Does who wins main event even matter "for poker" anymore?

[HedonismBot]

Who HASN'T heard of poker by now, do you think that who wins the main event is really going to bring that many new players to the game from the US, or get them playing more? Best chance to bring new players is for a foreigner to win, like Yang. Thoughts?

[MyTurn2Raise]

yes...who wins matters

I think the Russian winning would have been best for the poker community as a whole

A strongly religous man winning is a good face to put forward


If a woman wins one of these years, it will be great.

[MikeRice]

Kravechenko sp? would have been a dream scenario for FTP with them having the Moscow Millions later in the year and trying to expand worldwide. Anyone who is from a region with a somewhat untapped poker market would be better for expanding poker than an American.

[fnurt]

Yeah, a woman would matter quite a bit. In general, though, the idea that a bunch of clones of the winner suddenly launch a poker boom is way overblown. If a garbageman wins the ME, there's not going to be 1000 new garbagemen on Stars tomorrow.

[soulvamp]

The only real newsworthy WSOP winner next year would be a woman or a well-known pro.

[MrFizzbin]

The wrong person could also hurt poker too, Look at what Vick/Pacman et al, are doing for football, or what the drug scandal of the 70's did to the NBA till Bird and Magic showed up.

So Jerry Yang, decent guy that wants to take care of his family not bad. Degen Gambler that squanders everything he makes, and neglects his family bad....

[CincyLady]

I agree about if a woman wins, it will IMO, do the same thing for Poker as it did in general when Moneymaker won.

Right now Women in the ME only account for 5 percent of the field.

Just imagine if a woman won the ME, then IMO, a number of women would would identify with the winner and come flooding into Poker.

[secretprankster]

[ QUOTE ]
The only real newsworthy WSOP winner next year would be a woman or a well-known pro.

[/ QUOTE ]

Missing a fairly obvious group.

[CincyLady]

What group would that be?

[Zetack]

[ QUOTE ]
Who HASN'T heard of poker by now, do you think that who wins the main event is really going to bring that many new players to the game from the US, or get them playing more? Best chance to bring new players is for a foreigner to win, like Yang. Thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course it matters, whether or not it brings new players to the game.

Do you think there is anyone who hasn't heard of coca-cola? And yet in 2006 the company spent at least 2.5 BILLION dollars on advertising. And more was spent by bottler and affiliates, to the tune, as far as I can tell, of over 5 billion dollars.

We're not going to see another Moneymaker effect, I don't think. But the ability of the WSOP to generate interest, and who wins is part of that, does continue to matter to poker.

--Zetack