How to Improve the WSOP Main Event Final Table Ratings

The ratings are in and they're not good. Viewership for the 2010 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event final table fell 30% this year to 1.563 million from the 2.2 million viewers who watched last year. There were two significant differences between this year and last that may have contributed to this decline.  ESPN pushed back its airing of the final table to 10:00 pm EST from 9:00 pm and poker superstar Phil Ivey was not at this year's final table.

But neither of those differences tells the entire story of why ratings are not only down, but so low for what is the biggest event of the year for poker. Considering poker's popularity and wide-range appeal, its 0.6 rating in the key 18-to-49 demographic is particularly disappointing.

ESPN put all its eggs in the Main Event basket this year, broadcasting weeks and weeks worth of episodes of the Main Event, adding hours to its coverage, and bringing the final table on air within hours of its completion. In past years, most of the final nine were unknown.  With so many entrants and just one or two tables covered, it was unlikely that anyone who made it to the end would have been seen during the earlier broadcast. Yet this year many of the final nine had their odyssey followed by the TV cameras by the luck of the featured table draw or, in one player's case, by virtue of his celebrity.

Michael Mizrachi was the big story from this year's WSOP and he was featured throughout the months-long telecast, first as one of four brothers doing the impossible by all cashing in the Main Event and then later as he marched toward trying to accomplish the improbable -- winning the $50K Players' Championship, the Main Event and the Player of the Year (which he would have shared with Frank Kassela) in the same year. Mizrachi is more than TV friendly with his outgoing personality, strong table presence and adorable wife.  His inclusion in the November Nine should have more than made up for the absence of Phil Ivey this year.

In addition to Mizrachi, many of the other players who made it to November were already well familiar to the TV audience. Fililppo Candio had more than his share of face time in the early coverage.  From his post-win celebration that cost him a penalty round, to his singing, to his unorthodox play, he was a regular fixture in the early coverage.  He was first spotted on Day 3 when his pocket kings cracked an opponent's pocket aces on the river and he went from dejected to bursting with Mediterranean elation.  At the beginning of Day 4 coverage, ESPN's Lon McEachern pointed out Candio, whom he called "the excitable Italian," as among the chip leaders as they headed to the money and he was at the featured table for Day 5 coverage.

Also seen on Day 5 was Soi Nguyen going from all in to fourth in chips when his full house beat his opponent's rivered flush and Jonathan Duhamel seeing his stack shrink to just fifteen big blinds.  As each of the November Nine moved closer to their date with destiny, they had more face time on ESPN which meant more opportunities to help them connect with viewers.  But this great oppportunity was apparently squandered as the viewers did not appear invested enough in the players they'd been following  for so long to turn out on November 9 to watch them.

So where exactly did ESPN go wrong?

The Announcers
  
Lon McEachern and Norman Chad have been covering the WSOP since 2003.  Lon is an admitted novice when it comes to poker; he is an announcer and nothing more.  Norm is supposed to provide the color commentary and expertise since he at least knows what beats what without having to refer to a cheat sheet, but he is far from an expert commentator.  However, the bigger problem is not in their collective lack of expertise in the sport they are covering, but in the tone of their coverage. 

Norm puts out more effort in trying to come up with a joke than in analyzing the play around the table.  He acts as if he is on the ESPN Classic show Cheap Seats (the sports version of Mystery Science Theatre) where the announcers do a comic riff off of some old sports footage.  A little humor is fine, but the repetitive shtick of Norman Chad has cheapened the show into nothing more than a backdrop for his "ragin' Cajun" or "rambling wreck" jokes or another opportunity to work in one of his cutesy phrases.  We've been collectivel "whamboozled" into buying him as an announcer when he brings "squadoosh" to the telecast.  Lon, doing his best courtesy chuckle a la Ed McMahon, adds absolutely nothing to the broadcast.

Anyone who watched the ESPN3 live stream of the final table heard the commentators actually talk about position and chip stack and momentum.  It wasn't a Comedy Store routine, it was a sports broadcast.  That's what is missing from the ESPN.  The announcers need to take the game seriously, be knowledgeable and enthusiastic, and know how to build and sustain tension.  They need to add to, not detract from, what they are showing.  And they need to respect the game and approach it like any other sport.  Instead, they treat it like a joke, then are surprised when viewers don't take it seriously enough to tune in.

The production

The pacing of the show fails to tell a linear story and fails to build momentum.  It is choppy and unfocused.  It would be as if on Saturdays the college gameday telecast had one play from each of the NCAA football games that were being played that day.  Over here they gained five yards, over there they punted, over there we have an interception and now back over here we have a touchdown.  Hard to get excited without seeing the play in context. 

Here's some extremely telling perspective on what the televised WSOP looks like to the home audience.  This recreational poker player was told by someone who had seen the final table live that he wouldn't believe this one hand when it aired.  This was in reference to the stunning hand in which Matthew Jarvis went from a coin flip, nines versus ace-queen, was behind after two queens came on the flop, went ahead after a nine on the turn, then was knocked out when an ace came on the river.  As someone in the Penn & Teller Theatre during that hand, I can tell you that the audience reacted as if they'd seen a a train wreck with nuclear cargo on board. 

On TV, this hand for the ages paled.  He actually wrote, "I guess they didn't air that hand."  The TV viewer went on to summarize what watching the WSOP final table was like from his perspective.  "That's what they do with the broadcast. All in - player eliminated. All in - wow, player survived. All in - player eliminated. All in - wow, player survived. And now, a little human interest story. All in - we have a new champion. Great poker. I learned a lot."  And that was the review of a poker fan.

There should be summaries of missing hands, if only to say, someone lost a third of their stack here, or someone picked up some chips there.  Without numbering the hands and putting a clock in the corner to show how long action has been going on (two other good ideas), the viewers are left in the dark.  Hands just happen out of nowhere and  without any context of what happened previously.   

We need less jumping around from table to table, and less interrupting the action to give us some irrelevant back story.  We don't pause the action of a Laker's game to discuss Ron Artest's tough childhood neighborhood or update Derek Fisher's daughter's health.  During the game, the broadcast is focused on the action.

The marketing

When the WSOP first announced the development of the November Nine idea, it was sold as a way to build interest in the players.  And after the first year failed to do much to expand their reach beyond poker media, it was said that next year more would be done.  Well,  it's been two "next years" since then and still no one outside of the regular viewers of the WSOP on ESPN knew who was at the final table.  I wrote two years ago that they should use this time to get the players on the Ellen show, teaching her poker, get on Letterman showing him stupid human tricks with poker chips, get on any of the myriad talk shows that seem to need guests like the rest of us need air.  I even went so far to suggest the entire November Nine should be locked up in the Big Brother house.

You have to expose the public to something for them to learn to like it.  If the WSOP stays hidden away two hours a week on ESPN, and the members of the final table do not get their faces out there, they will never expand interest into who wins.  And that is crazy considering there is so much money at stake.  The November Nine need to spend less time with the poker media, who is preaching to the choir and not reaching any new potential viewers, and try to get on The View or Wendy Williams. 

Finally, leading up to the final table, ESPN could broadcast a episode that spotlights each of the nine, stringing together whatever they have of their hands during the earlier rounds.  Have them discuss the linear story, how they went from 30,000 in chips to where they sit today -- tell a story.  Then when they sit around the felt for the final time the audience will know how they got there, feel invested in the outcome, and be watching carefully for how they do.

The WSOP final table will never be treated like a sport so long as it requires any delay and will always be hampered by the necessity of showing hole cards.  Without that, it could be aired live.  Perhaps if the players where stashed in a hermetically sealed chamber buried deep underground in Burbank, California, and there was no risk of information being relayed to them, we could do that.  But barring that, there are steps that can be taken to make the broadcast more professional, more exciting, and more accessible.