Re: ESPN\'s coverage hurts the game
 

No no no no no no no no............NO NO NO NO NO.........YEEEEEESSSSSSSS!

My wife and I were dying watching that smelly guy, that's just good tv.

Re: ESPN\'s coverage hurts the game
 

I don't know if I would go so far to say it is hurting the game but I do have many issues with their coverage. The head muckity-mucks at ESPN appear to have this belief that they will lose audience unless they focus on the freak show characters in poker. True, most of us do enjoy humor and interesting characters but do they have to focus on the same mental cases each show?

ESPN went for the loudest, most obnoxious person at the ME and gave him to us for two weeks. This scumbag should be roundly denounced for his disgusting behavior at the table but I don't blame him one bit for hamming it up for the cameras. ESPN encourages it, Harrah's doesn't give a rat's a$# as long as they get their plugs.

It's sucky coverage but I don't feel it necessarily hurts the game.

Re: ESPN\'s coverage hurts the game
 

You do realize the majority of people who watch the show aren't 2+2ers, right? That they're just people who have a passing interest in the game, maybe want to start picking it up themselves, and that ESPN simply wants to make it as entertaining as possible for them? I mean, look, I know they focus a lot on the jerks, but how exciting is it when they focus on Lederer or Ivey? People who just sit there, playing the game to the best of their ability? Sure, it's fascinating to you guys, but to the general crowd who watches the stuff it's kind of boring. ESPN shows a lot of the 'drama' hands and keeps tabs on the more colorful characters of the game. I think they do a great job with their coverage.

Besides, there's always the WPT if you don't like the WSOP coverage. Or you can just log on to Pokerstars and watch one of their $1000 buy in sit n' go's, if you just wanna watch high stakes poker [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

Re: ESPN\'s coverage hurts the game
 

ESPN's coverage shows poker players how NOT to act. Chad goes out of his way to criticize the comments of Josh Arieh, Mike Matusow, etc. He commended the reactions of both Paul Darden and John Juanda when Juanda sucked out on the river to win a pot. Juanda didn't celebrate and Darden didn't do anything more than look disappointed.

If you want ESPN to turn a blind eye to the antics of some people, then they wouldn't really be covering the event. It's just a fact that poker is full of obnoxious, classless jerks.

On one point, I do agree: more Shannon Elizabeth!

Re: ESPN\'s coverage hurts the game
 

Nice post. I always thought it was vulgar also, although I did think it was cool when Joe Awada, a former Vegas juggler, juggles stacks of cash. I had the feeling Cunningham was goaded into holding up the money by photographers in event 1, as I suspect is the case with all the winners.

Re: ESPN\'s coverage hurts the game
 

1. It's not a documentary on the nobility of great poker players and the world's biggest poker tournament.

2. It's a TV show with one goal in mind: to entertain a mass audience.

3. Stop acting like James McManus.

Re: ESPN\'s coverage hurts the game
 

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Notice how the screaming and carrying on is far reduced on WPT broadcasts

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That's because the WPT is filmed in a heavily controlled environment. They show 6 players playing poker in what is essentially a tv-studio; there's makeup and visual effects and the tournament is actually structured AROUND the broadcast.

The WSOP coverage documents a total event, similar to the way Woodstcok documented a rock and roll festival. And, while you might not consider the loutish Scotsman "important at all to the game," he represents a real faction of players who show up at the WSOP: those with no serious intention of winning the tournament but come seeking media attention anyway. If you are a serious poker player, do you really want to see these people stay home next year? I don't.

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The WSOP is not Woodstock. It is another controlled enviroment, and the television cameras can make it more or less controlled. This isn't a cultural event, this is about making good television. And I simply don't think showing every single thing a loud jackass does is good television, or that it is good for poker. And yes, the WPT events are more highly controlled, and guess what, their ratings aren't exactly bad. Without showing all the stupidity they are still on television. (Phil Laak of course fills their stupidity quota I suppose.)

If you want to provide an entertaining product, then show the NO NO NO NO NO YES! line, and that's it. It's not entertaining to show the same guy yelling five times. Yes, I know he likes to yell, I got that the first time you showed him yelling. Now show something new.

For those arguing that the freak show aspect helps ratings, maybe it does, but short term. I was involved heavily with another TV phenom that focused on the freak show aspect, Battlebots.

I've thrown events, I've been involved in the planning of countless more, and was one of the few people who saw its demise from television coming. The freak show presentation helped boost ratings in the short term, but in the long term it just hurts things. It provides a few years of good ratings, but instead of weening people on the poker, it weens them on the idiots and the boobs, and in the end people realize if they want to watch stupidity, they can just watch a sitcom on ABC, which are quite possibly the dumbest things on TV.

Now I'm not saying Poker is going the way of Battlebots, not even close. But if you want to sustain a boom, you must try to minimize the bad and maximize the good. Broadcasts like the WPT and FSN shows help maximize poker. ESPN doesn't.

Re: ESPN\'s coverage hurts the game
 

I think that jerkoff Scottish guy must have really touched a nerve with you, because, although I agree that he received excessive and unnecessary attention during this year's coverage, I hardly think that coverage threatens the prosperity of the WSOP's ratings, or the public's interest in poker.

As one last way of illustrating why I think ESPN basically does a good job with the peripheral aspects of the scene: I find it much more entertaining to see the guy crying after calling allin with the second nuts than I would to see how the action went on every street.

Re: ESPN\'s coverage hurts the game
 

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I find it much more entertaining to see the guy crying after calling allin with the second nuts than I would to see how the action went on every street.

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Was he the guy that said "I played perfectly for three days"?

Re: ESPN\'s coverage hurts the game
 

Though Norman Chad and Lon hate the Barry Paskin screaming and the other forms of bad behavior it was Chad complaining that the guys were looking dull as hell when they were playing that hand at Layne Flack's table. So I guess even they want excitement the whole time, instead of a poker hand.