The future of the smaller poker sites featuring celeb players

Greg J · #1 03-26-2005, 02:17 PM

I'm bored. This is just a random I thought I wanted to throw out. Pokerchamps and Doyle's Room, and maybe even Poker Mountain, don't seem -- at least to me -- to have a whole lot of momentum or chance of being very successful, despite the "star power" associated with these sites.

So will these sites just fade out? Or might they become skins of other, larger sites? It seems a pretty logical fate to me... if I'm the management at Party or Paradise why not just buy the Doyle's room name and give them new software as opposed to letting it die out? (I don't have numbers to back up the success or failure of DR... just using it as an example.)

kenberman · #2 03-26-2005, 02:21 PM

do you not agree with the marketing strategy of using 'name' players?

or do you think they are destined to fail b/c they are 'late to the game'?

Greg J · #3 03-26-2005, 02:25 PM

[ QUOTE ]
do you not agree with the marketing strategy of using 'name' players?

or do you think they are destined to fail b/c they are 'late to the game'?

[/ QUOTE ]
Sorry if I was unclear about this. I think it's the latter personally. This is a lay opinion -- I am not a marketing expert. I don't see any reason that Doyle's Room would not make a really successful Party skin though.

raccon · #4 03-26-2005, 02:32 PM

Doyle's Room is a skin of Tribeca tables.

GrannyMae · #5 03-26-2005, 03:45 PM

i think you might indeed see some buyouts, but i'm sure they will be big sites being bought by bigger sites. there probably is not much value to a company like party to buy a brand new start up site that has no playerbase.

that being said, IMO, the only way that a new site can possible sustain is by having celebrity endorsers. even with these celebrity endorsers, it will be a tough haul. look at full tilt. they could not have gotten a better line-up of pros, but they still struggle. full tilt may be a good site for a buyout by a bigger site because they probably have a huge member base because of their marketing.

however, if you were to create a new site that had the best looking software, great support and bonuses, it still will probably fail without some sort of hook. the big sites have a pretty good stronghold, and we have seen sites fail that have great ideas like no rake.

this is a bad time to be entering the business as a new company, but a great time to be joining the business with an existing, successful company.

my 2 cents