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I had no idea that tourney pools
were getting juiced, that's cool.
I stand by the first sentence below
(simply because poker has existed for many years before the current surge of
interest), but I see your point, Lee. To put it another way, why merely survive
when you can prosper?
Aside: One thing that is nice
about poker is that satellites have given it something analogous to the
system of invitation plus qualification (as is done at events like
the U.S. Open)--the pros (or rich amateurs) who can afford to put $5000 or
whatever on the line are like the invited players, and the folks who
qualify starting from a $10 super satellite online are like
the qualifiers. It's fun to see both the known solid players and the
upstarts compete, and fans like to see an upset.
BTW, I'd really like to see the WPT
televise a match-play NLHE tournament, maybe with 8 invited pros and 8
qualifiers. I even have some
ideas for what the coverage could be like. ;)
--j
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2004 12:31
PM
Subject: [ba-poker] Poker popularity and
sponsorship
In a message dated 2/7/2004 3:07:57 AM Pacific
Standard Time, Kittock opined:
[4] Unlike professional sports, poker does not need fans
to
survive. After all, we play for each others' money,
not for
sponsors' money. Sponsorship is nice, but not
required. So
maybe the goal should be to keep poker just
popular enough to keep new
players coming in, and to just
punt on the whole "make it like the PGA"
concept. My
guess is that poker players, who are human beings
with
egos, are starting to enjoy the limelight enough to actually
want
to keep the ball rolling on this new phase in the
history of
poker.
Er, it's more than
that. The WPT is juicing the pot on most of the shows for this
season. Just $25K, but that number will go up. Anheuser is
dumping money into the WPT (you'll notice there is now an official beer of the
WPT). Sponsorship is going to change this game in (positive) ways that
we can only dream of right now. Sponshorship all of a sudden gives a
whole new group of people (the advertisers) incentive to direct people to the
poker world. Lick your chops, +EV poker players.
Sure,
those of us with egos are digging the attention, and I'm definitely in that
group. But this is way bigger than all that.
Regards, Lee
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