ESPN is dropping the ball

[BasketballNYC]

ESPN had a year to brainstorm ideas for the coverage of the WSOP. They knew they were going to jack up the number of shows and events. They also know that poker has exploded this year. But they have done NOTHING to improve their coverage over last year. Some could say it is worse. Why can't they tell me the stack sizes? Where is the pot size. Why not a ticker saying what hand number we are on (so we know we just missed three orbits) and where the blinds are. I am no TV exec, but these ideas came to me 30 seconds after thinking about it. Maybe I am being picky. Am I alone in this thinking???

[SuitedSixes]

Two words: Rabbit Cam

[BasketballNYC]

HA, I can see the meeting.
"We need to improve our WSOP show. What can we do?"
"Hmmm, Real players are interested in odds, strategies and sophisticated moves..."
"Rabbit Cam?"
"Good idea, let's go spend our ESPN check on hookers and 8-balls of black tar heroin"
"Coo"

[Sponger15SB]

[ QUOTE ]
Two words: Rabbit Cam

[/ QUOTE ]

Another Two words: Really Lame

[The4thFilm]

"The Nuts" is also two steps back. I'm glad they at least say the blinds now.

[MicroBob]

3 words.
illusuion of continuity.

they aren't oblivious.
it is a concious decision to make the coverage appear to be somewhat continuous to the casual viewer.

[BasketballNYC]

I have been trying to hack my TiVo so that when "The Nuts" logo comes up it will stop recording for 8-9 minutes. So far, no luck. Maybe it needs to listen for that carnival music...

[BasketballNYC]

I understand that they want the coverage to look complete, at least to the casual observer but would having a hand number in the corner really turn off that many newbies? I understand why they don't show the blind steals and the raise, re-raise, fold hands but toss me a bone.

[The4thFilm]

[ QUOTE ]

I understand that they want the coverage to look complete, at least to the casual observer but would having a hand number in the corner really turn off that many newbies? I understand why they don't show the blind steals and the raise, re-raise, fold hands but toss me a bone.

[/ QUOTE ]

If they showed run of the mill hands then online players might think that going all in every 2 hands is a bad move. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Cleveland Guy]

The did keep us posted of the blind levels, and the pot size in any sizable pot.

I don't know how feasbalbe it is to show stack sizes because they are contasntly changing, and we would have to be told who everyone was at the table every time they played.

Also - they were switiching to other tables, correct me if I'm wrong, but all tables don't play the same amount of hands.

what might have been better is a clock - so you know where in the day they are.

[BeerMoney]

Their biggest mistake is norman chad. They need Vince and Mike.

[nolanfan34]

I think you're being too picky.

Regardless of the fact they had a year to think about this, there are just some things that aren't possible during the first few days of the tournament. If you've ever worked on a sports broadcast before, like for ESPN, and I have, you know it's an uncredible undertaking of staff to capture all of the action.

In the case of the WSOP, there's just no way they can get all of the information needed for each hand. I was not there this year, so maybe someone who was can confirm, but I'm guessing they had 6-8 camera crews running around, tops, right? Each of the first two days had over 100 tables. There's a reason you only see the latter action of a hand, since a spotter most likely has to get a camera crew over to the table quickly when it looks like something big is going down.

Unfortunately, in that spot they can't exactly say "hey, let's stop the action for a second so we can count up the pot and everyone's stack size". The WSOP organizers still have a tournament to run, and I guarantee they have a love/hate relationship with the ESPN people who were running around taping everything.

When the field gets smaller, I'd expect that we'll see more information. And I certainly agree that they hopefully will be showing more than just a bunch of all-ins.

In the end, remember that readers of this forum make up such a small blip on the viewing radar screen. ESPN is going to cater their coverage to the 95% of the audience who has casual interest in the game, and is more interested in the people and storylines than the actual plays themselves.

I am eagerly awaiting the next episodes though, to see if Stunnor's battle with Phil Hellmuth makes the cut, and of course to see Greg build up his big stack.

[ZootMurph]

As much as I hate to say it, there is one thing I like on Bravo's Celebrity Poker that I'd like to see in the WSOP and WPT shows... the spot where they only show you one person's cards and let you play the hand with that person. I think that's pretty interesting. Even better if they interview the player about what they were thinking at that time.

[screw "the crew"]

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Their biggest mistake is norman chad. They need Vince and Mike.

[/ QUOTE ]

Vince is the worst announcer in all of television. Every [censored] time someone flops trips/straight/flush, etc., the "Star Spangled Banner" is going off in their head---so [censored] annoying---and he's the WORST at attempting to be funny---a Norm/Mike combination would be great because Norm isn't really an analyst, he's more of a play-by-play and combined with the fact that Lon doesn't know the least about poker, ESPN is weak at analyzing. But anyway, get anything about Vince outta here---he's just sickening

[BasketballNYC]

First, I came to these conclusions based on all of the events that they have shown so far, not just the Main Event. The others have all been final tables and they have not had any improvements either. We shall see if they ramp anything up for the final table here, but I bet it will be no different then the "featured table" they are doing now. I don't expect full coverage of all of the tables in the main event (there were what, 120 of them each of the first two days) but I am frustrated having seen all of these events and them all being so much crappier then I had hoped.

Oh Well.

[BasketballNYC]

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Even better if they interview the player about what they were thinking at that time.

[/ QUOTE ]
You know, that's really not bad.

How about for each tourney (forget the WSOP specifically) the producers get one player, preferably the winner, to make a few comments about his mind set during a few plays. They could throw his video up in a PIP for maybe 4 hands throughout the event.

C'mon ESPN, give us 2+2's a call. We're chock full of ideas.