So I have been disappointed with the decline of ESPN's coverage of the WSOP over the last couple year. In particular, I wish they would show more events than just the Main Event like they used to back in 2004-2007.

The natural response to this would be that covering additional events would be too expensive to produce and wouldn't achieve high enough ratings. But it seems like neither of these are true.

I would understand the ratings argument if ESPN was showing the baseball playoffs or NBA games this time of year. But I notice the main ESPN channel is right now broadcasting a women's crossfit competition. They are showing women's crossfit in the middle of their weekday primetime line-up.

I couldn't imagine that women's crossfit would get higher ratings than poker, so I tried to look it up. And it seems like it doesn't...I could only find comparable ratings for 2012, but it seems like crossfit drew an average of about 250K viewers, while the WSOP drew about 650K.

So why would ESPN put this in their line-up at the same time they are reducing poker coverage?

It also can't have a lower cost to produce. Because they already tape most of the the final tables with hole cards for view on online streaming. Could it really cost that much to recut them to broadcast channel length and add new commentary? Seem like it must be cheaper to add a commentary track to existing footage than broadcasting an entire new sport.

Sure, these side events wouldn't get the ratings that Main Event does, but even given this and with poker ratings in decline, they'd have to draw better than 250K viewers, right?

A lot of ESPN's crap programming are time slots completely bought and paid for by the show's producer. No brainer cash for ESPN.

Well that declined quickly.

So the main ESPN channel is essentially showing an infomercial in the middle of weekday prime time? That seems pretty sad considering how much ESPN charges cable companies for the privilege of carrying it.

I might be wrong but I think strongman competition and Pro Bowlers Tour falls into this category.

Confirmed. "random garbage" with a sponsor generates more revenue.

WNBA on ESPN2. The camera never pans off floor level because then you'd see all the empty seats. Bet the ratings for these games are off the charts, and by off the charts, not high enough to register on a chart.

That is standard for any live event coverage.

Bowling and strongman is way more entertaining than garbage like WOMENS CROSSFIT.

Poker falls into the category of Bowling and strongman.

Womens crossfit is like 10 tiers below it.

It all comes down to advertising. Sorry to bash us poker players but since black friday there is very little demand for ad space during WSOP segments. Draft Kings and Fan Duel....ohh and those Caesars commercials that warn us about being Degens

Even though women's crossfit attracts a much smaller audience, it attracts a much more profitable audience than WSOP segments. Do you know how much these broads spend on lululemon? $108 for a pair of pants and $78 for a tank top!

You're wrong about this. No one cares about strongman and probably only slightly more care about bowling. The same type of person who cares about strongman will probably watch crossfit. Also, for women in barely any clothes seems pretty obvious too.

anyone who watches bowling is ****ed, like watching two 90 year old nits play HULHE

NEWS FLASH: The TV Poker Fad is over.

should have been in bold or italics bro, weak use of an underline

the sad thing is there are probably more people who care about strongman or bowling than poker

To most people poker is random garbage. Tbh i never liked watching it myself and i like poker enough to have played 20k MTTs. Its pretty damn boring to watch

this

just because we play and understand it and enjoy watching it, doesnt mean the majority of people like watching it

thats why he made this thread...

Good Finals tickets were somewhat hard to come by.

I think typical regular season games are around 10K for most teams. That's a big crowd for a basketball game though some teams do play in arenas where that's not capacity for various reasons. Many mens college teams who find their way onto espn from time to time average less than that.

They actually average around 7-8,000.

I was just going off memory of games I've attended am sure 7-8 could be right. That's still a relatively big crowd for a basketball game and is bigger than the capacity of some March Madness teams' home courts.

or maybe because:

The average attendance for a WNBA game was around 7,500 in 2012. Since then, they've stopped reporting their attendance and that's not because ticket sales have skyrocketed.

ESPN programming directors aren't just guessing about these things. And the earlier point about advertising is likely more important than ratings in and of themselves.

Raise your hand if you thought this was about the quality of poker-related content featured on the latest WSOP episodes. Quite honestly, I thought a lot of that was random garbage in itself. The only useful thing I learned about the Side Action tournament was that, after watching a former dealer in Matusow attempt to deal cards, cocaine really is a hell of a drug. I wish they would can McEachern and Chad already -- Kaplan is the perfect replacement for McEachern, and a proper colour commentator would be much more ideal than a guy who has to make a stupid joke in the opening segment just so he can at least try to appeal to older viewers.

ESPN wants to air random garbage because admiring the sports in themselves has taken a back seat to the gimmicks, contests, fantasy leagues, Youtube testimonials, sports video games, Youtube videos of sports video games being played, shaming of delinquent athletes, the controversy surrounding concussed athletes, athletic endorsements, Youtube comment wars spawning from said endorsement videos on Youtube, management and executive scandals, forum wars spawning from said scandals, and so on that has all spawned from the bull**** that the past 10 years has brought us, that this crap has become the standard.

I'm kinda pissed off. Ever since Phil Ivey left, no one especially good was brought to the feature table and it resulted in some really stupid juicing of the Rystadt/Keranen farce. After watching the entire feature table play, including Keranen, most adept viewers can only wonder if $10,000 is hidden behind their walls.