Over the weekend, filming of the National Heads-Up Poker Championship wrapped up from Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The tournament will hit the airwaves on NBC starting on April 12th and run for six consecutive Sundays. You can catch the National Heads-Up Poker Championship beginning at Noon ET. NBC is also the home of “Poker After Dark,” which airs nightly at 2:00am ET. Its marquee reality show, “Celebrity Apprentice,” even features poker pro Annie Duke, who has survived to face Week 3 of the show, which airs this Sunday night at 10:00pm ET.
All told, NBC is as friendly of a network towards poker as you’ll find. Steering the ship is Jon Miller, the Executive Vice President of NBC Sports. Miller sat down with Poker News Daily to discuss the recently completed National Heads-Up Poker Championship, which ended with Huck Seed defeating Go Daddy Girl Vanessa Rousso in the finals.
Poker News Daily: Thanks for joining us, Jon. How does poker fit in with NBC’s current lineup of sports programming?
Miller: We got into this awhile ago just to try it out. We were surprised by how well it rated and how many people enjoyed watching it on television. The key was the discovery of the hole card cam. We’ve worked closely with a company called POKER PROductions on it and they’ve helped us develop the National Heads-Up Poker Championship.
We modeled it after the NCAA college basketball tournament where you’d have head-to-head single elimination games. It had never been done before. At the time, there was a lot of poker on television, but we wanted to do something a little bit different. We had our first year in 2005. This was our fifth year of the tournament and we had a packed house. We had great players and all kinds of exciting match-ups.
PND: What is the allure to the viewing audience of watching the National Heads-Up Poker Championship? What has made it so popular?
Miller: There are guaranteed to be stars. Every time you turn on the television set, you’ll see a multi-million dollar star playing. Unlike other events that you turn on and don’t know who you’ll see, the National Heads-Up Poker Championship has players like Daniel Negreanu, Sammy Farha, Doyle Brunson, and Huck Seed. They are all there. There isn’t a single top pro that missed this event. Plus, you have celebrities who play poker like Orel Hershiser and Don Cheadle. Viewers even have the ability to compete in it themselves. There are several ways to qualify online and at Caesars Palace. It’s the best of all worlds.
PND: The National Heads-Up Poker Championship will air for six consecutive Sundays starting on April 12th at Noon ET. Why did NBC choose that time slot?
Miller: We spent a lot of time discussing when to air it. It’s a great six week window. Our second quarter is a great time of year. NBC shows the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, French Open, Wimbledon, U.S. Open, and The Players’ Championship. We have top-notch events during that time. What’s great about the National Heads-Up Poker Championship is that it will air every single Sunday at Noon Eastern Time for six weeks. It has a consistent window and a consistent start time. Anyone who wants to watch it knows it’s on at Noon ET stating April 12th. Plus, it’s earlier in the day and you avoid stiff competition from NASCAR, Major League Baseball, and the PGA, all of which have established big audiences. By airing it at Noon, you avoid that competition entirely.
PND: It was a packed house in Caesars Palace for the tournament over the weekend. What were your overall impressions of this year’s event?
Miller: It showed that poker requires a tremendous amount of skill. For all of the people in the field, by the time you got to the round of 16, it was only the best of the best. All the qualifiers and celebrities didn’t make it past the second round. When you got to the final eight, you had Phil Hellmuth, Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, Daniel Negreanu, Vanessa Rousso, David Williams, Sammy Farha, Huck Seed, and David Oppenheim. You had top-notch, first class stars. If that doesn’t show you that poker takes a lot of skill, I don’t know what does.
PND: Have you thought about potential changes to the tournament for 2010?
Miller: We have a terrific young producer, Pierre Moossa, who is one of the top producers at NBC Sports. We have a great host in Caesars Palace. We are always looking for ways to make it better, but we have a good formula right now. Some people wish we could take more time with the blinds, but viewers want to see action. Other people want to expand the tournament to 128 or 256 players, but right now you’re guaranteed to see stars. We want to make this a special event.
PND: Talk about the addition of Go Daddy as a sponsor.
Miller: It was a real tribute to how far this event has come. Go Daddy is even producing poker-themed advertisements, which is a huge thing for the industry. When was the last time you saw a company do that?
