One of the main factors that caused interest in poker to escalate so quickly was the way online poker sites permeated the market with advertisements and incentives to play. Online poker sites such as Party Poker, Poker Stars, Full Tilt, and Ultimate Bet surrounded the market through many different mediums.
Now that televised poker was seeing its viewer ratings increase, the commercial advertisements became more and more valuable. To capitalize on a massive amount of viewers who fit the demographic they were aiming towards, online poker sites began placing 30 second to 60 second commercials promoting their play money, or “dot net” sites. Because of current legislation, the online poker sites could not advertise their “dot com” sites, which allowed players to gamble for real money.
By 2005, poker broadcasts had saturated cable programming, and Party Poker’s “Ooooh Party Poker” commercial campaign was becoming ubiquitous to all poker players[1].
Now that televised poker was seeing its viewer ratings increase, the commercial advertisements became more and more valuable. To capitalize on a massive amount of viewers who fit the demographic they were aiming towards, online poker sites began placing 30 second to 60 second commercials promoting their play money, or “dot net” sites. Because of current legislation, the online poker sites could not advertise their “dot com” sites, which allowed players to gamble for real money.
By 2005, poker broadcasts had saturated cable programming, and Party Poker’s “Ooooh Party Poker” commercial campaign was becoming ubiquitous to all poker players[1].
Also, to capitalize on the television coverage, online poker sites began to sponsor professional poker players to represent their site. Poker sites signed the players who had the most television coverage, and had the best tournament results at the time, to add credibility to their site. Some sites signed multi-year sponsorship deals, while other might have just paid for a player’s entry fee to represent the site for that specific tournament.
For example, Phil Ivey is a professional player who is sponsored by Full Tilt. He has signed a multi-year deal with the company, and may have some stake in the company as well. With this deal, every time Phil plays poker on television, he wears a Full Tilt Poker patch on his shirt, and will most likely wear a Full Tilt hat. Also, he is obligated to exclusively play at Full Tilt poker when he plays online.
On the other hand, an amateur player in the World Series of Poker Main Event, who has randomly been selected to be on the “featured table” would most likely strike a single-event sponsorship. Even though the player is relatively unknown, poker sites believe that having them wear patches is important to show its presence in the industry. A possible arrangement for this kind of agreement might have the player get the site to pay for the $10,000 buy-in, with a stipulation to pay more money if he makes it back onto TV on a later day.
The term for striking such single-day or single-tournament deals is known as “patching up.”
Also, players who qualify from a certain site might have to wear the site’s paraphernalia for the tournament to be able to have their flight and hotel expenses paid for by the site. Typically, when a player wins a seat to the Main Event from an online site, they win a sum of around $12,000, $2,000 more than the actual buy-in itself. These funds are in place to make sure the player has spending money and money to stay in the hotel long enough if they make it into the further days of the tournament. The Main Event this year lasted 12 days, and the final nine players are awaiting November 9th to play out the remaining 13th day[2].
Also, the poker media is fueled by sponsorships and advertisements from these online sites. For example, the website pokernews.com , which has exclusive rights to bring live updates of the World Series of Poker to online users, has a sponsorship deal with the online poker site Poker Stars. In effect, Poker News will give priority to hands played by Poker Stars sponsored pros, and litter the chip count updates with Poker Stars pros, rather than other interesting players that the online fan might be interested in.
Similarly, Poker Stars has sponsored poker-news podcasts that are downloaded and listened to by listeners. For example, twoplustwo.com, a major poker community website, responsible for much of the development of the game, and will be talked about in a later blog, has a two-hour podcast about the goings on of the poker community. In every podcast, they make sure to interview a Poker Stars public relations representative to make sure they recap any new developments on the site that players might be interested in hearing[3].
Online poker has certainly influenced the course that the game has taken. It could be considered the greatest influences. Next week, we will delve into the community that has developed on the internet, and the impact they have had on the game as a grassroots movement.
Online poker has certainly influenced the course that the game has taken. It could be considered the greatest influences. Next week, we will delve into the community that has developed on the internet, and the impact they have had on the game as a grassroots movement.
No comments:
Post a Comment