Norman Chad On the WSOP: "The Viewers Don't Care"

[Self Made]

Did you ever wonder why ESPN only finds time for about 11 hands in a typical World Series of Poker show (a little more than one hand for each of the 9 participants at a final table), but finds time to show Phil Hellmuth throwing Frisbees? Thanks to Norman Chad I now know: it's because "the viewers don't care." Chad says about the WSOP "It's part reality show, part sitcom, part docudrama. And the results, as we see, don't even matter. The viewers don't care. They just want to see the episode again where two guys argue over who put the ante in."

Or perhaps it's ESPN that doesn't care... about their viewers. How can we expect quality poker from a network that views the show's potential audience as channel-surfers who may stop to veg out for a few minutes if they can't find a Friends rerun? ESPN won't be able to produce good poker TV until they gain some respect for their customers and realize that we, unlike them, might actually care about what we're watching. My only hope is that ESPN executives will start applying their poker-show logic to football coverage... and get themselves fired.

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