Poker on TV

AB0151

Shame there is not more of it - used to love UKIPT, EPT shows plus Sky Poker TV of course. I got series links to them all and of late been a lot of old WPT shows repeating - bittersweet seeing the late great Mike Sexton bless him but great shows and I like the way they show the build up to FT too. Do you think once we get a return to old normal and thus all the old tours returning, we will see more or less of these shows given the growth of other platforms such as Twitch? Will it just be the real big events such as WSOP on ESPN or will we ever see a return to more breadth of TV broadcast?

AB0151

Edited with use of question marks ha ha. How important is a return to “mainstream” TV do you think for growth of game?

The--Don

I've said for a stupidly long time that getting more poker on mainstream TV is the best way to advertise the game.

Much in the same way that folk go out and buy tennis rackets when Wimbledon is on, or buy a bike when the Olympics is on etc, people play poker more when poker is on mainstream TV.

If I were running a poker site, I'd give flat rakeback to all players and then the rest of the promo money would go on made for TV shootout tournaments, or a league format like the Party Poker Premier League before it went rogue and lost popularity and cash games like The Big Game.

Whack some entertaining players on them, stick a few fading sports stars in there too, the odd popular actor, stick it on Ch4 and Sky Sports in the 11pm slot and bobs your uncle.

Casual viewers don't find stuff on Twitch, or Youtube etc. Ten years ago, if I asked my mates to name some poker players, they would throw out Brunson, Ivey, Hellmuth, Negreanu, Matusow, Devilfish etc. Ask them today and that list won't have changed much. They certainly won't be saying Lex, Spraggy, Tonkaaaaa, Jason Somerville etc. These guys are great but they're not mainstream and never will be whilst their main audience is on Twitch.

I know that mainstream TV is losing audiences to streaming sites like Netflix, Amazon etc, so it might not be as effective as it was in the noughties but it would be a better use of promo funds than rake races and paying some wombat to play on your site once in a blue moon and retweet your dull promotions.

Doooobs

I don't think there is going to be a return to TV in a big way anytime soon.

But twitch poker is doing really well. I know it isn't big audiences, but that and youtube may be a better future gateway.

Some of the pokerstars WCOOP coverage has been really good and sure you can catch up with much of it on youtube. They even covered the PLO8 final table where some mug doesn't follow up on an ace high bluff that would have got through. To be fair it was easier to play with cards face up... Despite that it is a good watch too. I have a fair few to catch up on.

Last night's main event final table was really intersting as you don't often see so much play 4 handed, as stacks are usually more shallow. Think the winner very much deserved it too even if he did run good in a couple of spots. Either way seeing very good players battling it out on any format is going to be a useful learning experience.

I haven't seen any party coverage recently. but sure there is a lot to learn there too.