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Originally Posted by NickMPK
If ESPN decided it didn't want to cover the WSOP for more than 1 episode, why wouldn't the WSOP just shop around for another cable network to cover it.
Because the other sports TV outfits (FOX Sports Net in particular) in the U.S. want to be paid to air poker on their channels in 2008, instead of the other way around.
Both ESPN and Caesars know that no one else besides ESPN would want to pay for the U.S. TV rights to the WSOP if the WSOP continues to lose young viewers, particularly in the 18-34 demographic.
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I'm GSN, for example, would rather show the WSOP than the WPT.
Any poker TV show that signs with GSN will be committing a form of suicide.
As we have seen with the WPT, GSN has a built-in demographic disadvantage, with an audience skew toward older females (median viewer is a lady in her 50s who plays bingo at church.)
WPT on GSN is not able to sell ads targeting typical "sports TV" viewers such as beer, soft drinks/energy drinks, mobile telephone services, sports cars and pickup trucks, and even online poker (PokerStars.net stopped paying to put logoes on players at WPT TV final tables after Reno on March 28 once WPT on GSN TV ratings became available for the premier week of March 24-30.)
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I'm not surprised that poker gets very marginal ratings for a major network or an ESPN primetime broadcast. What I am surprised about is that poker has not found a stable home on a minor cable network. I mean, I get an entire tennis channel....can the poker niche be any smaller than the tennis niche?
Yes. Very much so. NewsCorp killed the idea of an all-poker digital TV channel in the U.S. market in 2005. I was told by one source that Rupert Murdoch himself killed the idea.
Right now, poker on TV in the U.S. market has a bad reputation in the advertising agency/media planning community for 1) losing young viewers in the 18-34 demographic, and 2) not delivering enough value to non-poker-related advertisers.
Unless the 2008 WSOP November Main Event Final Table broadcast on ESPN were able to turn the tide against TV ratings erosion, the entire concept of poker, with the WSOP in particular, as a rights fee and non-poker-spocific product sponsorship-driven TV property in the U.S. market, could very well be dead and buried once and for all.
If there were to happen, the WSOP brand will inevitably have to be sold by Apollo/TPG to a company that can fully harness its value as a rights fee and non-poker-related product sponsorship-driven TV product in European markets. One way to do that is to hold the 2009 WSOP in Dubai at a "foreigner-only" hotel and convention facility.
Last edited by olivert; 05-07-2008 at 03:35 PM.