While they have never publicly released any financial information, it is pretty much conceded that PokerStars (as well as other online poker sites) minted money, especially during the halcyon days of the mid-2000s. A recent recounting of a story might leave many in the poker community thinking about “what could have been” if it had come to pass.
On his personal blog, poker’s “Renaissance man” Nolan Dalla tells one story about those days when the online poker wars were at their peak. In that article, Dalla exposes that PokerStars (whom he worked for at the time as the Director of Communications) – at least on an exploratory basis – considered the possibility of purchasing the National Football League’s New Orleans Saints. “(The Saints) were quite possibly the most dismal franchise in all of professional sports,” Dalla writes. “Even though the team won just a single playoff game during its first 30 years of existence, the 80,000-seat Superdome sold out every time the Saints played at home.”
That was prior to the events of 2005, however. In August of that year, Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast area, in particular hammering the Big Easy. Due to the factor that the city is under sea level, almost the entire city was under water at some point and the Superdome suffered extreme damage from the storm and as a point of refuge as the federal government’s response came slowly. The Saints played the entirety of the 2005 season outside of New Orleans, suffering another losing season as the franchise’s future came into question.
Dalla states that the Saints’ owner, Tom Benson, contemplated selling the team and estimated its value at $600 million. With this in mind (and with the freedom from PokerStars management to “think outside the box” as to promotional opportunities), Dalla generated a proposal that the company pursue the purchase of the floundering football team. “This wasn’t about business,” Dalla admitted. “It was about generating publicity (at that time, PokerStars was a distant second to PartyPoker in the online poker industry).”
Although he accepts that the NFL would never allow an off-shore company to buy one of their teams – let alone one associated with gaming – Dalla figured that the resulting free publicity would have been worth between $15 and $20 million. He also included a caveat that, if PokerStars was able to purchase the Saints, the team would stay in New Orleans, which would have made the online poker site look like a savior to thousands of Crescent City residents and millions of Saints fans across the United States.
“In the end, Isai (Scheinberg, the founder and then-owner of PokerStars) decided to pass on the bold initiative,” Dalla laments. “I have no idea if it was ever really taken seriously. Everyone who read the proposal thought it was brilliant. I still do.”
There is a huge temptation to think about “what could have been” had Dalla’s suggestion actually come to fruition. With one of the power players in online poker as the owner of the team, PokerStars and Scheinberg would have put themselves in the mix when online gaming came under attack in 2006. The passage of the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act (UIGEA) would have had a powerful opponent (rather than one that was “in the shadows” trying to effect change) and may not have been pushed as heavily as it was.
Following that, the pursuit of further persecution of online poker and gaming sites might not have occurred. The “Black Friday” actions of 2011 – without the UIGEA being enforced – potentially wouldn’t have been pursued by the federal government. The online poker world, and various live tournament circuits such as the World Series of Poker, the World Poker Tour and the then-fledgling European Poker Tour (in 2006 coming off their inaugural season), would have potentially continued their massive explosions. In that alternate universe, the picture painted of the online poker world is completely different than what it is today.
That isn’t saying it would all be great. In 2006, PartyPoker was still the dominant force in the online poker world, with PokerStars a distant second, UltimateBet holding its own and a newcomer known as Full Tilt Poker making some noise. Without the UIGEA, would PokerStars have been able to topple the PartyPoker machine (PartyPoker’s withdrawal from the U. S. is considered one of the major reasons for PokerStars’ meteoric rise)? Would Full Tilt (and, to a lesser extent, UltimateBet) been able to compete? Finally, would Absolute Poker have been the next online poker room to go public, something that was under consideration by Scott Tom and company just before the UIGEA went into effect?
Alas, it didn’t come to pass. Admitting that the potential to be a part of NFL ownership that would be able to fire the head coach “made him hyperventilate,” Dalla writes the epilogue of what might have changed the football world and, perhaps to a lesser extent, the online poker world. “Three years after my proposal was made, the Saints won the Super Bowl. As of right now…the Saints are worth $1.5 billion. That’s nearly double the 2006 asking price.”
Ah, what could have been…
