Vegas completely reopening != WSOP can go.

Event organizers should be cognizant that a relatively small subset of potential attendees will be attending simply because guv says it is ok.

I work for the main bulk manufacturing site for J&J vaccine in the US located in charm city. We have already sent out about 50m doses to the stockpile with about 10 to 15m out the door every 8 days and that rate about to double within the next month. Should be able to hit 150m by mid April. Just waiting on the emergency use authorization.

Looking forward to Vegas and the WSOP sometime this year!

I think extrapolating that from what was said is further wishful thinking. He has set out a reopening plan, but that doesn't mean it isn't subject to change, if prevailing conditions change. The cruise industry has set out safe reopening plans and dates at least 15 times and pushed them back every single time so far, as have many govt's and authorities around the world.

There is a significant difference between being able to reopen completely, and returning to normal, especially for Vegas. Convention traffic is not going to resume instantly, nor is tourism. For an entity like the WSOP, whose only motive for running is profit, running a series at 50% or less just because they 'can' is a terrible idea. They have fixed overhead plus variable costs and if they already know that at least 50% of their base are unable or unwilling to attend, it makes little financial sense for them to rush into action.

That’s off again. They have 19 active cases in the Melbourne area and therefore went into another 5 day lockdown which means no fans in the stadium until at least the quarterfinals.
Convention traffic is going to return in the summer. Based on what I’ve heard from friends, a lot of companies already canceled all non-essential 2021 travel though. That also means no convention or trade shows.

My brother (VP large chemical company) spent roughly 3 month each year traveling across Europe, Asia and North America for the last decade including 2-4 Vegas trips a year. It’s already clear that they’ll never return to more than 25-50% of that. I think the above quoted statement of Vegas being back to 90% of 2019 numbers in Q4 2022 is pretty realistic.

The WSOP ran for 35 years with attendance a tiny fraction of what it was during the 2010s. It is true that if they ran a tournament series this summer they couldn’t get numbers like they did in 2019. But I could easily seem them running a series of a scale like 2004. And if I recall correctly, the 2004 WSOP was seen as an overwhelming success.

That's true but scaling back might not be easy.

I have zero idea what number of participants the WSOP needs to make it work. But I know when we signed up for a booth for a trade show in October, the fine print said that the event will be canceled if less than 70% of the 2019 number of vendors signed up. One of the main factors for that is rent for the convention center which isn't really an issue for the WSOP because they own the space. But there's lots of other stuff that's very specific to a certain number of participants and also labor costs where scaling effects are necessary. Textbook example for the latter is a one screen movie theater that has basically the same amount of labor costs no matter if 5 or 500 people watch a movie.

Completely disagree. The WSOP can very easily run at 50% , heck even 15% of 2019 capacity and still make a profit. While there are fixed costs, the majority of costs are variable, think dealers, tournament directors etc..

Scaling up is much easier than scaling down. They could put caps on player no.s and try to control costs and player numbers, but it would be very difficult for them to predict attendance levels with any degree of confidence. If they get it wrong (in either direction) the consequences could be worse than the potential benefits.

Like most things it all comes down to a risk/reward analysis - and quite simply that is likely to indicate that delaying is the optimal strategy, especially as reduced/no convention traffic means that a venue for later in the year is not likely to be an issue.

Interesting point and one i had not thought of, but I still believe the WSOP can make it very profitable even at 50%. They own the RIO, its just sitting there. And the bulk of their employees are directly located in Vegas, meaning if they do underestimate the number of dealers needed, they can quickly call anxious dealers who would most likely be on standby .

If it was a choice of 15-50% of profitability or nothing, I would agree. But it makes no financial sense to run at 15-50% of profitability when they can run at 60-80% just a few months later. In the past there has been little flexibility regarding the time of year that the WSOP could run because of venue constraints, which do not exist, for this year at least.

IMO WSOP management realize that every year without an event the brand loses value. That needs to be taken into account when determining if an event should go based on its projected P&L.

Along with that running a WSOP during Vegas dead time looks a lot better on the books than peak periods.

I do believe it's very possible that the WSOP decides it makes more financial sense to run the event in August/September instead of June/July.

But we're still talking about differences in details here. I think most people now agree that it is almost certain that the WSOP will in fact hold a relatively normal live WSOP event series in Las Vegas in WSOP. It may be of a scale like 2004 instead of 2019, but it will still be a genuine WSOP.

This is a pretty big reversal from sentiments earlier in this thread, where you had a lot of people basically claiming there would be no live poker tournaments in the US for the entire year.

I basically agree with you, that is the scale of the event is probably less important than actually being able to host the event.

But if plexiglass and 6max is required then IMO it's unlikely WSOP gets off the ground.

What are your thoughts on 2022 being a very normal
WSOP during the summer? I would say extremely likely if vaccine rollout has no hiccups / unforeseen events.

Also they probably should just move WSOP to fall this year if they can. I feel a WSOP in the fall could be much more normal than a summer series this year that would obviously need to be dialed down.

I just checked the convention / trade show calendar and while it's looking like an extremely busy Fall season filled with rescheduled Winter/Spring events, there's absolutely nothing scheduled at the Rio. That means they could host the WSOP whenever they want.

I know next to nothing about the convention biz but I'm guessing with the situation at hand organizers are going to make reasonable dates work. The current situation also benefits Rio because there now exists a premium for fall convention space if somebody needs/wants it. There is no material premium for WSOP.

In regards to 2022 I'm guessing head count will be down again, maybe half of a presumed 2021. Much easier for people to travel in summer than fall, so if it goes Oct-Dec the head count would likely go lower still.

I think this poll was launched right before the NV Gov announcement on re-opening schedule. So A new poll would probably be closer to 50/50.

For those who are saying that it ran profitably in 2004 or such and that if we hit those numbers now it could run profitably now remember that there are two distinct differences. One, now plexiglass is required on every table. That is a nonzero cost. It would take a decent chunk of change to outfit hundreds of tables for plexiglass. Two, tables are only 8 handed instead of 10 handed. That means 20% more dealers, 20% more floor, 20% more cards, 20% more chips, etc. Not a huge amount, but might just be enough to make a corporation that is concerned about the bottom line to pass for a year and hope things are better a year from now.

I doubt many people think we’ll have a WSOP as long as they’re required to use plexiglass dividers. The assumption is that those requirements will be gone in the not too distant future.

The plexi glass will be gone in July.

As the vaccines continue to roll out and the hospitalizations continue to decline life will continue to approach normal.

These are my opinions.

20% more chips? You sure about that?

It seems very unlikely to me right now that plexiglass will be required, or tables limited to 8-handed, after the lifting of statewide restrictions on May 1.

I still remain unconvinced. Just because something is not a requirement does not mean that it is not a good idea. Because of the nature of the WSOP, if there were an 'outbreak' it could very easily be traced back to them, bringing into question issues of liability and potential damage to the brand. Not to mention the potential liability if their employees become infected whilst doing their jobs without safeguards.

I think even with statewide requirements being loosened or even removed, many people and companies will still choose to abide by them, in the short/medium term at least, in order to protect their employees and brands and to avoid liabilities.

IMHO, you needed “Open Season” for vaccines to have happened before Christmas . In a perfect scenario it will be available to everyone starting April 1st. A large percentage of that population could possibly get the second dose by the end of May. There’s just not enough time...

If they are worried about this, they could only allow people to play if they are vaccinated. This would probably be a good idea in a lot of contexts regardless.