I understand Poker is a game in which players earn or loose a fortune by investing there own funds.

While these players are risking there financial equity and time trying to make a living, ESPN, FTP, STARS and any other media outlets that report on poker are making MASSIVE profits. These profits come from many avenues including rake and advertising. What is happening is no different then a NBA owner collecting profits off his players. But the difference is that NBA owners pay these players 2-10 Mill a year gaurenteed.

Here is my question... Poker is the only "sport" (which is extremely valuable to major networks) (more people watch poker in the usa then hockey) in which players are getting massivly screwed. The revenue generated by poker is dead money, gone to the networks and sites that "run poker".

There has got to be a way to change this! Any thoughts?

pretty sure there are players in nba making far less than $2m

if you don't like it, then don't watch the networks or patronize the venues that do televised tournaments

And who do you expect them to pay? Everyone who is on the tournament circuit? I dont want to see all of the random pros banking millions just for traveling the circuit.

Casinos should not take rake and/or add $ to the prize pool for televised events.

...but this will never happen

The WPA, WPPA, IPF, and several other poker associations have tried and failed miserably.

when was the last time you bought a ticket to watch a live donkament?

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There are pros that get paid by the Sites. You know who they are so I wont name them.

kind of hard to complain considering how much money is made off of college sports

Good point,

I just started thinking about this when you look at PTR and see that the largest winning player online (since they tracked it) is up like 7 mill.... 7 mill is pennies compared to what top performers in other revenue building sports get. And whats the 50th most profitable player on PTR like 800k over a couple years.... the lowest paid player in the NHL (lowest paying sport) will make that and not even see the ice.

I understand that the revenues from poker will never be shared, but it would be nice to see poker do somethig like Nascar or PGA tours Fed Ex cup and have a tournament format over the year that would allow for massive pay out at year end (FED ex cup pays winner about 10x average first place prize).

Just a thought...

I really like that idea. There are already numerous player of the year lists and adding some prize money would be a great idea.

The biggest difference between professional poker and professional athletes, is that the professional athletes are not only athletes, but marketers of big sponsors that make these salaries available, and supplement the income of the athletes.

If poker players were able to drive audiences to spend money in places that made sense from a sponsorship point of view, Im sure you would see larger sponsors come on board and make the prize-pools at the very least, more value driven with added money to the prizepool.

Being a tournament player and having your buyins paid by FTP or Stars is really not that different from what a PGA player does, although I agree with the idea that a Fed-Ex type "Bracelet Race" would add a ton of suspense and marketing power to the poker world.

Only problem is, what sponsor (outside of a FTP, Stars, Party) would recognize this race as a way to capitalize on marketing potential? Bellagio? 2+2? Bicycle?

I'd settle for not having Jack Link's Beef Jerky constantly in my face.

Um, it doesn't do too much for your argument about how valuable poker is when you claim it is more watched than hockey in the U.S. Just a few years ago, the NHL was a running joke on Mike Wilbon's and Tony Kornheiser's Pardon the Interuption because the NHL All-Star game got lower ratings than a rerun of the Andy Griffith Show on TV Land. People would rather watch a 40-year-episode of Opie Taylor going fishing than the NHL, and that is the benchamrk you are using to establish poker's value to the networks.

I understand what you're saying, I think, but certainly you know enough about basic economics to understand that it's a function of supply and demand.

If you can find a way to turn poker into the kind of event where you can get millions of people to fill stadiums and arenas every week and many millions more to watch those events on TV, you'd have something.

There were about 2 million people watching the final table of the WSOP Main Event on TV, but there were about 100 million people watching the Super Bowl. It's not even close.