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WSOP
Coverage
By Aaron J. Moore
Posted: 5:00 am PDT 2006-09-23 |
Courtesy Of Internet Casino and Poker Room at WagerWeb.com |
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What I am about to write here
borders on heresy. If I go any further, there is a strong possibility I will be
excommunicated from the Church of Poker. However, I have so much conviction in my
beliefs, as the Martin Luther of poker, I will write this sacrilegious text. ESPN is
doing a terrible job with the telecasts of the 2006 World Series of Poker's Main
Event. It is almost reaching the point of unwatchable.
I used to anticipate ESPN's original airing of the WSOP's episodes in the same way I did
for Sunday nights a while ago when CBS had Magnum P.I. and Simon & Simon playing back
to back. After watching the first few weeks of the WSOP, I find myself contemplating
whether I should switch the channel. The birth of a baby shark on the Discovery Channel is
starting to have more appeal than ESPN's video packages on what players do away from the
poker table.
For this year's main event, ESPN changed its successful production plan from the last few
years in a way that no longer speaks directly to the card players in the audience.
Attempting to broaden its audience, ESPN is now aiming at a larger demographic that
includes viewers with varying interest in card playing and poker.
Call ESPN's 2006 WSOP coverage the dumbing down of poker.
In an effort to quickly to air the event since so many people already knew the outcome,
ESPN decided to run more filler feature pieces. The telecasts now look like the same sappy
pre-packaged material that comes at the expense of real action as seen during NBC's
coverage of the Olympics. I want to see poker. I want to see players making
calculated decisions. I want to see how players ride J-4 unsuited all the way to winning a
large pot.
If I wanted to watch an avalanche of heartwarming human-interest pieces, then I would tune
into ABC's 20/20. ESPN once had a good mixture of pre-taped material on the players'
backgrounds along with tournament play, but this year they lost the recipe and used too
much sugar.
With the Internet and word of mouth, the only people watching the WSOP who don't already
know Jamie Gold is the winner are a bunch of old Japanese guys in a Pacific jungle who
still think World War II is taking place. Still, that should not force the all-sports
network to alter its coverage. Even though ESPN no longer can offer viewers the ultimate
drama when it comes to crowning the winner, it can still provide more game action and less
off-the-table soliloquies. There could easily be more in-hand action shown if only
the network decided to air the event a few weeks later so its editors could condense all
the in-play footage.
The WSOP now ranks far behind other programs such as The Travel Channel's World Poker
Tour, Fox SportsNet's Poker Super Stars and the YES Network's New York- Boston Challenge
as the best televised events to watch and learn from.
The 2006 WSOP on ESPN marks the end of the poker era for die-hard card players. The Main
Event is now officially in the realm of conventional television that has all the sweet
frosting like human-interest stories, guest stars and melodramatic story lines that appeal
to the widest possible audience.
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