Black Friday's effect on televised poker
Gary Wise asks how heavily Friday's indictments of the founders of Full Tilt and Pokerstars will impact on televised poker in the United States.
You probably know by now that online poker in the United States saw its face smashed in with a sledgehammer of justice on Friday when the US Department of Justice unwrapped arraignments for 11 individuals of importance in the industry, confiscated domains, froze bank accounts and gave online players everywhere the life equivalent of the ultimate atomic wedgie. What you may not have figured out yet is how those events will affect the American TV schedule.
For the last seven-plus years, TV has bombarded us with poker. It started with the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour, but when those shows found success, copycats and other legitimate enterprises started colouring in the landscape. As of last Thursday, there weren’t a whole lot of hours in the week where you couldn’t watch poker if you really wanted to. That’s all about to change.
See, WSOP and WPT were profitable shows that their platforms paid for, but as the major online sites came to realise that TV shows made for great advertising opportunities, they started making them on their own and then buying broadcast time as adbuys. That’s why you see so many FullTiltPoker badges on Poker After Dark and PokerStars badges on The Big Game. Or rather, why you did.
On Tuesday Fox announced they’d terminated their relationship with The Big Game and Million Dollar Challenge and I suspect more shows will meet the same fate. The networks don’t want the tarnish of working with companies under indictment, and PokerStars and FullTiltPoker no longer have an American audience to advertise to.
As this plays out, we’ll see two major effects. First, major turnover in poker’s star system as American professionals who inspire middling recognition will suddenly have little to no value. Second, what may be a return to the days of old. ESPN’s already announced they will continue to cover WSOP and the WPT’s suddenly looking at a landscape where much of their live tournament competition (such as the PokerStars-affiliated North American Poker Tour) seems likely to fade away.
Does that mean TV will pay for poker again? That’s a time-may-tell question. If they do though, you won’t see nearly as much, at least for a while, and that means poker’s place in popular culture is going to be greatly diminished. Better start looking for something else to watch.
Gary Wise writes about poker for ESPN amongst others. You can find his personal blog at jgarywise.com and follow him on Twitter @GaryWise1.