On Saturday, the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) Main Event final table will play out from the sunny Bahamas. If you’re stuck at home, however, you can still follow the action on a one-hour delay complete with hole cards. The festivities begin at 5:00pm ET on ESPN3.com and 10:00pm ET on ESPN2 featuring commentary from players like Chad Brown and Daniel Negreanu, both PokerStars pros. Also on tap is studio analysis from Lon McEachern and David Williams during breaks.
Poker News Daily sat down with ESPN Manager of Programming and Acquisitions Matt Volk to discuss the preparations for the near-live finale, which is now a scant 48 hours away.
Poker News Daily: Thanks for joining us. Talk about what viewers of Saturday’s broadcast on ESPN3.com and ESPN2 can expect to see.
Matt Volk: Daniel Negreanu will serve as one of our primary analysts with James Hartigan and David Tuchman. In addition, having a live studio presence will be an exciting element to the show. This is the first time we’ve brought a live studio to one of our poker events.
We’re using the studio because there are natural breaks in poker. You can look at it like a hockey game where there’s coverage during intermission. We wanted to treat this like a live event and give people something different to watch during the breaks. The dinner break might be a little different, but during the shorter player breaks, we plan to talk about what you’re seeing. The live studio is on site in the Bahamas.
PND: Why was the decision made to broadcast the 2011 PCA Main Event on a one-hour delay?
Matt Volk: We started doing this last year at WSOP Europe. We did it on a five-hour delay and we’re continuing to dip our toes in the water and see how it gets received. We got favorable reception for the event in Europe and want to try to push the envelope a little more. We also have a great partnership with PokerStars.
PND: What lessons learned from the WSOP Europe broadcast can be incorporated into the PCA’s final product?
Matt Volk: When you do traditional linear shows, you have a chance to show who people are over episodes and weeks. When you’re doing a live show, you realize that some of the viewers watching at 10:00pm, for example, aren’t the same as at Midnight or 2:00am. So, it’s important to do table resets constantly, flaunt players as much as you can, give constant chip count updates, and do your best to inform the viewer that it’s occurring plausibly live in front of them.
PND: The broadcast on ESPN2 is set to air between 10:00pm ET and 6:00am ET. Talk about airing poker during the overnight hours.
Matt Volk: Poker has always fared well for us in the late hours. We don’t have a set expectation for what it will deliver ratings-wise, but we feel pretty good.
PND: What are some of the challenges of showing hole cards?
Matt Volk: It’s ensuring the sanctity of the sport. You want to make sure that the information isn’t getting back to the players and that’s why the hour delay is there. We want to make sure that the hand being played isn’t showing up on TV at the same time. Poker is an interesting sport because it’s in some ways played in secrecy. We brought hole cards to TV about 10 years ago and that was certainly a big deal in the industry. Now, we’re showing every single hand, so it’s another step in the evolution.
PND: Are there any concerns about collusion given the airing of hole cards? Players could talk with friends back home during breaks about the hands shown, for example.
Matt Volk: There’s nothing to say that a player couldn’t do that. In some ways, it’s a slight change in the way the game is played and just because someone bluffed you an hour ago doesn’t mean they’ll do it again. So, it just adds to the complexity of poker because you have more information. More information helping someone wouldn’t surprise me if it were a multi-day event, but to digest everything in one day and then turn it around would be a challenge.
PND: The ESPN family of networks airs a number of different poker shows, including coverage from the PCA, NAPT, and WSOP. Why has the network fallen in love with the game?
Matt Volk: We’ve always felt that poker is real-life drama. It’s high-stakes. The event we’re showing has a $10,000 buy-in and what’s great about the sport is that anyone can win. No matter your age, background, or country, you can win. It’s anyone’s game. It’s reality TV.