WPT Enterprises extended GSN's option to air the upcoming season 7 of the World Poker Tour by two weeks, until June 7, 2008.
There has been speculation that GSN will leave the televised poker market entirely. The CEO who brought in their poker programs is no longer with them, and they recently dropped High Stakes Poker, which had been their highest-rated show until the World Poker Tour. The World Poker Tour isn't profitable, their season six contract with GSN produces less revenue than their old contract with the Travel Channel, and "If, in the future, GSN elects not to continue airing the WPT series and we cannot maintain or replace our agreement with GSN with comparable license agreements, it will be detrimental to the viability of the WPT brand..." (from their 10-K).
At the same time that the WPT is cutting back, and no longer has any televised European events, the WPT's most comparable competitor, the European Poker Tour, is growing (the latest EPT Championship had more prize money than the WPT Championship). PokerStars, sponsor of the EPT, has added tours in Asia and Latin America. The World Series of Poker continues its transformation from championship to tour with the addition of the WSOP Europe. You could write a Harvard Business School case study about the ways in which the WPT has screwed up its incredible opportunity, but I think that one of the worst is its decision to compete with its greatest benefactors by starting an online poker room. As PokerStars, the largest online poker room, sponsors the EPT, it would be natural for the #2 online poker room, Full Tilt, to sponsor the WPT... if only they weren't competing with each other.
Most of the major US tournaments, with the exception of the WSOP, have contracts with the WPT. It would be a great loss if so many of the greatest tournaments in the country that invented poker were no longer televised.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
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The extension WPTE granted to GSN expired Saturday. The original option expired on a Saturday two weeks ago, and they filed the 8-K about the extension the following Monday. Legally, they would have till Thursday, at the latest, to file any statement. If they had anything positive to say, however, I think we'd hear about it immediately. I'll see if they have anything to say Monday.
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