A little more than a week ago, the 2015 World Series of Poker Championship Event final table began play. The atmosphere was electric around the Penn and Teller Theater at the Rio All Suites Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and, as pretty much the chip counts indicated, Joe McKeehen steamrolled his way to the World Championship and the $7.7 million payday. Now that the lights are dark on the tournament arena, it isn’t too early to start to look forward to the 2016 WSOP.
For the most part, the actual play of events at the 2015 WSOP went past with few issues. The playing cards, created by Modiano, were probably the biggest complaint of the players as the cards originally in use were of poor quality and easily marked. Even after only a couple of deals, the cards were visibly worn and didn’t have the same quality as previous providers (the WSOP, responding to the complaints, said that Modiano presented the best deal for RFID-embedded cards). By the end of the WSOP, however, better quality Modiano cards were on the table and the complaints drifted away.
There was also huge complaints over what was arguably the most successful tournament of the 2015 WSOP schedule, “The Colossus.” The massive tournament, which drew in more than 22,000 entries in a record-setting run for the WSOP, was something that the players showed some excitement for. When the prize pool – and the payouts in particular – were announced, that excitement turned to displeasure for many in the Rio.
Although 2241 players picked up a payday for their minimum $565 investment (eliminated players could re-enter the tournament and, with four Day Ones, plenty of players were in for more than one buy-in), the eventual champion Cord Garcia “only” took home $638,880 for his victory. Many thought that such a large event should have guaranteed the winner a million-dollar payday, but WSOP saw it differently. Much like their move to pay 1000 players in the Championship Event, the WSOP thought paying more players outweighed the big number on top to one person. Either way, “The Colossus” proved to be a huge success and might make it way back to the WSOP schedule in the future.
Perhaps the only two dark spots came during the play of the Championship Event final table. The 2015 “November Nine” were a diverse lot, with three international players (Zvi Stern, Pierre Neuville and Federico Butteroni) joining the six U. S. players on the felt. There were two players (Neuville and Neil Blumenfield) above the age of 60 and there was a good mix between both online and live players. From this aspect, the WSOP couldn’t have asked for a better representative group from the poker world.
That’s where it went a bit awry, however. As stated previously, McKeehen had such a lead that there was little drama to the proceedings. Over the three nights of play (a new twist this year and more on that in a bit), McKeehen never faced a significant challenge to his authority (probably the way he preferred it) and basically ruled the table. By the third night, with Blumenfield and eventual runner-up Joshua Beckley valiantly but futilely trying to knock him off, McKeehen looked somewhat like a cat toying with a couple of mice before he lowered the boom.
The WSOP didn’t have any control over how the final table played out as far as a winner, but it could have stopped what became the most irritable part of the “November Nine” final table. Stern, who played outstanding poker on the way to the final table, also utilized a deep tank throughout the tournament that annoyed everyone on the felt. Instead of taking this issue on back in July (before the November festivities), before the men came to the table to restart play last Sunday or after noticing what was going on, WSOP officials chose to do nothing regarding Stern’s lengthy tanking sessions, especially pre-flop.
While it is understandable for players, especially in the biggest poker tournament of the year, to take some time for thought, the actions of Stern – taking 30-45 seconds to make EVERY decision on the table – angered many viewers that tuned in for the “plausibly live” (30 minute delay) on ESPN and ESPN2. They may not want to do it (and other tournament directors may feel the same way), but a shot clock at the final table – in which a player has 30 seconds to make a decision and a certain number of extensions to actually dwell on tougher choices – may be coming to future major poker tournaments, especially those for television. It is the only logical outcome that would prevent the growing epidemic of serial tanking at the poker tables.
Utilizing the three day format – playing from nine to six on the first night, six to three on the second and to the champion on the third – was a brilliant move by both the WSOP and ESPN. At past final tables, the play lasted until well into the morning, especially for viewers on the East Coast. Only the first night, where play wrapped up around 2AM Eastern, did the play go beyond midnight and helped both the viewers to watch and the players to play the game.
The tanking, however, may have had an effect on the overall viewership. Neither the Sunday or Monday broadcasts were ranked in the Top 100 Cable programs (viewership was at 810,000 on Sunday and 709,000 on Monday). While the numbers were an increase over 2014 viewership – and the final night’s 1.147 million viewers was just under 2014’s 1.159 million – the share ranking of less than 1 (a share of 1, in television parlance, is roughly one million viewers) is problematic for the continued relationship between ESPN and the WSOP.
Surely, the scheduling of the WSOP Championship Event final table wasn’t optimum, going up against both Sunday and Monday Night Football and a Republican Presidential Debate on Championship Night. The less than stellar numbers, however, could pose a problem when the entities behind ESPN and the WSOP meet to discuss an extension of the television contract that expires next year.
ESPN, facing severe rights fees for other sports on its airwaves, has been cutting staff that includes some of its most popular anchors and hosts. They also were expecting to ride the wave of poker’s popularity when it signed on during the boom. Instead, ESPN witnessed the aftereffects of interference from the federal government and the fiscal collapse of 2008 that has put some hurt on the game of poker.
If next year’s broadcast of the WSOP on ESPN is the final one, who would step in? Some think that the proliferation of sports channels (Fox Sports 1, NBCSN and CBS Sports Network, in particular) would lead to a natural new home, but the numbers of the past couple years aren’t exactly what a broadcast network is looking for (and there is little likelihood that, even if one of these other networks jumped up, that the WSOP would end up on the traditional network). What makes the most sense would be for the WSOP to do exactly what it did on another front.
The first year of the WSOP handling its own tournament reporting went OK (and will get better as time goes on) and offers the look at what might happen in the future as to television broadcasting or streaming. Twitch is becoming more and more popular with the poker community and would be a way for the WSOP to be able to bring the production “in house” rather than looking to some network for airtime. Is it inconceivable that, come 2017, the WSOP has a Twitch channel set up for streaming/broadcasting the WSOP in its entirety?
Even though it may be over with, the 2015 WSOP is still fresh in the minds of fans and players. It will only be a few months until the 2016 WSOP dates are announced and players, fans and workers prepare for another two-plus month grind. How it will be different from 2015 and previous year’s efforts are still unknown.
