!!!

[ed8383]

Is this another sign that TV poker is close to dying?

[olivert]

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Is this another sign that TV poker is close to dying?

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I have NEVER written that TV poker is "dying".

TV poker has certainly "matured" and "evolved" into its current form: "infomercials" for online poker businesses.

Online poker marketing money now pays for practically every TV poker project, one way or another, with the exception of WPTE TV products.

[BostonMetro]

I think it's a sign that the overlay you give to get the top pros to show up to these events doesn't match the money you can make off of airing them. Having one name pro and nine unknowns at a table will fetch just as many viewers as having nine name pros and one unknown - even though the people on this site would rather watch the former ten times as much as the latter.

I don't know if this has been mentioned, but if the WPT would just pay the tourney juice for "name players" it would give them a nice overlay and compensate to some degree for the crappy release and poor late-event structures.

[Self Made]

Doesn't High Stakes Poker still get a rights fee?

[CaryDarling]

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Having one name pro and nine unknowns at a table will fetch just as many viewers as having nine name pros and one unknown -

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That is quite untrue. One of the members of the Wednesday Discussion group here in Vegas is a writer who is heavy into the tv scene of poker. He's always at the HSP tapings etc., he knows a lot of the dish going on behind the scenes.

Anyway, just so I could clarify that this is not coming from me, and I can't quote you exact numbers every poker show *this was pre HSP 1* was losing viewership steadily, with the exception of Poker Superstars and Celebrity Poker Showdown...the consensus of producers, behind the scenes big wigs etc, was that this was due to the "unknown player" factor.

when you tune into Poker Superstars, you are seeing exactly that...superstars. When tuning into Celebrity Poker Showdown, you aren't seeing either celebrities or poker, but they are familiar faces...while on the other hand you tune into WPT, you may have a pro make the FT, but that could be a Pro only those who are heavy fans, or followers of the game might recognize...the whole argument actually made sense.

I personally can't stand to watch shows like Poker Dome, or anything amateur related. My motto has always been, if I want to watch a bunch of unknowns play bad poker for two hours I will just hit one of the 59 local card rooms, at least then, I can make money off of them. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[BostonMetro]

I agree that Pokerdome is unwatchable - however, as long as there is one name pro at a WPT final table, I'm many times more likely to watch it. It doesn't really increase that much with more name pros in the game. WPT is simply rolling the dice and hoping that top pros make their final tables - they often don't and the viewership probably hurts.

I wouldn't have bought - er, stolen - the final table of this years WSOP in a million years if Allen Cunningham wasn't at the table. But he was, and I watched until 4 am.

Larger fields at WPT events will help top pros because there is more dead money - it will help casinos because of the increased juice. However, it will hurt the WPT because they are less likely to produce a watchable telecast.

I guess the seven members in the lawsuit have figured this out and are sticking it to the WPT - they probably aren't doing it exactly the right way to bring success and steer away from personal disgraces - but they know that to an extent the players have the WPT over a barrel.

I'm amazed that the WPT doesn't want to compromise and give some sort of overlay to the top players - i.e. those who "earned" "tour" cards.

[Mr. Orange]

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WPT is simply rolling the dice and hoping that top pros make their final tables - they often don't and the viewership probably hurts.

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not so sure about that one. WPT seems to go out of their way to play up the "underdog at the final table with best players in the world" angle. Every week its a new "moneymaker" story. "This guy qualified online for 0.35 now he's at the final table blah,blah". Often times they have pro's at the final table and don't even announce that they're pros. Dewey Tomko was on once and they called him a retired school teacher with no mention about his poker background at all. There are other's they've done that with as well. Even from reading interviews with Sexton you can tell that WPT really believes its better for game if amateur's win. To a certain extent that's true, but when it happens constantly it gets boring.
Sometimes when I'm watching WPT, I don't even feel like I'm watching a poker event. It feels more like a gameshow where the "amateur(s)" are the contestants and the "pro's" are obstacles in their way to winning.

[olivert]

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I agree that Pokerdome is unwatchable

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PokerDome is an example of a TV poker time buy "on juice".

The amount of money FSN and the promoter, Hollybrook Regency, is getting from MansionPoker.NET is obscene.

Because the likes of MansionPoker.NET is throwing money around, there is no reason why any TV network in the U.S. has to put any cash at risk by paying CASH for the rights to TV poker products.

FSN doesn't have to put any cash at risk anymore. The likes of MansionPoker.NET, FullTiltPoker.NET, UltimateBet.NET, bodog.NET, and PartyPoker.NET now pay plenty of cash up front for mostly late night time slots on weekends.

Nor does ESPN, which doesn't have to risk another penny of cash on the WSOP through 2010.

WPTE, on the other hand, needs a cash rights fee deal, or a big sponsorship deal which will cover prize money, production cost, and TV time, in order for PPT Season 2 to go forward.

However, the very companies that now dictate the U.S. TV poker business, namely online poker "schools", now view WPTE as a direct competitor. It is unlikely for any of the major online poker "schools" to put up a substantial amount of money (7-figures minimum) to support WPTE's PPT project.

(The PokerStars.NET WPT Bahamas agreement is nothing more than a year-to-year TV production/distribution agreement, in which PokerStars.NET only pays a modest 5-figure "membership" fee to WPTE.)