No more November 9 -- Live coverage of ME starting on Day 1A (and PokerCentral now has rights)

[AhoosierA]

Following article was just released.

-PokerCentral acquires the TV/digital rights to the WSOP
-No more November 9
-Live coverage will start on Day 1A of the ME on a 30 minute delay

https://www.pokercentral.com/article...n-relationship

[LarryLaffer]

now we're fucking talking.


they're taking a cue from EPT broadcasts. people say they aren't fun to watch, but it all depends. get good anouncers (like EPT) and it becomes fun.

november 9 was so fucking played out anyway. after last year, they had to do something.


curious, but will espn still be chopping up the footage for it's own network?

[Dan Druff]

Poker Central must have found more suckers to invest in that money pit.

I thought it was going to die completely after announcing the were done with being a broadcast network.

I guess there really is a venture capital sucker born every minute. I wonder how much they forked over to WSOP for this.

Oh, and props to no November 9. Always hated the whole idea for many reasons.

[jacosta24]

It should of been a poll...who goes donkdown first Bitcoin or the November 9?

[IamGreek]

Yes yes yes!!!!!!!!!! Finally someone figured out what every poker player already knew. We want to watch it all and not wait till November. Thank you Poker Central.

[ftpjesus]

I'm glad this is happening because then the intent of the grind comes to fruition.. You never know how well some of these guys would've done having to keep playing an additional couple days.. One cant discount the break in allowing folks being able to rest and recharge but also obvious have months to study and watch the play of their opponents (think of it as data mining literally). I wasn't crazy about the original idea to begin with because every other major tournament that went a week never did this.. My own thought was this was some marketing guys idea to bring more attention to the WSOP and get an extra extended weekend of coverage and hope it would bring casual and serious poker fans into town to hopefully degen in the pits and fill some hotel rooms in an off peak timeframe for Vegas..

[ErickAA]

I wonder if ESPN is going to keep broadcasting the WSOP with all their cutbacks on all sports not football or basketball? I don't care enough about televised poker that it is appointment viewing or DVR material, but when I am scrolling through channels WSOP telecasts are one of those things where I will often pick up where it is and keep watching.

I imagine compared to real sports poker is super cheap to produce so I am guessing the ratings don't need to be too high to pull a profit with poker.

[TheXFactor]

By 2020, there will be no more televised WSOP poker.

Instead ESPN will air the World Championship of Darts.

Legalized online poker is a complete failure.

The TV ratings for poker are a joke.

The public just doesn't give a shit about poker anymore.

[BeerAndPoker]

It's nice to see them getting rid of the November 9 and having two days in between is really all a player needs to get patches from various sponsors.

The choice to broadcast Day 1 coverage on TV is silly and will make for bad television. Nobody wants to see 300BB tournament poker.

I'm sure the people in charge of the coverage will just make the feature table the one with Negreanu, Hellmuth, or a former main event winner.

[alpha1243]

Nice, but what happened to Day 3?

[Shizzmoney]

The choice to broadcast Day 1 coverage on TV is silly and will make for bad television. Nobody wants to see 300BB tournament poker.

I'm sure the people in charge of the coverage will just make the feature table the one with Negreanu, Hellmuth, or a former main event winner.

I actually disagree. I like the fact that the main event, the biggest tournament of the year, has every level chronicled from beginning to end.

Additionally, as boring as 300BB poker is to watch the "moments of terror" hands are usually "moments of LOL" as there are more bad players in the early levels. Always comical to see the mistakes made. Also, this is when the actual people with personality play, as by usually when the field starts to dwindle down, we start seeing more and more of what makes poker boring today: good regs who take too long to act and don't say a word.

[Shizzmoney]

For those wondering if Main Event will also have the "edited" shows : they will (from Ty Stewart)

But we also have a commitment to produce 16 edited shows beyond the "mini-series" stunt which will air around 100 times around the year on ESPN and ESPN2. So we're not walking away from the gold standard episodes, we're just layering on a material increase in live coverage for the Main Event.

[BeerAndPoker]

The choice to broadcast Day 1 coverage on TV is silly and will make for bad television. Nobody wants to see 300BB tournament poker.

I'm sure the people in charge of the coverage will just make the feature table the one with Negreanu, Hellmuth, or a former main event winner.

I actually disagree. I like the fact that the main event, the biggest tournament of the year, has every level chronicled from beginning to end.

Additionally, as boring as 300BB poker is to watch the "moments of terror" hands are usually "moments of LOL" as there are more bad players in the early levels. Always comical to see the mistakes made. Also, this is when the actual people with personality play, as by usually when the field starts to dwindle down, we start seeing more and more of what makes poker boring today: good regs who take too long to act and don't say a word.

Your points are all valid on this. For dedicated viewers or advanced players we like to see these things but I question if the noob watcher will. The key is for them to be interested on their first impression of anything or they don't give it another chance. The state of poker today we want to get new people coming in hoping to grow the game and not cater to people who will always watch regardless. If we barely see anyone bust the new viewership could get bored.

A bit off topic but regarding poker television Mori Eskandani was on ChicagoJoey podcast a few days ago. He is an interesting and very humble guy.

[Shizzmoney]

Your points are all valid on this. For dedicated viewers or advanced players we like to see these things but I question if the noob watcher will.

In my conversations with "noobs" and otherwise other casual players who watch the WSOP, the players they remember and talk about whenever the WSOP ME broadcast comes up, are usually the ones with the crazy antics that create polarizing opinions, like Kassouf, Eric Molina, Curtis Rystadt, etc. This is why Jamie Gold's run created so much buzz for the WSOP: yes, it happened during the boom era, but also his loose play, amazing run good, and the constant angle shooting was always a topic of conversation as supposed to the good players who more advanced fans want to see play just because the quality of the poker itself is why they tune in for, and not the circus show (which draws in the casual viewer).

I've also met Mori a few times (I was a good friend of an assistant key grip on his production team), he's a cool dude and understands the balance of personality, simplicity, and information in poker broadcasts. I miss the PAD format.

[BeerAndPoker]

This news dropped today about Poker Central and how they are going to charge $10 a month for PokerGo service.

https://www.pokercentral.com/article...ervice-pokergo

I don't know what this means for the free channel on chromecast, roku,etc... but from the times I tried to watch it the channel was always super unstable to a point it was frustrating to watch for free but now it looks like they are charging for it.

[Dan Druff]

This news dropped today about Poker Central and how they are going to charge $10 a month for PokerGo service.

https://www.pokercentral.com/article...ervice-pokergo

I don't know what this means for the free channel on chromecast, roku,etc... but from the times I tried to watch it the channel was always super unstable to a point it was frustrating to watch for free but now it looks like they are charging for it.

I can't imagine many people forking over $ for this, unless they are either megafans of poker, or they know someone being shown on the stream.

Yet another dumb business model by Poker Central.

Good thing Cary Katz has so much money to burn.

[Sanlmar]

I actually disagree. I like the fact that the main event, the biggest tournament of the year, has every level chronicled from beginning to end.

Additionally, as boring as 300BB poker is to watch the "moments of terror" hands are usually "moments of LOL" as there are more bad players in the early levels. Always comical to see the mistakes made. Also, this is when the actual people with personality play, as by usually when the field starts to dwindle down, we start seeing more and more of what makes poker boring today: good regs who take too long to act and don't say a word.

Your points are all valid on this. For dedicated viewers or advanced players we like to see these things but I question if the noob watcher will. The key is for them to be interested on their first impression of anything or they don't give it another chance. The state of poker today we want to get new people coming in hoping to grow the game and not cater to people who will always watch regardless. If we barely see anyone bust the new viewership could get bored.

A bit off topic but regarding poker television Mori Eskandani was on ChicagoJoey podcast a few days ago. He is an interesting and very humble guy.

It occurs to me I might be able to mute the left or right channel so that I wouldn't have to listen to that babbling idiot Joey. Unfortunately, I'm viewing on an iPad and can't play with sound like that.

Spare me some pain....

All I want to know is if Mori is going to do High Stakes Poker again in the future.

[BeerAndPoker]

It occurs to me I might be able to mute the left or right channel so that I wouldn't have to listen to that babbling idiot Joey. Unfortunately, I'm viewing on an iPad and can't play with sound like that.

Spare me some pain....

All I want to know is if Mori is going to do High Stakes Poker again in the future.

They intend to make high stakes poker cash games but not call in High Stakes Poker. He said this was in the works but couldn't announce it yet because the PokerGo official announcement and launch was a few days later.

What this likely means is people who want to watch in close to real time (30 minute delay sort of thing) they will have to pay the $9.99 a month but this content will likely turn into edited TV programs to air on something like CBS or NBC Sports Network. Since Poker Central/PokerGo will be developing this content for real TV stations perhaps they make some money that way unless it becomes a Full Tilt type of thing where they buy up national NBC network infomercial space and take a loss on it (Poker After Dark aka one big Full Tilt infomercial).

[Shizzmoney]

PokerGO off to a great start:

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/twt/status/868242826139750400

[Dan Druff]

As mentioned on radio, Firefox and Microsoft Edge block Flash, making the stream unwatchable on desktop and laptop computers using those browsers.

They have been broadcasting the $300k Super High Roller Bowl since yesterday, so people are upset about this. Also I'm seeing reports that the PokerGo app isn't in the Google Play store yet for Android.