Quote:
Originally Posted by akashenk
If the WSOP is sold, I doubt very much it will stay at the RIO since it would probably cost the WSOP too much to rent out that kind of space.
Actually, the opposite might be true. From what I heard, at least in the early years at the Rio, the WSOP was paying full price for everything. Even though the same corporation owns it all, each department has their own budget. The WSOP is told "you're at the Rio." Then, the guy in charge of the WSOP has to negotiate how much he's paying from his budget to the budgets of the convention space, food and beverage, etc. If you want to rent out convention space at a casino, they have the full price rates, but you usually can negotiate down from there, often by a lot. Per the rumor mill, WSOP was paying top price for everything, because the person running each department at the Rio knew they had a captive customer, who could not shop around and get a better deal somewhere else.
The pit at the Rio does better in June and July than any other months each year. If you owned the WSOP, and went to another property to negotiate a deal to hold it there, don't you think that the pit at that casino would be more than happy to help with some of your costs? Knowing that you are bringing them a ton of action for 1.5 months? As far as I know, the casino at the Rio kicks in nothing to the WSOP, even though it's presence makes them a lot of money.
All of this is a big part of the reason that tournament fees went up so much when the WSOP moved from Binions. At Binions, it's family-owned, and they didn't care about the budget of each individual department. They could tell food and beverage to give out free food right-and-left, and if the restaurants lost money during the WSOP, no big deal. The owners knew that loss was nothing compared to the gains elsewhere. But in corporations, each department head is responsible for their own budget, and is expected to turn a profit.
Cheers, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)