For the past four days I, like many in the poker community, have been watching with great interest the second incarnation of the Super High Roller Bowl. The 2016 version, broadcast “live” (on a one-hour delay) from Aria in Las Vegas, was an intense battle between 49 of the best (or deepest-pocketed) pros that are in the game today. Along the way in those four days, however, the folks behind the Super High Roller Bowl – Poker Central, the CBS Sports Network (where the tournament actually aired), Aria and the players themselves – demonstrated THE WAY to do a poker tournament. They did it by presenting an outstanding product in three different areas.
The Announcing
Not to say that some of the other poker broadcasts out there have hacks for their talent, but the Super High Roller Bowl had primo talent across the board. The main play-by-play/color team of Ali Nejad and poker professional Nick Schulman fit together like a hand and a glove, playing off of each other comedically while simultaneously presenting some intelligent commentary that the hardcore poker nerds would enjoy. It could have been a disaster, especially when dealing with a live broadcast, but Nejad and Schulman pulled it off extremely well.
The “break” team of Kara Scott and former “November Niner” Jesse Sylvia was also quite good. They were able to capture the highlights of what had gone on in previous rounds and expound on what Nejad and Schulman had talked about during the actual play at the table. While she looked a bit nervous with her sideline reporting at the start of the event, Tatjana Pasalic has been away from the game for a bit; by the time the fourth day rolled around, she was back on the bike and going strong.
Major Sponsors
Some background may be in order. A couple of months ago, I opined on the World Poker Tour’s Tournament of Champions, which drew in a robust 64 players (and please note the sarcasm there). In that particular essay, I stated that the tournament might have drawn some more of the former WPT champions (you had to be a former champion to take part in the tournament and, if you hadn’t won an event in the previous season, you had to pony up $15,000) if it had been a true freeroll and that the sponsors put up the prize money for the event instead of the traditional player buy-ins. I was roundly criticized for the suggestion, with some saying that poker would never be able to draw the “mainstream” sponsors that such an event would require.
While the two tournaments aren’t comparable. the Super High Roller Bowl (with its $300,000 buy-in) kind of put the idea that poker can’t draw “mainstream” sponsorship on its ear. From the start of the event, the tournament was broadcast live on the CBS Sports Network, garnering great airtime for the sport of poker. Other than 888Poker and Aria, the remainder of the sponsorship companies were all “prime time” players in the advertising business with no ties to casino gaming. Such companies as Anheuser-Busch (Busch beer), Pizza Hut, Amazon Coins, the cellphone game Mobile Strike, Dollar Shave Club, the fast food chain Jack in the Box, Vegas.com and MVMT (who ponied up the final $300,000 to bring the prize pool to $15 million) all were prominently featured during the tournament.
There is one big question, however: just how good were the ratings for the CBS Sports Network broadcasts? Final numbers have not come out, so the jury might have to wait to rule on that subject.
Outstanding Rules
While the WPT Tournament of Champions had a similar feature in a tournament “shot clock” – a player clock that forced the players to make decisions within a certain time frame – the Super High Roller Bowl showed it worked fantastically on a live television broadcast. The play moved quickly (the players had 40 seconds to act), there was little downtime and, when the players had a tougher decision, they had five extensions they could use. There were no sunglasses, the players were rather nicely dressed for the occasion…all of these things made for four days of action that was catnip to poker fans.
Summary
Now some may say “well, the WPT or the European Poker Tour can’t do this.” I would say why not? Sure, they might not be able to do it from the start of a tournament like the Super High Roller Bowl did, but they would be able to do it from Day 3 or Day 4, once they reach around 40 players. The Super High Roller Bowl started with 49 players and had seven tables arranged around the Aria tournament arena – I’d love to see the WPT or the EPT go to “live” broadcasts doing the same thing with each of their stops.
The 21st century world has reached the point where we don’t need to wait six months to see a poker tournament broadcast. While there are definitely some bugs that would need to be worked out, there’s absolutely no reason why the major tours – or even the World Series of Poker itself – cannot in this day and age broadcast their tournaments live – all they would need to do is find the right dance partner in television and get the right sponsors on board with their vision, like Poker Central did with this event. The 2016 Super High Roller Bowl showed that it can be done…the time is now for the other tours to do it.
The tournament was great but the commentary left a bit to be desired. Shulman* was fine, Ali a bit strained. Jesse* Silvia* was excellent.