article:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3943012/
By Mike Celizic
NBCSports.com contributor
Updated: 2:47 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2004
If someone had told you a couple of years ago that a major television network hoped to grab a nice little chunk of the Super Bowl pre-game audience by airing a poker tournament, you’d have looked at him as if he had three nostrils.
If someone told you that today, you’d probably ask, “What channel?†and make a mental note to check it out.
That, at least, is what NBC, a partner with Microsoft in MSNBC, is hoping. From 4-6 p.m. ET on Super Bowl Sunday, while CBS is into its fifteenth or sixteenth hour of pre-game features, NBC will air the World Poker Tour Tournament of Champions from the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
“We’re not anticipating huge ratings,†says Jon Miller, NBC Sports’ senior vice president for programming. “It’s a fun property. By four o’clock, you’re already heard a bunch about wide receivers, owners, quarterbacks, special teams and all that. This gives people an alternative before the 6:25 kick-off.â€
But it doesn’t have to get huge ratings to be a success. Since NBC stopped chasing major league sports and the huge rights fees they demand, the network has tried to be creative in finding alternative programming. Some of its efforts, most notably the XFL, have been utter flops. Others, like arena football, have been a modest success with a solid niche market.
The poker Tournament of Champions is a one-time event, bringing together the 11 winners of the World Poker Tour’s events of last year, and held on a specific day — what Miller calls “appointment television.†Think of Detroit always playing football on Thanksgiving Day. Or the U.S. Open golf tournament always finishing on Father’s Day.
If this flies, “We hope it will become a regular staple on Super Bowl Sunday,’ says Miller.
The odds would seem to be in his favor. I’m not just guessing on that. I’ve got positive results from the “Larry Test†to back it up.
The eponymous Larry is a friend of mine whose interest in sports is approximately equal to Osama bin Laden’s interest in “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.†Every time I get to feeling that something in sports has captured the nation’s attention, I mention it to Larry. If he has no idea what I’m talking about, I know I’m wrong; it’s failed the Larry Test.
Poker passed the Larry Test in the biggest way possible, which is to say Larry showed up one day babbling about the game he’d watched the night before the way a 12- year-old tells his friends about discovering the Playboy magazine in his father’s closet. Poker, it seems, has gone mainstream.
A few years ago, the only way most people would have watched a televised poker tournament was if they were stricken with terminal insomnia. And today, poker seems to be taking over the airwaves.
In fact, it’s taking over more than television. In the past two years, poker — specifically Texas Hold’em poker — has literally exploded in popularity.
Live Vote
Will you watch poker on Super Bowl Sunday?
Wouldn't miss it
Only if I have time
Don't bet on it
Vote to see results
Live Vote
Will you watch poker on Super Bowl Sunday? * 2097 responses
It had been growing slowly and below most people’s radar for a number of years, says Barry Shulman, who publishes Card Player, a newsletter and magazine for poker players, and runs cardplayer.com. It started as more and more states legalized different forms of gambling and poker rooms became more common.
Then, two years ago, Shulman continued, playing poker on the Internet “just skyrockets. It started doubling every quarter.â€
Finally, on March 30 of last year, Steve Lipscomb and Lyle Berman debuted their creation, the World Poker Tour, a weekly, two-hour poker tournament, on the Travel Channel. With cameras under the table showing the players’ hole cards and commentators Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten discussing strategy and odds, a game that had been mostly opaque to many people became fascinating – and accessible.
Lipscomb and Berman did more than just come up with the idea, though. They first tried to sell the concept to several television networks but got no interest. So they pulled back and decided to produce the show themselves and then sell it. Lipscomb says they got financing from the first investor they approached, and, once they had backing, they started getting calls from outlets.
They went with the Travel Channel because the network’s president, Billy Campbell, offered them what Lipscomb calls “real estate. They offered us a two-hour block in prime time on Wednesday nights. The reason we’ve built an audience is that we had the regular time slot. It’s the highest rated show in the Travel Channel’s history.â€
ESPN copied their format for the World Series of Poker. Bravo has adapted it to Celebrity Poker. Miller recognized it as something that might fly on Super Bowl Sunday.
And the public, stoked with the lexicon, procedures, and strategies of the game, have started flocking to poker rooms in casinos around the country.
“Revenues are up 30-35 percent,†says Doug Dalton, the director of the poker room at the Bellagio. “We know it’s because of television because a customer will sit at a game and ask, ‘When can I bet all of my money, like on television?’
“The profile of the average player is younger. There are more women playing.â€
Historically, the gambling houses that have bothered with poker rooms have done so to present a full menu of attractions to all tastes rather than as a major revenue producer. Some people did come just to play poker, but most casual customers came to play other games and wandered in out of curiosity, according to Dalton.
Now, “people are coming to the Bellagio just to play poker because they’ve seen it on television and they want to play here,†he says. Customers know who the champions are and are captivated by the idea that they can sit at a table with a champ and play. “You can’t play golf with Tiger Woods,†Dalton points out. “You can't just show up at the court and play tennis with Andre Agassi.â€
But you can play poker — if you have the price of admission — with Howard Lederer, "Gattlin' Gun" Gus Hansen or last year’s World Poker Tour champion Alan Goehring.
It didn’t hurt that last year the World Series of Poker’s $2.5-million top prize went to a guy with the wonderful — and real — name of Chris Moneymaker, a rank amateur who bought into a $20 Internet tournament, and parlayed that $20 into a seat at the World Series and the championship.
“Unlike golf,†says Shulman, “any amateur on any given day can beat any pro.â€
Poker rooms, Internet poker, and television ratings aren’t the only things caught up in the boom. Shulman’s magazine and newsletter, once a specialty publication privately distributed and catering to the professional player, is suddenly mainstream and headed for a newsstand near you.
“We went five years when our newsletter went out to 3,000 people a month,†Shulman says. “In December, it went out to 16,000 people. This month, it went out to 28,000. Our Internet site went from 800 people a day to 10,000 a day.
“During prime time every night, there are 100,000 Americans playing poker on the Internet.â€
Once upon a time, when people got together for games, friendly or otherwise, they most likely played stud poker or draw. Today, thanks to television, they play what was always the World Series of Poker’s tournament game, Texas Hold’em.
Miller, who grew up playing stud poker himself, is one of the converts. “It’s an easy game to learn and follow,†he says. “It’s not an easy game to win.â€
It is, says Lipscomb, the true believer, “the best game. It’s the top fuel drag racing of poker. Once you do that, how are you going to get in a stock car?
“I can explain the game in two sentences, and you can spend a lifetime trying to master it.â€
He and Miller, not to mention Larry, think it’s a game whose time in the limelight has come. On Super Bowl Sunday, we'll find out if they're right.
Mike Celizic writes regularly for NBCSports.com
By Mike Celizic
NBCSports.com contributor
Updated: 2:47 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2004
If someone had told you a couple of years ago that a major television network hoped to grab a nice little chunk of the Super Bowl pre-game audience by airing a poker tournament, you’d have looked at him as if he had three nostrils.
If someone told you that today, you’d probably ask, “What channel?†and make a mental note to check it out.
That, at least, is what NBC, a partner with Microsoft in MSNBC, is hoping. From 4-6 p.m. ET on Super Bowl Sunday, while CBS is into its fifteenth or sixteenth hour of pre-game features, NBC will air the World Poker Tour Tournament of Champions from the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
“We’re not anticipating huge ratings,†says Jon Miller, NBC Sports’ senior vice president for programming. “It’s a fun property. By four o’clock, you’re already heard a bunch about wide receivers, owners, quarterbacks, special teams and all that. This gives people an alternative before the 6:25 kick-off.â€
But it doesn’t have to get huge ratings to be a success. Since NBC stopped chasing major league sports and the huge rights fees they demand, the network has tried to be creative in finding alternative programming. Some of its efforts, most notably the XFL, have been utter flops. Others, like arena football, have been a modest success with a solid niche market.
The poker Tournament of Champions is a one-time event, bringing together the 11 winners of the World Poker Tour’s events of last year, and held on a specific day — what Miller calls “appointment television.†Think of Detroit always playing football on Thanksgiving Day. Or the U.S. Open golf tournament always finishing on Father’s Day.
If this flies, “We hope it will become a regular staple on Super Bowl Sunday,’ says Miller.
The odds would seem to be in his favor. I’m not just guessing on that. I’ve got positive results from the “Larry Test†to back it up.
The eponymous Larry is a friend of mine whose interest in sports is approximately equal to Osama bin Laden’s interest in “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.†Every time I get to feeling that something in sports has captured the nation’s attention, I mention it to Larry. If he has no idea what I’m talking about, I know I’m wrong; it’s failed the Larry Test.
Poker passed the Larry Test in the biggest way possible, which is to say Larry showed up one day babbling about the game he’d watched the night before the way a 12- year-old tells his friends about discovering the Playboy magazine in his father’s closet. Poker, it seems, has gone mainstream.
A few years ago, the only way most people would have watched a televised poker tournament was if they were stricken with terminal insomnia. And today, poker seems to be taking over the airwaves.
In fact, it’s taking over more than television. In the past two years, poker — specifically Texas Hold’em poker — has literally exploded in popularity.
Live Vote
Will you watch poker on Super Bowl Sunday?
Wouldn't miss it
Only if I have time
Don't bet on it
Vote to see results
Live Vote
Will you watch poker on Super Bowl Sunday? * 2097 responses
It had been growing slowly and below most people’s radar for a number of years, says Barry Shulman, who publishes Card Player, a newsletter and magazine for poker players, and runs cardplayer.com. It started as more and more states legalized different forms of gambling and poker rooms became more common.
Then, two years ago, Shulman continued, playing poker on the Internet “just skyrockets. It started doubling every quarter.â€
Finally, on March 30 of last year, Steve Lipscomb and Lyle Berman debuted their creation, the World Poker Tour, a weekly, two-hour poker tournament, on the Travel Channel. With cameras under the table showing the players’ hole cards and commentators Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten discussing strategy and odds, a game that had been mostly opaque to many people became fascinating – and accessible.
Lipscomb and Berman did more than just come up with the idea, though. They first tried to sell the concept to several television networks but got no interest. So they pulled back and decided to produce the show themselves and then sell it. Lipscomb says they got financing from the first investor they approached, and, once they had backing, they started getting calls from outlets.
They went with the Travel Channel because the network’s president, Billy Campbell, offered them what Lipscomb calls “real estate. They offered us a two-hour block in prime time on Wednesday nights. The reason we’ve built an audience is that we had the regular time slot. It’s the highest rated show in the Travel Channel’s history.â€
ESPN copied their format for the World Series of Poker. Bravo has adapted it to Celebrity Poker. Miller recognized it as something that might fly on Super Bowl Sunday.
And the public, stoked with the lexicon, procedures, and strategies of the game, have started flocking to poker rooms in casinos around the country.
“Revenues are up 30-35 percent,†says Doug Dalton, the director of the poker room at the Bellagio. “We know it’s because of television because a customer will sit at a game and ask, ‘When can I bet all of my money, like on television?’
“The profile of the average player is younger. There are more women playing.â€
Historically, the gambling houses that have bothered with poker rooms have done so to present a full menu of attractions to all tastes rather than as a major revenue producer. Some people did come just to play poker, but most casual customers came to play other games and wandered in out of curiosity, according to Dalton.
Now, “people are coming to the Bellagio just to play poker because they’ve seen it on television and they want to play here,†he says. Customers know who the champions are and are captivated by the idea that they can sit at a table with a champ and play. “You can’t play golf with Tiger Woods,†Dalton points out. “You can't just show up at the court and play tennis with Andre Agassi.â€
But you can play poker — if you have the price of admission — with Howard Lederer, "Gattlin' Gun" Gus Hansen or last year’s World Poker Tour champion Alan Goehring.
It didn’t hurt that last year the World Series of Poker’s $2.5-million top prize went to a guy with the wonderful — and real — name of Chris Moneymaker, a rank amateur who bought into a $20 Internet tournament, and parlayed that $20 into a seat at the World Series and the championship.
“Unlike golf,†says Shulman, “any amateur on any given day can beat any pro.â€
Poker rooms, Internet poker, and television ratings aren’t the only things caught up in the boom. Shulman’s magazine and newsletter, once a specialty publication privately distributed and catering to the professional player, is suddenly mainstream and headed for a newsstand near you.
“We went five years when our newsletter went out to 3,000 people a month,†Shulman says. “In December, it went out to 16,000 people. This month, it went out to 28,000. Our Internet site went from 800 people a day to 10,000 a day.
“During prime time every night, there are 100,000 Americans playing poker on the Internet.â€
Once upon a time, when people got together for games, friendly or otherwise, they most likely played stud poker or draw. Today, thanks to television, they play what was always the World Series of Poker’s tournament game, Texas Hold’em.
Miller, who grew up playing stud poker himself, is one of the converts. “It’s an easy game to learn and follow,†he says. “It’s not an easy game to win.â€
It is, says Lipscomb, the true believer, “the best game. It’s the top fuel drag racing of poker. Once you do that, how are you going to get in a stock car?
“I can explain the game in two sentences, and you can spend a lifetime trying to master it.â€
He and Miller, not to mention Larry, think it’s a game whose time in the limelight has come. On Super Bowl Sunday, we'll find out if they're right.
Mike Celizic writes regularly for NBCSports.com
Comments
Watch out. Apparently Texas Hold'em poker has just exploded.
ScottyZ
Wasn't Chris Moneymaker's tournament at PokerStars which he eventually converted into a WSOP seat a $40 entry? (They say it's $20 in the article.) I could see how you might be able to parlay $40 into $10K, but $20? C'mon, you've got to be joking.
ScottyZ