Where does TV poker coveage ad money go?

[bogey1]

This has puzzled me for quite some time and I've never seen any of the major players in poker (Hellmuth, Negraneu, Bruson, etc) talk about it much.

Most sporting events, the prize money is created or inflated by sponsors. I'm sure tennis/golf players pay an entry fee, but it's no where near the sum of the actual prize money distributed. The major team sports (football/basketball/baseball) make huge $$ of TV viewing rights.

Where does all the TV viewing $$ for poker go? It seems bizarre the WSOP or WPT gets mostly unlimited (often intrusive) access to tables during games to film, and can rake in advertising dollars for covering the events, but the players who are providing the entertainment don't see any of the money provided.

Hell, I know many top tennis players get paid an appearance fee just to compete in some of the lesser tournaments.

I'm genuinely curious how this works in poker. As far as I know, barring the occasional invitational tournament, all poker tourney's prize money is still strictly from player buy-ins.